“Your demeanour has become a little softer, after.”, she said. “She must be out of her mind.”, I thought.

As I’m thinking about the distant future sitting on the floor in the balcony, I notice the cigarette I’m smoking is a bit crumbled. 

I’m drawn to think it has been happening a lot lately. I hold my cigarettes with extra force, as if I’m trying to squeeze the relief out of them. 

Can it be true? I continue pondering.

I pick and leave things around the house scattered. I rarely talk to people, and if I do, I speak with great lamity. Even though I wake up early every day, I try to delay my meals. I take baths much later in the day.

I tap my cigarette with my thumb from the inside to ash it, as if I’m moving away from the last paragraph to this one. It wasn’t like this before. I was always discourteous, no matter what the situation.

She’s different. She makes the jovial little child come out of my hard, insolent shell. This is the love I’ve never experienced. The love where I can be that kid again, precisely because that kid never knew what love was.

I never felt this with anyone. The urge to let go of my walls slightly, not completely. Even though I’m inept of letting go, she makes me want to try.

I failed in a lot of relationships in my past life. Thinking about those, as I tap my cigarette, I’m reminded of a verse in the Bible that I read lately. 

1 Corinthians 13:8

“Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.”

Love never fails. And If it failed, it was never love.

As I finally put the cigarette out, I murmur, “My love will not fail.” I’ll always love her. 

Always.