She junked out undeserving thousands of words only to start again with a deletion of expression and declaration of closure to start a not-so-new beginning. To not finish a stream of thought, to stop it in the middle, or to lie to yourself about an ending so one can feel something new or better ahead of a timeline, a way to bear the difficulties of living through emotional pain so one starts thinking that they’re never wrong, never hurt their loved ones, boohoo sad me sad, what a frivolous act. Baby, J. sighing to her girlfriend, stop biting your nasty nails. Iya iya without moving her right fingers hanging on the front mouth touching chapped lip, her central incisors kept chomping the skin. Aku nggak bisa nunggu gini. I know, baby, just be patient, it’s you know, just a trial. Trial? Katanya ngobrol doang santai sambil makan udang goreng. Well yes, that too, tapi kan kamu tahu K. mau bilang apa. Argh fuck, I hate this a lot. Ngerti, ngerti, it’s not your fault, you’re just … not knowing which one is the primary truth, you know, some misunderstandings. I felt betrayed, K. said this, that bitch said that, you said whatever. Waktu itu kan aku juga bingung, please-lah kita udah pernah ngomongin gini, udah ah. J. took her girlfriend’s wrist far from her anxious face, calling the nails disgusting before excessively spraying jasmine-infused hand sanitizer to her own palms, wiping it onto her girlfriend’s. It smelled nice, their hands.
J. and her girlfriend was restless to meet K. and her villagers: a group of friends who always meet and hang out, some were college friends, some were officemates, others were acquaintances from hobby popular events who became closer. “Queer gaul” was what J.’s girlfriend called them. J. and her were K.’s friends too, but it was a whole different lore of meet up that J. and her girlfriend had no fun talking about it, so did K. and her friends.
Not at all in fairness, J.’s girlfriend found it hilarious that people, like K. and her friends, loved to reminiscing their meet ups and friendship substances as if it’s their whole world, for sure without being honest how nasty they were to each other, talking rumors behind each other’s backs, which is fine because group dynamics tend to the stretch and pull emotional proximity so everyone can always stand one another, cheering each other for climbing on their own feelings twice a week for peak comforts fueled by meals and colored drinks mining bland praise of “oh nggak terlalu manis.” Salty and bitter, J. said. Well sayang, blaming her smartphone and its algorithmic ugliness, you know me, digital streaming of sociality is easier than dealing with bunches of self-pity lesbians, like the ones walking together to their table, who don’t know what they want.
Oy, Oy, gimana? apanya? udah lama? mayan, udah I pesenin yak, kalo ada mau nambah ntar panggil lagi aja. no worries. hey hey, muah, muah, kamu apa kabar? gini-gini aja, maaf ya kamu dan J. harus jauh-jauh ke sini, oh santai, santai, kami naik KRL ke sini, jadi nggak gitu ribet. And so on forthcoming one. J. had diverted her attention to talk to K.’s friend who sit next to her and throwing her overly excited smiles. The last time J. heard about this friend, her situationship just left her for a white man. Classic, J.’s girlfriend thought, can’t ask for a better break than postcolonial seizure of woman-loves-woman so much for love wins and born this way. K. and her other more polite friend next to her focused on J,’s girlfriend. They hadn’t talked about the thing yet, it needed built, the tension of anticipating, maybe the talk would not happen today, she’s totally okay of delaying, not everything requires conversation, tough chat could only falter especially when everyone in the rooms had refused a blame of harm. But who decides on the first place what harm is? Rejection hurts but is it harm? Also who blames whom? J. poked her girlfriend: signaling it’s the time to ask, she wanted this to end sooner, she wanted to have a nice Sunday nap, playing dumb game on bed, got her stomach stuffy and full for laying down too long.
Too many plates on their table. J.’s girlfriend ordered quite a lot. She knew K. liked this restaurant: a nice calm affordable seafood place where customers could choose their own crabs and say goodbye thank you for your service before kitchen crews boiling them red. She didn’t order crabs. Her wage could only pay a shared seafood meal of grilled fish, saucy fried shrimps, stirred beansprouts with sweet corn, and two plates of boiled blood clams; and that’s already tightening her spending bandwidth. It’s completely okay. This talking occasion was not once a year, perhaps once in a lifetime, for bad relationship doesn’t always drag more than three or four people. K.’s case was an exception, she thought, but shit, there was one time, what’s her name, she’s an old friend, not talking anymore, who once made a dozen of people on a whatsapp group panicking and crying as she threatened to commit suicide if her then lover left her. The conclusion was anticlimax: they eventually broke up and that old friend, according to her instastory, flied to Singapore gushing over her favorite K-pop girlies. J.’s girlfriend lived for messy people but growing tired. What happened to K. was not nice, she admitted, and this shrimp shell was so well marinated yum, but K., why do you need my version of the story, couldn’t she just accept things that ended doesn’t always come with rolling credits and flowers, nothing to be saved and lessoned, no archive of their kisses and tribbings.
