Been losing grip, on sinking ships
You showed up just in time

– Taylor Swift 'This Love'

"Have you heard this song?" I ask, as the radio plays my current (and forever) 'on-repeat' track 'Pocketful of Sunshine'. It is a silent night and this song seems like a prefect means to initiate a conversation.

"No, I haven't actually." Neil answers, his eyes fixed on the road. He's driving us home after a rushed but peaceful dinner we had tonight. For some reason, he's been awfully quiet for past some days and no matter what, I cannot decipher why. I know, I should ask him directly instead of just trying to humour myself, but the level of friendship and comfort we share, I do not believe we're at that stage where I can ask him something personal and intimate...because I'd fail, if he were to do the same.

(Neil Han)

"You know, this is like my mantra in life at this moment...it's been for years." I say, starting to sing along, "...take me away, to better days...a sweet escape, take me away..."

"I don't want to say this but you're one terrible singer! I swear if we weren't married, I would've already thrown you out of the car," he laughs, his eyes never leaving the road. I'm kind of glad, too. I cannot bear the thought of him finding me in the state I always am when I listen to this track even if we're man and wife. The lyrics resonate with me – I escaped.

"Escaping is easy, staying is not."

That is what I've heard all my life through my parents, friends, acquaintances, Kyle and myself. I used to say this all the time, that I'm not a coward, that I would not run away even if I faced the worst in life – I was so fucking wrong! I fucking ran away the first opportunity I got because...I was scared. I was terrified of living with the nightmare my life had turned into, in a matter of a few weeks – my fiancé had died on the line of duty.

Call it either my cowardice or my coping mechanism, I couldn't dare to continue living in the same house that Kyle and I had bought together and lived in for a short but meaningful time, I didn't know would haunt me for the lifetime. I loved him, maybe a little more than I should've, because now that he's gonna for three years, I still find it difficult to move on in life. I'm still stuck on the same page, I was when I saw his casket for the last time. There were tears and shared pain, people who knew him couldn't believe he was gone and they kept talking about how a great man he was without realising that everything they said, killed me alive. It brought back each and every memory of the moments I had with him – the good, the bad, the ugly...everything that we've been through together. And suddenly, he was not there beside me – I was alone.

After his funeral, when I went back to our house alone...I was paranoid. It wasn't like I haven't lived there alone before, I did. But all those time, I knew Kyle was healthy and breathing, not next to me, at least somewhere in the world. He wasn't, this time. He was gone, he was dead. I wasn't. I was alive and lonely, in a house that was once our home, now was only a building of bricks and stones, every single of which reminded me of him and our happy time together. I spent three months in that house, crying and howling every single night because the pain wouldn't go, it wouldn't leave me alone. The heartbreak wasn't easy, we didn't even say goodbye. The only conversation we had, ended with him saying he'd be back home before I woke up – he did, in a coffin. Why did he have to go like that? Leaving me without a future, without my love.

I tried. I tried moving on, getting back to living as I did before he passed away for nearly two years, but I failed miserably. I couldn't get my life back on track, I was inconsolable. I left that house after three months, moved back with my parents, moved out of my parents house, moved in with a friend, moved out of there, lived alone and suffered. Why does the pain stay even when you were never at fault? Why?

It was one day when I went to work after visiting Kyle's grave that I heard of the vacancy in the current city I'm stationed at. I swear I didn't even waste a second and quickly applied for it without thinking of the consequences or what this job would come with. I just wanted to escape, run away to a place where I could breathe without feeling suffocated, live without dying, smile without guilt.

And I did feel alive, the day I came here. It felt like a prison break, like the first time I saw sun after months and months of cloudy days. I was alive, I was breathing again...I was living. I met new people, I made new friends. I lived like a whole new person who never had a chance at being happy for two excruciating years, I finally felt peaceful. And that's when I met Neil Han, my husband, who's driving us home tonight.

"I know I sound like a croaking frog, but this song makes me happy...at least momentarily," I say, my eyes already glistening with tears. I shouldn't cry, I shouldn't. "Do you miss being married to Lana...or should I ask...do you miss Lana?"

"I don't know." Neil answers, quietly. "I ask this question to myself at least once a day...I still don't know if I miss being married to Lana...or I miss Lana...or I miss what I had with her...or have I already moved on from grieving over a dead relationship."

