Painting was created by me
I was woken up by the aroma of fried meat wandering within the house, instead of the sun beaming through the glassy windows days ago. Elle had pulled the curtains down, I guessed that was why. I still wanted to bake my sleeping baguette a little more, but the savour of frizzled sausages had already pervaded the spiral stairs then sneaked into my space, touched my nose and aroused my empty stomach to discharge acid. I took my steps outside the room, Elle was way more energetic than this house’s owner.
“Would you mind if I share Joel a pack of ours?” She voiced. As I approached the dining table, I drank up the mineral cup she had left for me, sitting down languidly.
“I thought you had done it?” I yawned and stuck the fork through my favourite sausages. Whilst Elle was setting down her stirred broccoli in the porcelain dish, coming after was a “ting” sound of the small microwave.
“Yeah I have. But you know, etiquette.” She turned quickly to take out two of the half-boiled poached eggs, incidentally she refilled my run-out glass with some chilled almond milk. "This is the best amongst all the brands I've tried. Later if you feel like drinking, the downtown Emart is always available." Said Elle. Her "later" got me insecure. Elle had stayed nowhere for 6 months or more, however, she had been with me in this neighbourhood for 8 months.
"Why have you stayed for such a long time, Elle?" My question stumbled at her disconcert, Elle replied in hesitance.
"Because I want to be with you a little longer, of course! What a silly question you have." She giggled. Elle had never been efficient at telling lies. I knew it was her feelings for our neighbour man that she could not leave so easily.
"Everybody knows you're here for him." Elle smiled slightly at my claim. “If it had been for me, you wouldn’t have left me with my damn university assignments.” I teased her.
“Didn’t you manage it very well? I never missed any of your achievements displayed on Ecency. See, you even gained an excellent certificate!” She showed me her phone screen where my prideful posts were zoomed in.
“Yeah but it was just the right side of the matter…” I defended myself. However, I could not deny that those tasks were not troubling me so badly. Yet, it was hard at the very start for me to walk without Elle’s accompaniment.
Elle started her traveller life 6 years ago, after her high school graduation, while I was trying to adapt to my university timetable. I put no effort in holding her back since adventures had always been her passion, not mentioning that her only-relative-auntie felt so relieving with her move out. Elle was called a jerk for the whole of her schooling by classmates and also teachers, which resulted from the legendary story that she knocked out her 1st grade class monitor because she saw her treating the abandoned kittens mischievously at the school yard. That little devil’s parents shouted her name out at her aunt’s house and requested their daughter’s compensation, but Elle’s calm countenance drove them crazy to the point they peached on her head teacher. Elle was not dismissed from primary school, nonetheless, she had been desolated for the rest of her student stage until we first met in our high school. Her parent’s marriage was a mess at the end, and she rarely met any of them. Elle’s father had packed away with his new fiancee, whilst his ex-wife visited Elle in the shape of a phantom since she made it really quick within a blink then disappeared behind the door. Susan is Elle’s aunt in blood, she provided her with love twice than the parental couple, even so Elle had always understood she herself was an unwanted bargain for Susan. How sad it was that in spite of her love towards Elle, Susan could not take her niece’s strong characteristics. Letting go of Elle was an exit for her unfortunate responsibilities.
It was when she took up her gypsy journey that Ecency became her livelihood. She refused to use other social networks and SMS was not considered as well. I could say our only means of communication was through the comment section below her posts or my posts, occasionally we simply left nothing else than a vote in each other’s publication to notify that we still cared about. Every of her trips was updated frequently on her blog which made me feel as if I was living 2 lives at the same time, because more than once I had dreamt of leaving everything backwards and fleeing to any possible destinations.
“You said you would confess to him, have you?” A question popped out of my head as I saw her amorous pupils.
“Yeah, already.”
“What was his answer?!” A hurry conquered my breath since this might decide her presence to be here or not.
“Come on, I didn’t tell him in order to be told the same thing. I let him know, that’s all.” She shrugged, I could feel an astonishment painted on my face.
“Are you serious, Elle?!” My eyes widened. Receiving a nod from her, the surprise continued rising in my larynx. “No way! What is the point of it?” My voice raised high as I was shouting.
“No point at all. I have affection for him, and I let him know. Is it so important to be reciprocated?”
“Of course it is! Why give without taking back?!” I looked her in the eyes but I could not see the reflection of myself, they were too bright for me to identify.
“Why do people only give after receiving something???” Elle yelled. “Kel didn’t ask anything in response when he gave me his love!”
