Table for one

For a few months, she has been coming back to the place where they first met. The waiters have deemed her a regular already knowing she would always order that sugar coated dried squid and red iced tea. She said she told him it was her favorite. Then she'd eat it very slowly with the wooden chopsticks deliberately to pass the time.

She'd sit on the same table, watching people walk by. Intently starring at the top of the escalator, looking if a familiar face would appear. She'd check on her pocket mirror from time to time to see if her lipstick was alright, remembering how he took notice of her ruby red lips the day that they had met. He was dazzled he admitted when they finally became a couple, three days after. He said she was more pretty than her picture, more than he had imagined. He planned to leave after lunch, thinking he was tired and grumpy from grueling days at work. But he invited her to a movie too and another date the next day. then also on the following day.

But then when hours pass, she'd slowly lose the light on her face, sipping the remains of the melted ice in her plastic glass. She'd grow anxious, looking at her watch, sensing another day is about to end. She wondered where he could be, what he's doing. Does he ever remember when he told her that he wanted to be with her always. If that was ever at all possible.

A few months after, they would meet there again. She'd be in tears. He'd be offering her his handkerchief. Unable to look in her eyes. He told her they should stop seeing each other for a while. He needs time to think. He needs time for himself. She knew they might not see each other again. She handed him a gift, something she'd saved up for his special day. Thinking this day would not ever come. Her friends told her he was rather selfish. But she understood him and she just let him go.

But now all alone she comes back. She did not stop loving him and with the littlest of hope, she returns to the place where they first met.

She'd stand up when the waiters ask her if she wanted anything else for they were taking final orders. She'd decline politely and pay for her bill. They know she'll be back again next Saturday, to wait for him. For she knows, this is where he'd always find her.