I climbed those tree like i used to do. Tonight, i had no idea why i was so determined. I missed Nadia and her smile, i missed talking with her. As I arrived in front of the second floor window, I jumped to land successfully on the floor of the balcony, I saw Nadia sitting in the back seat, her glasses attached and she was seriously facing her computer. I gently knocked the window of her room. Once, twice I finally dispersed her concentration, she turned to the window, and as usual her first reaction was sullen. I accidentally put a funny face in front of her behind the window, made her frown. But even so, my best friend stood up and opened the window for me.
"Is that hard for you to pass through a normal way?" Nadia grumbled
when I jumped over the window's threshold and entered her room.
I chuckled, "If i do so then I have to talk with your father in the living room, and in the end instead of meeting you, I have to accept his challenge of playing chess"
Nadia smiled and patted my shoulder affectionately, "Maybe you should make him win at least once, so he won't be curious to challenge you to play chess all the time"
I chuckled to heard it, then casually slammed my body into Nadia's feminine bed, patterned by pink strawberries. Immediately Nadia followed me sitting on the edge of the bed, grumbling that the sheets has just been replaced, that the bed must have been dirty because I've ran out of the tree up and down. I smiled and thought of it as the wind passed. Nadia was always so, fussy, sullen, and grumbling, but behind that, she was full of great affection for me. We were best friend since the day one. We only had one day difference. Nadia is one day older than me and maybe that is also what made her crowned herself as my sister's adoptive sister. Maybe it's also because me, as a boy, i was always been weak and sickly from day one. I wasn't lucky as Nadia who was born healthy, I was born with an abnormal heart valve, so my life was almost 70% in hospital. I can't go to school like the ordinary kids, I was homeschooled.
But Nadia was always stand by me and never leave me. Since we were kids, she was always came to my home just to share stories or just doing some stuff. We are like sister and brother who loved each other very much. And it lasted even until Nadia had almost graduated from the English Literature department, which she really liked, while I spent more and more of my time in the hospital. I spent almost seven months in a year at hospital. and amazingly Nadia was always spared her time to visit me, on the sidelines of her busy schedule she always took time to the hospital when I was being treated. I actually have an older brother who is three years older than me, in our childhood we were quite close to each other. His name is Dimas, and looked after us just like a family.
"Yestesday you were still being hospitalized right? So why do you here? When did they allowed you to come home? I wasn't saw you dad's car though? "
Nadia turned her face across the window towards my house trying to find my dad's car, but this was already 11 o'clock at night, and it was dark outside so that what appeared outside was only the darkness. I shrugged,
"Maybe you were fell asleep when i just come" she chuckled and threw a pillow on my face
"No, i wasnt. I was in the kitchen with my mom, preparing breaking fast if you wanna know! " her voice suddenly turned softer. "How about the doctor's diagnosis, Niko ?, yesterday Dimas told me that you had to do the second heart valve surgery, but he said that you refused".
I looked away, avoiding Nadia's gaze, "Can't we talk about that? I am tired."
"But you have to be brave Niko". Nadia continued to not care about my stiffened body, "The operation is likely to be a great success, you might be as healthy as ever. "
"The possibility of the operation is only 50:50", I said bitterly. I looked at Nadia sharply, trying to hold back the bitterness.
"You have no idea how scared i am if i have to die on the operating table" I don't want to die before I reveal how much I love you Nadia. I sighed to myself.
I kept that in my heart, i didn't have a courage to tell how much i loved her. Yes It's been a long time, but the thing that i believed is my feeling was continued to grow as we were grew up together, but sometimes harboring love like this feels so painful. But I really excited tonight. Tell her i loved her. Whether it will be accepted or not, I wanted to tell her. There's a tiny ring with flower carvings inside my pocket. A beautiful ring, as beautiful as the woman in front of me. If Nadia wants to accept my love, I want to give it to her, and maybe I will do the heart valve surgery. For Nadia's sake.
"But I want you to be healthy, Niko" Nadia's eyes filled with tears and looked at me full of feelings, made my tongue stopped for a bit.
"Nad ... " my voice trembled doubtfully", Nad, do you love me? " i continued.
Nadia frowned and smiled, "Of course I love you, you are more than just a brother, you mean a lot to me Niko ..."
"It's not like that, i mean....." i denied.
"After all, soon we'll be a family. In a true meaning ..." Nadia muttered secretly.
My confession was on the edge. My tongue was stopped suddenly. I stared at Nadia "What do you mean?.
Her cheeks turned red when she stares at me, then she smiled but looked so shy. "Actually we really wanted to keep it a secret first, but you are not a someone else or stranger. So i think he will not angry if i tell you sooner than he thinks". she cleared her throat made me feel nervous.
"What do you mean?" I feel like a broken cassette that repeats the same word.
Nadia held her flushed cheek, "Your brother proposed me Niko, when I finished the thesis, he wanted to propose to Dad ..."
Nadia's happy smile is like a pain piercing in my heart. For a moment I was stunned and speechless.
"You mean, you and Dimas are...?" I tried to diggest the reality, but somehow my mind refused to accept, "When ...? How about ...?" My fingers squeezed a tiny ring in my pocket, until my fingers hurt.
"We have been kept it from you Niko, i asked him to do that. Cause i was ashamed and afraid that you will laughing at me. But listen, actually i had a crush on your brother since a long time and surprisingly he has a same feeling as me". Her eyes sparkled. The eyes of a girl who's in love. When I was still stunned in silence, Nadia touched my arm and squeezed it softly. "I am happy Niko, if I marry Dimas, we really can become a family, you know that I am very happy to be your sister, you think the same don't you?"
My tongue was stucked and my heart was broken into pieces. But there's nothing i can say. I was stucked in silence cauee of a deep heartbreak. Nadia frowned at me, "Niko? How come you become so pale? " Her fingers touched my arm again, "God, you're so cold !!! You should go back to the hospital. You should rest instead of coming here...! " in a panic, Nadia took the blanket and covered me, " I'll call Dimas to pick you up ..." as Nadia was about to call Dimas, the door was knocked hard. After a long time the beats got louder and urgent. "Who is that knocking this night?" Nadia grumbled and stepped to the door, then opened it. I saw Dimas standing there, his face pale and dull, his hair falling apart. "Why, what happen? What a coincidence, I just wanted to call you... "
"Nadia, we should go to the hospital right now...!" Dimas's voice sounded hoarse with pain.
I heard Nadia flinched in confusion, "Who's sick?" In a second i saw Dimas looked at Nadia confused, then shooked her head, his tears trickled down flowing throgh his cheeks. "Niko, about an hour ago he got an attack, and fell into a coma, the doctor tried to resuscitate him. But he did not wake up again. He died Nadia ... "
This time Nadia and I both flinched. Nadia screamed in and looked at Dimas trying to find the truth "No!!! It's impossible... i'm with him just a minute ago "I saw Nadia looking at the bed, staring at me ... But that's when I realized that what Nadia saw was an empty bed. There's no one on that bed.
I saw Nadia getting pale. And then she fainted in the arms of Dimas who immediately caught her. Then noises heard because Nadia's mother and father followed up. While I was still sitting on the bed, staring at my own hand which was now transparent. Hit by the fact that even at the end of my life, I have never been able to confess my feeling that I have been holding for so long to the woman I love. My thought floated into a small box that contain a ring in the drawer of my room that was stored well there. The ring will never be handed over ... it will never be conveyed. I closed my eyes with a drop of tears, before everything went blurry and got vanished. -END-
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