Good Night

I was about to turn off my Blackberry when I saw an incoming message.
“Hi, how are you?” he wrote.
I clicked on his display picture. He wore his favorite batik shirt when we were in the youth exchange program in Brisbane.
“Hi,I’m fine,” I replied.
I tried not to look awkward. I scrolled the keypad and skimmed through the old conversation. It brought back all the memories: the fish and chips we shared, the morning greeting, the joke of “G’day mate!”,the late phone call, and the warmth of his hand when we were on Noosa beach. It had been two years that we broke up, but I still felt numb.
I remembered not be able to see the blue sky as beautiful as when we saw together. I remembered hating love songs. I remembered confused whether to delete our pictures or not. I remembered wishing if I had time machine I hope to travel to the past and would treat him bad so we would never have any chance to be friend. It all started when one day, out of the blue he offered me to have lunch together for the first time. I saw nothing to lose and said “sure”. I had an internship in Brisbane Visitor Information Centre, while he had an internship nearby. I had not made a friend yet so I was excited to share my Vegemite sandwich. Our first lunch together was a success and It led to another lunch, another texting, another stay-up-late mumbling and finally a confession about our feelings. I guessed living in a foreign land and finding someone who share the same language and hard time adjusting similar to finding a oasis in Sahara desert. But when I told my family about this, my Mom’s face was flat.The fact he is only half Chinese was unacceptable. The same rejection also came from his side. As soon as they found out I’m not worshiping Jesus, his mom handed me the bible, wishing me to study it to change my mind, if not my religion. Our parents saw us completely different, one from earth and one from the moon. They believed nothing could hold us together while I thought that we completed each other.
On December 1, 2011, we met and he held my hand and told me he had made up his mind. He surrendered without going to battlefield to fight. In the end of the day, for him nothing was more important than going back home, eating dinner and going to church with family. No matter how much I made him happy, I would never be able to fit in. His mother won over me.
“I am going to sleep. Bye!” I ended the conversation and deleted him from my contacts.