A Short Eternity

August 29th, 2017

Four days after that night, Kenzie and I briefly met up near my residence at 7:30 PM after she finished up her work at my mom’s place.

[Kenzie]: I’m getting off work soon

I glanced at the sea of unchecked items on my to-do list. Literature essay, history coursework draft, revise for math test, do a past paper –

Ahh, screw it.

Meeting up with Kenzie sounded much nicer.

Coming

Once we met up, we strolled around for a while, until we came across a playground. We sat down, close enough for our shoulders to touch.

Neither of us were particularly energetic. The pressure from my final year of high school was piling up, so I was having a pretty stressful time. As for her, she was really tired from work. Noticing this, I told her, “You’re allowed to rest on me if you’re feeling really tired, you know.”

“I will when I feel like it.” I imagine she would have nodded if she had a bit more energy.

At the back of my head, I thought about what I said at the end of our call four days ago. I just hoped I wasn’t putting too much pressure on her. Even though I wanted to clarify to her that my intention wasn’t to get her to respond to that, it was still an embarrassing subject for me, so I had trouble getting the words out.

While my mind was busy, Kenzie passed me a plastic box filled with yellow brownies.

“By the way, I made some blondies. You can take them home.”

"That's nice of you. Thanks." Turned out that they were not brownies, which made sense because they were yellow rather than brown.

"You seemed stressed. And I wanted to bake something before university starts."

That she was looking out for me like that felt touching. "You're starting classes in three days, right?"

"Yeah. I'll be a uni student soon."

A few minutes later, she sighed and rested her head against my shoulder. Our height difference made it easy for her to do so.

I was happy to let Wing sleep on me back when we had a long road trip once in 2014, but this felt entirely different. (No disrespect to Wing.)

How should I put it? It just felt so nice to support her weight. I could feel that she’d completely relaxed her body, allowing herself to lean on me.

And, her head was closer to mine than usual. That was also something I liked.

After a moment, I succumbed to my own tiredness, too. I relaxed my neck and rested my head against hers.

I think human bodies are perfectly designed for providing comfort to each other. Our arms are good for holding each other, and our heads fit on each other’s shoulders.

While we sat there as a symbiotic arrangement of heads and shoulders, I felt like nothing else in the world needed to matter other than the fact that we were sitting together, leaning on each other. My fatigued eyes did their best to absorb what they were seeing into my brain, so that I wouldn’t forget this moment. It was dark, but a few streetlamps kept total darkness at bay. Children were frolicking around us. Their guardians watched from the benches, making sure the kids wouldn’t get hurt.

Time passed too quickly, yet my eyes tried to make this moment last in my head eternally.

This was my shortest eternity.

A short eternity later, it was time for her to get home, so we walked to the station. During our walk towards the station, I decided to tell her something I had on my mind.

“When I say that I love you,” – I stopped for a second to collect my words – “I don’t say it because I want you to say it back.”

She replied in a tone that mixed guilt and gratitude together.

“…You’re so good to me.”

Once we reached the station entrance, our last stop before going separate ways that day, she turned towards me and said, “Thanks for meeting up tonight.”

We hugged each other closely.

“Thanks for the blondies and everything.”

For a moment after the hug, our hands lingered at each other’s elbows, just before we let go of each other properly.

The amount of time we spent together that evening was short compared to our usual standards, but it was one of my favorite times with Kenzie regardless.

Once I returned home to my family sitting around the living room, I stealthily put down the box of blondies on a cabinet. In a hushed voice, I asked my sister, “Could you help me put that box in the fridge? I’d rather not have anyone ask me who made them.”

“Okay.”

As she walked to the fridge holding the box, mom asked, "Oh, where did you get that?"

My sister pretended not to hear the question and swiftly turned into the kitchen. She was very cooperative when it came to things like this.

Later that night, she asked, “So why did Kenzie suddenly make you those yellow brownies?”

"She felt like looking out for me."

"You're smiling."

"Shush."