"If you could go back in time, would you choose to not get divorced? Or would you still get a divorce?"

"No. I'll still get divorced." he says after a brief moment of silence. "I don't think about it nowadays, but when I do think about what went wrong between us, I feel getting divorced was our only shot at being happy. We were in love when we got married, but the love wore off once we started seeing the differences that had always been there...only we were oblivious to it before because we wanted to be together at any cost. And that is the reason I think so many relationships go awry after a while – we try hard to cover the cracks and bury the differences to make the relationship last without realising that one day it all gonna hit us with such force that'd leave us irreparably damaged and broken."

I always believe our past is what shape us, maybe that is why Neil is the way he is now – closed, guarded and terrified of love. Yes, we are married, but we never married for love. It is a marriage of convenience for both of us. He had given up his apartment that, although, he bought for him and his ex wife prior to their marriage, for his ex wife who had grown emotional attached to their marital house. So, he was house-less. And I hadn't had much money left after paying back the loan for Kyle and my house in my hometown. Neither was I ready to sell the house. I still haven't sold it.

We both were broke – emotional, mentally and financially – and the one drunken night that we spent together changed everything for us. It was the first night we met through our colleagues who are mutual acquaintances, and it so happened that both Neil and I were the last ones to leave the hotel after the group dinner. We decided to leave together since Neil 'felt' he should responsibly drop me home as it was past midnight and I was a woman unfamiliar with this big city. I couldn't have let him go without at least offering a cup of coffee, which now I think Neil only said yes for because he desperately wanted to talk about things that he hadn't been able to talk to his friends – and a complete stranger is perfect for it because you know you won't be judged. At least.

It was like consuming a tranquilizer, for me and for him to have a conversation where neither of us felt judged, indignant, demeaned, and ashamed for expressing our feelings and thoughts over our former relationships. Neil hadn't told this to anybody, but one of the chief reasons why his marriage had come to end was his and his ex-wife Lana's conflicting personalities. As much as they pretended or at least tried to project they were happy together, their marriage deteriorated further.

"When you stop genuinely being happy with your partner, and instead act more for the people around you that you are happy in your marriage...is when it becomes obvious that you're both falling out of love."
That's what he had told me that night after his third cup of coffee.

They couldn't reason out with each other why they were constantly at loggerheads over the most trivial matter; it made the cracks in their marriage become wider and irreparable that one day, they both decided to file for divorce. It wasn't that they weren't in love when they got married, but the truth is they both had drastically different personalities that just couldn't fit together no matter how hard they tried. And those differences took a toll on them both, maybe a little more on Neil because he still seems to be stuck where Lana left him while she has moved on to find someone who she truly is happy with.

I don't think I'm much different from Neil, I have carried as much guilt as he has. Guilt that does not allow me to move on with my life, guilt that does not allow me to be who I used to be, guilt that does not allow me to live because all I feel every time I laugh, I smile, I feel happy...I feel I'm betraying Kyle by moving on with my life because I do not deserve to. Maybe, Neil feels that, too, because even if we've moved ahead in life and are in no longer those relationships and with those people, the memories have long stayed behind, haunting us, breaking us, and holding us back.

"I...sometimes feel that maybe if I had been more accepting of Lana's decisions and her ways of getting through life, and expressed my genuine feelings for her and our relationship...maybe, we would've never gotten divorced. On days when I think about my time with her, I feel guilty that maybe I wasn't a good husband. Maybe, I should've tried harder to make our marriage work. I'm glad she has found someone who truly makes her happy...without expecting her to change."

During a conversation some days back, Neil suddenly accepted his share of mistakes that drove their marriage to the point of legal separation. It wasn't exactly surprising for me, in the nearly one year of marriage that I've observed Neil, he doesn't always say what he truly wants to. He has his flaws, one of them is his inability to emotional communicate to his partner that I have, too, faced the brunt of...even if we're not exactly like a normal married couple. He does not really know a way to communicate his views over a certain issue, and when it actually gets to a point where he no longer can tolerate it – he explodes into anger, that if not handled properly with maturity, may lead to several fights which may last for many weeks.