Her words startled me. Kel was the stray dog she adopted unexpectedly in her expedition to Sri Lanka, about which her publication was written “I heard Kel woofing outwards from a creasy carton box when I was sleeping on the park bench since I was tricked with all my cash. The box was glued so I guess that's why he woofed for help desperately. I tried to control my fatigue and checked on him, for God’s sake, my paper cutter was still in my pocket. I opened the box then ran back to my bench, holding a hope that somebody would come to bring him home. I knew puppies would follow us if they saw our faces when we offered help so I assured Kel didn’t see me early enough when the cartons were finally opened. Yet, Kel was more than a puppy. He jumped out the world bustling with passengers and vehicles, he ran here and there in an extreme curiosity, despite all those bruises printed on his white fur. I was sitting silently and smelled stinky due to the loss of my hotel card as well as my other identification papers stolen along with my purse. Living as a traveller means you will go through these kinds of circumstances sometimes, however, I can’t say I had expected it. Did Kel find out the similarities between me and him through his puppy scope that he approached me slowly? I, a 20-year-old, couldn’t afford even just a sausage or a piece of meat for him at that time. My eyes blurred eventually because of my empty stomach, when I almost fell off the bench, a charitable food stall stumbled into Kel’s woof and got to see me. I was saved.” What happened next was Elle adapted to her new life in Sri Lanka as a multi part-time worker to afford living standards for both herself and Kel within 6 months. After earning enough for a plane ticket, she returned to the motherland to get her papers re-executed. The whole story was published 2 years afterwards, I had not known it until her Ecency account reactivated again.
“You know, Kel was the greatest blessing in my life. I just wanted to learn to love others in the way Kel had loved me, and the way I had loved him - giving out unconditionally. It gets a bit more difficult when I apply it on humans though...” Elle stopped for a while. “But I am doing it pretty well now, with Joel. And honestly I am fine, please understand that all of this is my one-sided discretion, I am in a mesmerising glee since I could finally practise a thing which seemed almost impossible to many people, including the past me.” Her lips bloomed brilliantly.
“Fine…” I let a sigh off my throat secretly. She made me wonder about the supposed-to-be-conspicuous reciprocation. Does it really matter about being given back or not? That question raged in my mind. For the first time, I found Elle so extraordinary. “How long do you intend to do it? Don’t tell me you’re gonna wait for him for your whole life.” Asked I.
“That’s a hard question, my dear.” Elle finished her breakfast and began the morning dishwashing. “I am not sure about it. Well, for Kel it is loyalty and friendship. For Joel it is endearment and passion. Romantic affection is born impermanent, I might wake up some day and realise I no longer have feelings for him, who knows? But for now, Joel is the one I love. I knew it from my heart.”
Now then I had my answer. Elle would disappear again some day, when her sentiments towards Joel cut off rising. A bitter taste grooved in my tongue, knowing that Elle was totally in control of her life, unlike me - her best friend, day by day chasing those polymers devastatingly. For the next 6 months, I was used to her presence at this house. I think Joel was, too. But I could not make it clear the reason why that neighbour fool never appeared to have a thing for her. The glacial countenance, the emotionless reactions, the indifference towards her adoration, or anything I could pick out of his behaviours. They were not for her, by all means. My dearest Elle did not lose her smile albeit that.
“Sometimes they don’t give just because they can’t, not because they don’t want to.”
…
On an autumn day, the savour of fried sausages had faded away in the space but evoked ardently within my memory, waking me up. The feeble sunshine stared at me through the glassy window and the downtown road drowned into the dance of falling leaves. As if a habit had been trained, I rushed to the refrigerator and drank up a bottle of almond milk. In the meantime, I speculated about how Joel would be when that morning Elle would not show up at his door with a piece of pie or some pairs of sandwiches. The imagination dashed over for some seconds, I got back to my reality with the office and put on my attires.
Sun set down the horizon, reflecting the orange light on the path leading to my house. Although almond milk still filled up the refrigerator, I dropped by Emart to buy some more. Maybe just to check whether she was right about almond milk being available in Emart? I also noticed the sausage brand she had bought for me up till now, and decided to buy 3 packs. Let’s forget the fact that I am bad at cooking.
Leaves continued falling, their droughty colour covered the concrete surface and triggered the lonesome perception much harder. A familiar figure shadowed on my house’s stairs, he dressed in Elle’s palette.
“Is Elle okay? I haven’t seen her for 2 days.” In case I was right, that was the first time Joel and I had a talk.
“She’s gone.” I plugged the key into the club-shaped keyhole.
“Gone?! Where? When will she be back?” His voice raged in a strange tone I had never heard from him before.
“I have no clues. Why?”
“She just… just disappeared like this?” A disturbance broke his normal gaze, was the wind or was her evanescence that his hands quivered?
“What about you? Why are you here?” All I wanted to know was what had caused his sudden visit. Was I wrong? Did he have a thing for Elle?
“I don’t know. Not seeing her raised an urge in me…” He mumbled.
Spending time with Elle had encouraged my patience and tolerance, thanked to which I did not feel angry after being told such a thing. What would Elle do if she knew Joel had sought for her? I glanced at Joel and put myself in her shoes to guess, seemingly Elle would smile as she always did and accept that an almost love story of her life had become a shatter of bygone. And Joel did not love her but the security she brought to him.
"I see. Rest assured. She will come back one day, not for you but for herself."
Joel's calm collapsed in his pupils, clearly to the point that I can sense some broken sounds. Elle had completed her lessons, then it was his turn.
And me? What lessons do I have to learn from her brief presence and disappearance?
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Thank you for reading! Have a nice day ahead everyone 💕