I WILL.

After several concerts, a few movies together, still I couldn’t gather where we were heading. Most of the time I would just enjoy his company and did not think too much of anything. Yes there were feelings involved last year, but somewhere along the way we drifted away from each other, too far away, I think, to a point that resembled a fear of each other. Why would I fear him, that is the question. He certainly is not a ruthless kind of person I usually fear to have anything to do with. But as with other questions too hard to answer, other questions requiring too much of soul-probing than I can bear, I let that one go unanswered.

One thing I am sure of is this: last year, when a friend of mine accidentally saw us together, this friend commented that it was weird of me to be going out with him. Something inside me stirred, to the point where I couldn’t stomach the thought of being with him. Such is my unfortunate personal trait: other people’s opinions merged with my own so easily that time and again I get lost inside my own head.

Then just like the appearance of an unexpected mist in the middle of broad daylight, he landed into my life once again, we were going out again, so effortlessly, so naturally. I told you I didn’t have any idea where we were heading. I told you that yes I enjoyed his company. But I was also well aware that these were exactly the feelings I had last year, before we finished things off and went our separate ways as abruptly as we started.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t notice that he had changed subtly. I noticed small gestures, I stumbled upon sentences I never expected to hear from him. I was struck by his questioning my life, of his shedding a light as to what he was made of. I was taken aback when he made his ways around my inability to keep my orientation both indoor and outdoor, my dislike of going out on Saturdays, my tendency to get freezing-cold in an air-conditioned room more easily than a little old lady. This was not him. As I knew it, he was always distant and aloof. The way I expected it, he would make fun of my getting lost inside a mall, instead of saying over the cell-phone “Stay where you are, I’ll get you.”

I have known him for more than six years, yet suddenly I no longer recognize him. Without his effort to let me take a glimpse behind the tightly shut door of his personal life, I would still be at a loss today.

Knowing that we both are the kind of people who keep everything closely sealed inside, it was a wonder how the conversations went deeper and deeper almost readily, how in one point we were in each other’s arms, the distance between us disappeared completely. How impossible questions like “Are you a marrying type?” “Can you see yourself with me in a long term?” were flooded my way, before my poor brain could make sense of what was happening.

I didn’t know where we were heading – if you forced me to say what I expected him to do next, I would probably say it was his asking that we should try and go steady.

But I was wrong.

Because:

“Will you marry me?” was what he asked next.

I stopped dead on my track. I knew only fools rushed in. Then maybe I am one, maybe I am a fool. But for the love of God, I swear I did not know how else to answer that. It never ceased to surprise me to realize that even before he asked the question, I had known the answer all along.