Putri, a young woman in a smart casual outfit, was stranded in the largest mall in Bandung. Her good friend Tio had left in the middle of their lunch when a police officer requested his cooperation for a case. She, not privy to the details, was left alone without a companion.
She sipped her tepid coffee, tapping mindlessly on the black screen of her phone. It was dead, much to her chagrin. She could not rely on Tio and his fancy compact car to return home. A dead phone removed car-sharing services from her options and left her with the city bus and angkot, the public transportation minivans.
Both alternatives left her sighing and wavering. The bus was comfortable, yet left her needing to walk a fair distance home. The angkot stopped closer to home, but she wasn’t sure the slowness was worth the cheap fare.
“Putri?” Then, she heard it. An oh-so-familiar voice uttered her name.
Putri closed her eyes. She hoped so badly for it not to be him. The man she saw with her brown eyes open shattered said hope.
“Raja.” Her best friend who loved her. Worse, her best friend she rejected just yesterday.
The charming man smiled and sat across from her. “I thought you had a date tonight.”
“Not with you.”
“I doubt you had one, to begin with.” He tapped the table, clean but for one cup of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich with a toothpick flag.
“It’s none of your business.” Putri pushed her chair back.
“What if I want it to be?”
“No means no, Raja,” she sighed. “There are others interested in you.”
“You’re the only princess for my king,” Raja’s smile widened. “We are meant to be.”
Putri frowned, “Stop.”
Raja chuckled, which only brought her further headache. Raja. Her well-spoken, fashionable, considerate friend. A person who shone like the moon in a starry sky. However, the scope of her opinion stopped at just that. A great person. A good friend. There it stopped.
When Putri tried to pay, the cashier gave her a knowing wink. “Your boyfriend already paid.”
Raja, still seated, waved the toothpick flag and smiled when their eyes met. Putri’s response was arctic-cold. She left the café without so much as a word or a glance to the red flag.
“Not even a ‘thank you’ for the favour?” His voice came grating from behind.
Putri quickened her steps, but his long strides passed hers effortlessly. Raja blocked her path. Left, right, his body followed her movement.
“Move away.” She pushed him aside, but Raja persistently followed.
“Don’t be hasty.” he flashed the same knowing smile. “Let me drive you home. Your grandfather will be worried if you are late.”
The words caused Putri to halt. Something felt off. Something she was not sure of, but which was waiting there like a dead log. She turned to face him. The handsome man never failed to beam whenever their eyes met. They liked the same bands. They both loved making scrapbooks. Raja was fashionable, friendly, and warm all the time. He was her ideal man.
He was a crystallisation of everything she liked. He was perfect. Too perfect.
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you so persistent?”
He quirked his eyebrows. “We are perfect for each other.” Putri crossed her arms. She stared back, clenching her jaw. Raja broke into a smile.
“I knew it from our very first meeting. A rainy Tuesday evening, 20th of October three years ago- “
“Hold on. Three years ago?” Something buzzed in Putri’s head. The log.
“Yes. You dozed off on my shoulder in that angkot, still in your school uniform. You woke up with an apology and got off in front of the station.”
Raja sighed, dreamy and longing. “Your soft breath, your gentle expression, your embarrassed apology, they haunted my nights for days… I just knew. No one could make me feel like that but you.”
Her surroundings blurred into the void. The log was moving; she was sure of it. There was only her, Raja, and the log floating with the current of her mind. Raja’s words boomed like a waterfall. They drowned the café’s music in the distance. Chatters of a group of friends going around them. The trickle of a fountain on the floor below.
Nothing was there but his voice, laced with yearning and nostalgia.
“Finding you was a journey. I only knew your face and voice. Not a name to call or a school to visit. I waited in front of the station for a whole week. You only came on Tuesday, when I started to lose hope. The surge of warmth I felt from that second meeting was like no other.
“I guarded you home that evening; everything was easier from there.” Raja chuckled.
“Your friends gave me your social media accounts. I’ve been watching you from afar since. I know your daily activities. The music you listen to. Your hobby. The styles you like. Your celebrity crushes. I remember every single detail just for you.
“Do you remember? Every Tuesday, your desk always had a red rose on it before you arrived. Like in your favourite novel, Love Will Tell.”
Yes, she remembered. How could she not? It brought attention to the whole class. It even started a trend of confessing with roses throughout the school. Even then, she never received a confession; not even a letter. Eventually, she no longer paid it any attention. Still, the rose always came. Every Tuesday morning, without fail, throughout her 11th and 12th year.
Raja’s eyes remained on her. The log was no longer half-submerged in the water. It showed its true nature, brimming with infatuation, desire… and justified obsession. Putri involuntarily shuddered. She was wrong. It had never been a log, but a crocodile laying still. And now, the beast had opened its maw.
“I stayed behind one year to wait for you. Then we chose the same major. And we started spending time together.” The smile on Raja’s face grew. “I purposefully turned in a sick letter on the first day of orientation so I can ask for your help to catch up with work. It was easy to make an excuse when I rented the apartment next to yours.”
“Stop.”
Raja stepped forward. “We had the same classes. We worked on so many projects and assignments together as a result. Every moment only reminded me how much I love you, my princess. And I know you love it, too.”
“Stop it.” Her eyes inadvertently were drawn to the pen in his breast pocket. A sleek black pen with a silver P on its body. It looked exactly like the pen she lost in her 11th year.
Her plea fell on deaf ears. “You love the way I dress, the way I speak, the way I make you laugh. You feel safe and comfortable around me. You feel loved.”
Putri staggered back. The closer Raja got, the more she wanted to run away. Eventually, her back hit a wall. She could no longer see the attraction in his warm smile. Her whole body recoiled inside out. She was a deer screaming when the crocodile bit its neck. His voice, pleasant like sunshine, continued to beam.
“Three years had passed since our first meeting. And today is the 27th of October, the day of our second meeting.” Raja went down on one knee, revealing something in his palm. “Happy third anniversary, my princess!”
In his hand was a yellow gold ring embedded with a marquise diamond. Putri recognised that ring. It was the ring described in Love Will Tell. The same gold ring she said she wanted to wear to her wedding in the 11th grade.
Putri reacted in the only way she could.
“No!” She slapped his hand away. The ring flew off his hand, sinking into a fountain below.
Raja attempted to hold her hand, but Putri slapped him viciously on the face and ran off. The scene caused quite a disturbance, with a small crowd watching discreetly from the side.
A sympathetic man approached Raja, who was bleeding profusely from his nose. “You okay, man?”
Raja laughed brightly. “Oh, nothing worthy of concern.” He nonchalantly wiped the blood off and shook his head, smiling.
“Just an endearing quarrel between lovers.”
Author: Fata Imadudda’wah
University: Universitas Padjadjaran
Faculty: Medicine