Oh easy, babe, J. softly interrupted, cornering her girlfriend’s almost aggressive enjoyment on the shrimps, diced fried garlics, too direct question. K. didn’t immediately answer. Her hands were busy opening shell shucking clams, her other polite friend wasn’t even paying attention to the question, separating non-spicy red chilies from her beansprouts. J.’s girlfriend repeated the question in a louder voice, pressing her audience on the table to pause their nibbling fingers, K., be real, kenapa you butuh cerita I? Emang urusan you belum selesai? Oh mau langsung sekarang, nggak mau nunggu kita beres makan? I don’t know, better sambil makan nggak sih, biar kalo you marah at least ngelempar makanan bukan gelas. Woy! J. was disturbed by her girlfriend’s snarkiness. Gapapa J., this is her, you know-lah; I need your version because that bitch tells lies. White lies for survival was okay, K. said, but what’s done to her was a smear campaign to ruin her reputation. What reputation?
K. smirked, she knew J.’s girlfriend undermined her–she’s always like this looking down on people, fantasizing she’s better than everyone else just because she’s truthfully honest about what she wants and needs. One day K. told her that people actually talked behind her back when she “borrowed” money from her non-profit office to buy a ring for J. She always said that she had returned the money without a single dime on her digital pocket, and this borrowing was not a pattern, but a simple mistake, khilaf for loving J. too much and wanting to give her precious luxurious good. Well, gue bukan lo sih yang emang udah nggak punya reputasi hehehehe, K. mocked. J.’s girlfriend laughed, shrugging shamelessly. But honestly, K. continued, I really just want to know, your truth.
K., there’s no my truth here, you barusan bisa ngeledek kasus I nilep, emang you masih mau percaya? I cuma tahu your ex, atau apapunlah label kalian, nyebarin cerita ke orang kalo kalian pernah deket dan sayang satu sama lain. I happened to be on their closefriend, and she was sad you suddenly ghosting her.
K. was in mild disbelief, she assumed worse things so that she could complain about it. If the on-going story was an actual thing she did to the girl, then what’s the point of telling people how she felt suffocating every time she was with her. She could not accept J.’s girlfriend’s version. Her two friends had burned the fire of her disappointment that she’s ready to make a complete tragedy of one-sided love, no no no, not her side. Masa sih gitu aja, dia tu clingy banget lo sama K., dia tu kayak pengen banget diperhatiin; and the polite friend murmured, ini kalau dari aku ya, dan aku pernah bilang ini juga ke K., emang yakin mau lanjutin ngomong sama dia dengan chat tiap hari yang nggak pernah berhenti itu? J.’s girlfriend also couldn’t trust those comments: ya terserah kalian sih mau gimana, ini kan versiku.
J.’s girlfriend had been knew for quite some time that K. had made the girl–that bitch–anxious and cried for weeks for not replying her texts, nor answering her calls, as K. couldn’t make a relationship works, busy emailing her commissioned agency back-and-forth explaining that the corporate money was enough to pay one million followers KOL, hustling with other quest of writing as her editor had asked her thrice for her debut novel’s revision, occupied with taking care of her mom at home–a used-to-be a breadwinner who gradually dissociated with her surroundings after entering her pension, and when K. finally reached out, she got a scream “everyone is busy, K.! aku juga kerja, tapi masih bisa cari kamu!! why you’re so cruel!” which angering K.’s even more, why everyone wanted her attention, was she not enough giving to people, what a lover and friend supposed to do in her life when they couldn’t understand that her span of attention had cracked and split for some years now that she couldn’t bear taking everything all things at once, that she could not fulfill whatever the duty of care beyond her biological family and work to make a living, that geto gojo figurines were apparently enough to fill her depleted working nerves. That bitch was too demanding, K.’s felt, and how dare she kicked K. out of her closefriend to talk about K., and how they were almost “pacaran,” how bad she was as a person, a true avoidant behavior, outrageous!
J. knew this side of K. She was, in another time, K.’s closest person, and things back then were super good and also very bad. Same problem, different players, nearing a similar result that didn’t go as awry as this because a new girlfriend was already in front of J. But time didn’t heal both of them–J. and K. It drove them further to the stringing faraway lines of life that were not theirs to begin with, you see, accepting a form of love that once was there and now gone was not supposed to be done at all. Ruthlessness serves a realistic soul that can no longer dream of utopia yet remain waiving to the horizon of happiness in glimpse, from distance, sailing there, to the orangey line, is too much.
