02
t w o

"Alyson," a voice rings as a finger is snapped in front of me multiple times. "Alyson!"

I snap my head away from Ethan and stare at Cassandra.

"What the hell?" Cassandra snorts, a sardonic smile stretching across her face after she turns and sees Ethan, who is still standing at the entrance. "That's the guy? Geez."

I gawk at her, still reeling in the abrupt appearance of my ex-boyfriend. Cassandra begins sniggering. "You two will deal with this by yourselves." She shakes her head and walks away.

And after a few seconds, Ethan's figure moves. It's too real that he starts walking in my direction. He stops two feet in front of me, his tall body casts a shadow over mine, like it always did.

He stares down at me, still not saying a word. Moments later, he bends down and picks up the dropped menus on the floor. I squat down to the floor as well. As I reach my hand out to collect the menus up, my hand brushes the warm skin of his arm softly. We snap our gazes up at the same time.

I meet his pair of glinting dark brown eyes that gaze out under his ringed eyelashes. Letting out a shaky breath, I take the menus from his hands almost without a second thought. 

"Thank you," I mumble and stand up, my mind still in shambles.

Ethan gets up slowly as well. I begrudgingly pull my sight away from him and trudge behind the bar counter, my legs trembling. 

I clear my throat. "Takeaway?"

"Yes," Ethan says, his voice low. The voice that used to soothe me to sleep on countless nights. I haven't heard his voice in so long that somehow, I doubt if the voice in my dreams belongs to him. But there he is, using that same voice, talking to me again.

"One black coffee," he orders.

I shoot my eyebrows up. Black coffee? Ethan used to love lattes, because he told me that the bitterness of other coffees was too strong for him. But black coffee? That was supposed to be his least favorite.

He hands me a banknote. "Okay," I reply and tap on the touch screen. "One moment please."

He nods and paces to an empty space that doesn't block the others. I turn around to the coffee machine. As I press the button, a dark brown liquid comes out and shoots straight into the paper cup. I can't help but realize the coffee gleams almost as beautiful as his dark brown eyes.

I listen to the buzzing sound of the coffee machine while feeling his intent gaze behind me, boring two holes into my back. Inhaling a shaky breath, I turn around and hand him the cup of coffee.

Ethan takes the cup from my hand as he keeps his head down. "Thank you." He meets my eyes one more time before turning his back and walking toward the door.

"Ethan," his name slips out of my mouth like a fluid. It's strange saying his name again after two years, it sounds familiar and foreign at the same time.

He stops. Perhaps he is startled because of hearing my voice saying his name. Or maybe I am startled that I can say his name nonchalantly.

"Yes?" he whispers as he turns around to me again.

What should I say? I have so many questions, I want to know how he has been doing, where he is going to college, where he had gone in those two years... I feel a lump in my throat and, nothing comes out from my mouth.

He blinks and for the very first time, he smirks. "I will be back."

Despite all the noise in the diner, the words linger in the still air as he finally walks into the street bathed by the lukewarm streetlight.

I bite my lips and mull over his words.

I will be back.

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I stare at my ceiling, it becomes brighter and brighter as my eyes get used to the dim light in my room. Ethan's words echo in my head while I toss and turn. Stifling a scream, I sit up and grasp my hair.

The vibration of my cell against the glass of the desk next to my bed makes me jump. I reach for my phone and feel its buzz in my hand.

My phone screen glares in the dark as I squint my eyes in pain. Without seeing the contact number, I press the phone to my ears.

"Hello?" My voice comes out hoarse.

"Hey."

My jaw drops. I take in a sharp breath and blink. "E... Ethan?"

"Hey, Aly."

Aly. Isn't hearing this nickname form him my biggest dream? But I can't seem to feel ecstatic like I imagined myself to be. Dreaming and thinking are a piece of cake, but when your imagination really happens, it's not an icing on the cake. It's more about uncertainty.

I stare down at my phone screen, the contact name says "Ethan". I manage to suppress my trembling breath and start again, "Didn't you change your number?"

"Well you've never changed yours," he says lightly. "I didn't expect you to pick up."

"I didn't even know this was you," I say, trying to feign the nonchalant in my voice.

No one speaks. It takes all of my willpower to keep silent, but when I try to say something again, he speaks before I can.

"How are you?"

Three words. You only need three words to burst into tears. A mess without you, my mind says.

"I miss you." My voice breaks as I finally let out a sob.

I don't expect Ethan to say anything back, but when he does, my heart constricts.

"Aly," he whispers. "Did I hurt you?"

I am dumbfounded, because this is not how I had imagined our first serious talk would go. "You broke my heart, Ethan." Taking a deep breath, I continue, "You have no idea."

"I'm sorry," he says.

I continue to sob in the suffocating dark, but then I cover my mouth with my hand, hoping to stop the sound from leaving me and travelling to Ethan's ear.

After what feels like minutes later, Ethan asks, "Aly, when is your next shift?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I end the call before he can reply and drop my phone onto my mattress, the plastic bouncing against the cloth with springs underneath.

I wait for the fist of hope to ignite inside me, because I finally got to talk to Ethan again, but all I feel is devastation, just like how the walls just crumble at a time.

My chest aches. When I finally hear his voice and see him physically, the idea of him collapses. And with the collapse of two years' worth of hope, two years' worth of wait, it somehow reminds me for the worst. That Ethan will walk away again. As if he has never come back.

Life is fragmented, isn't it? We are living in fragments. I always imagine taking some of them away.