Our first fight after marriage had taught me this lesson – we fought over my cats. Neil hadn't made it known to me that he isn't particularly fond of cats when we got married just after a month of knowing each other. So, when we moved in together after marriage, I would let my cats be the way they were at my previous accommodation – free and wild. Being the clean freak that Neil is, it caused him a lot of inconvenience but he never directly said a word pertaining to this issue until one day he could no longer hold back and we had a childish fight which would've escalated into a war had I not decided to step back and let him calm down. To be very honest, calm Neil is the best a woman can ask for as a husband, but angry Neil is a nightmare because he's childish and momentarily loses his sense of rationality. It was a moment of pure bliss for me when I woke up next morning to a full table of royal breakfast Neil had prepared as his apology and I accepted after making a note on how to handle angry Neil. We had few more fights after this, but none too serious, which I guess were common in his marriage to Lana as well. However, it drove them apart. In our case, it brought us closer because that's how I started understanding him and learning more about his life.

I'll be honest, I very categorically declared that I regretted marrying him after our fight and judged him for his lack of communication skills and emotional intelligence. But over the months that I've learned more of his family and childhood, I understand he wasn't purposely this stuck-up. He grew up with strict, conservative parents who expected him to act righteously and politely all the time that it made him into an intolerant person who cannot adjust with others' way of life. And he does not even know how to communicate his feelings which I guess he is slowly learning to overcome (when I lose my patience). In this aspect, he is very different from Kyle, with whom I had to put a lot of patience and efforts to make him communicate with me, instead of infantilising me by not sharing information that he considered too intense for me. No, I'm not saying Kyle was a bad fiancé, he was a gentleman...just that, he lacked the maturity that Neil displays at times when I lose my patience with him. Kyle was very young, we were just in our early twenties. We were immature and were meant to grow older together. But that never happened and over the last few months, I've come to accept it and maybe moved on a little...with Neil.

Like I said, a drunken night led us to get married within a month, but we never had sex on that night, we didn't even kiss. We just talked – about things, we hadn't been able to with others, and somehow, that was comforting for our exhausted souls. There wasn't any feeling, it was just the solace that we had found in each other along with the financial aspect of a marriage that would at least guarantee us a permanent shelter, we decided to get married. It brought back some balance in our lives and peace, while we struggled to move on from our past relationships.

"I don't know what I feel right now, but whatever it is, I'm at peace after God knows how long. I'm really grateful for this."

This was Neil's response after we had slept together for the very first time as a married couple, and somewhere, he mirrored the exact same emotions that I felt in that moment. We didn't love each other, we weren't exactly best friends either, but that moment when we were together, for a transient minute, everything seemed to have fallen into place – we were at peace. This peace is why we are still together, and perhaps, why I look forward to years that are to come for us.

"Are you sleepy?" Neil asks as I start walking towards our bedroom. "I have something for you." He stands in the middle of the living room, shifting his weight from one leg to another as if he's nervous. What is he seriously up to? Oh, did I tell you all that Neil is pretty childish, too? I mean I used to get upset when he acted all closed up, but since he has started opening up to me and our marriage has begun to be like a regular marriage, I've been seeing all these crazy antics of him that I was better off without. Although, I do admit he's cute.

"No, I'm not sleepy. I'll just change and come."
I'll be honest, I do like Neil and I know he seems to harbour the same feeling for me. But, somewhere we're still hostage to our past that moving on completely is difficult for both of us. It isn't as outlandish as it used to be, in fact, we're more than comfortable with the idea of being married to each other. However, I feel we'll have to let go of whatever we've been holding on to of our past, to fully move on in our marriage.

"I've been thinking for past many days and I realised that today is the day I first met you. I know it sounds pretty idiotic to you, but I honestly don't know how would've I fared if I hadn't met you that day after I came to know of my ex-wife's pregnancy and that she's happily moved on in life with someone who treats her much better than I would've ever. I know we may not have a marriage that you at some point of life wanted, that I'm not the kind of husband you ever wished for, that our marriage may not be the best you deserve...but I'm trying. Yes, we married for convenience and not for love, because at that time a permanent shelter mattered more to us than love. I don't think what we have now and what we share is love...but it is not just a materialistic need either. So, I just hope we can work on this relationship and grow together because I don't think I want to stay hung up on my past anymore. I want to take a step ahead in my life with you...are you game for it, Anna Kim?"

I've thought over it a lot of times...and maybe, instead of letting go of the chances that life has given us to move on with each other, we should truly let go of everything that has held us back and embrace what we have with each other because life does not give you second chances, and we've lost many already.

"If we can stay the way we are, I'm game for everything."