J. didn’t move her spicy sauced hands hanging on her plate full of shells and fish bones. She noticed K.’s confused face as her head trying to make another narratives to hold her pain and disappointment. It’s a mental game, fantasy made from wounds and thickening emotional keloid. And out of many means and ways of breaking the silence, J. felt out loud that her avocado juice was lacking chocolate condensed milk. A friend who sit next to J. baffled, oh mau pesan lagi? J. shook her head, turning to see her girlfriend already looking at her, they spoke with each other without sound. K. snorted, rising from the chair, screeching the floor, bentar ya cuci tangan dulu.
J.’s girlfriend continued eating; she had reserved a fish head for her to finish, the eye balls were her favorite. The minutes felt steady for her, she thought she had nothing to do with this, merely a witness of daily contents of the girl who fell hard for K. and refused to engage more with K. the person although not K. the old potential lover. It’s strange, J.’s girlfriend wondered, in between scrapping fish’s cheek meat, that J. was the person introducing K. to that girl. Well, not that strange, she revised, that girl was J.’s previous officemate, they still saw each other when the girl resigned, and K. met her almost accidentally because J. and this girl visited an event K. was part of. The girl was too eager to be in touch with K., a person with double life, a full-time office worker yet a living emerging half-closeted lesbian writer with possible bright future in lit scene. She started text K., asking for more hangouts, showing K. her works and asking for her comments and praises, a genuine input from K. was nice but somehow stung her tiny heart. Their friendship became something else when they kissed and shared a bed rubbing their skins, and the girl saying how she loved and adored K. as a friend, perhaps more than a friend, no one knew what does it mean when they just got with each other less than a month, and K. being K., working was more important, better serving the god of art and literature than a crying angel who just got into woman for the second time. These details, coming from K.’s words to J., and from J. to her as a part of this circling lover/friendship, annoyed J.’s girlfriend. Meetings often felt transactional: give me what you have, I give you what I have, let’s celebrate mutual exchange, if you give nothing to the table, why do you even exist and live for–boring ass question.
J.’s girlfriend was impatient, she also wanted to use the basin zone and feeling the need to wait K. to comeback; avoiding awkward side-by-side standing while washing hands for all cost. K.’s polite friend broke the air, kita udah lama ya nggak nongkrong bareng. Iya, kamu sibuk nggak sih? So, so, business as usual, aku kemarin habis ikut journaling club. Oh nice, how was it? I like it, I don’t hate it, aku nggak biasa journaling, so it’s good to try new thing, J. kamu masih kerja di kantor itu? Iya masih, susah mau pindah kerja, I mean, I have portfolio, but I don’t think it’s good enough to move, walopun pengen juga nambah cuan. I see, ngerti sih, kami juga kalo ketemu sekarang lebih banyak di rumah K. aja, wfh di sana sambil nemenin tante. How’s tante? She’s generally good, K’.s friend next to J. answered, tante’s so quiet, I’m a bit concerned but perhaps nggak gitu penting. Mungkin kapan-kapan kami mampir ya, kalo kalian dan K. nggak keberatan, it’s been a while, ya nggak, sayang? Iya, I don’t mind, Poki masih ada kan? K.’s polite friend nodded, he missed you I think. J.’s girlfriend smiled, she liked that old dog Poki.
So, gays, sampai mana kita tadi? K. walked back sludging to her chair, her face was wet, she washed more than her hands. She tried to get back to her senses, that perhaps her project to get J. and her girlfriend hating the girl who brought pain to her was a meaningless endeavor. It would be nice, though, K. thought, to get her friends on the table to ride on the same feeling train where she’s the captain making narrative caption from the greenery scenes outside the window, blurred and beautiful, that everyone on the train don’t have to be right but just need to be there. Alas, if a story from a girl, who was now fucking your ex-girlfriend, was not good enough for the train-hate to go forward, then why bother continue this train, K. could always get another person, a new one possibly or an old one that had not in contact for a while so let’s catch up, who could buy her story, join her carriage, and ride with her.
So, that’s my version ya, K. I’m not sure what you’re going to do with it, J. and I might have to leave sooner after we clean our hands, we need to go to another friend’s home event. That’s a fucking lie, of course. No one gave a shit with J.’s girlfriend’s bad reasoning to be in another social event; a planned schedule was rarely committed by these two kitty lovers, for they were both homegirls disliking going outside, better be slouching on bed and do nothing. K. didn’t bother, her mind was set, let them go, we had a nice lunch anyway, the closefriend story was too weak to build a case against that girl, and nothing here was a good material for her novel, she needed dramatic relationship-induced sequences so her plot could bloom from the intensity of her real life. Okay, makasih ya, sudah mau dateng, sori ngerepotin, the bill is on me, you kapan-kapan traktir I. J. looked at K., bro, kurang-kurangin. K. raised her eyebrows, thumbs up.
