// 09 January 2018 - Ngurah Rai International Airport Bali, Indonesia //
I let my hair play with the wind as Jeffrey and I made our drive to Nusa Dua Beach from the airport. He just flew here this morning from Changi Airport, after Max’s approval.
The rental driver shifted gear as I rested my back in the front seat of our rented Toyota truck, with Jeffrey in the rear. I’ve been thinking about my new appointment to Kuala Lumpur. I told Jeffrey about it earlier and he could only shrug a shoulder, halfway between delight and doubt.

“Go where the sky is bluer, and the wind fresher,” Jeffrey said. Somehow, he was agreeing but… denying my heart to heal because the place reminds me so much of Ethan gave me some sort of extra thoughts.
I adore the company and its vision. It's a family business. But this is something I needed to ponder deeply first.
Our rental driver, probably in his early forties, was a man of few words. I looked to the back, and discovered Jeffrey was falling asleep. The growing silence took me back to a road trip with Ethan from a couple of years ago. In a popular holiday town of Tagaytay highlands, in the south of Manila.
Crystal clear, I remember Ethan’s smiling and those teeth that glowed with the sun rays as we drove his Peugeot car to Tagaytay. He did look absolutely dashing in those pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and polo shirt. It was when Ethan and I celebrated our eighth anniversary together. An “infinity date,” as we called it.
I shut my eyes close now and massaged my forehead, convincing myself to stop reminiscing and focus on the emerging minor headache, instead. It must be the sun, it went hot today. Or must be a side effect of every thought about Ethan. I couldn’t tell, but the wind... Oh God, this late afternoon wind felt like it carried Ethan with it.
The wind blew stronger, and I could almost feel it kiss my cheeks, like how Ethan used to do. Everything around me now fuels my desire to see him again. It’s hard to long for someone who is probably already in the arms of another.
As the scent of street-side flowers reached my nose, I was starting to fall asleep, then was swallowed by the sudden dream of Ethan, of that steamy night in our Tagaytay escapade, overlooking the ridge above the Taal Lake that surrounded the Taal Volcano Island.
***
// Minutes later - Nusa Dua Beach, Bali, Indonesia //
Jeffrey and I arrived at our destination by sundown, in a guesthouse devoid of many tourists. We let ourselves breathe in the new air for a moment and called it a day.
Then Jeffrey headed to the shower room as I unpacked my pair of pajamas and hooded sweatshirt, wishing the mosquitoes would be gentle to us tonight.
I opened the wooden windows, grabbed my cell phone from my sling leather bag and checked for unread emails only to find out a weak reception and almost empty battery.
I picked my luggage for the charger and overheard Jeffrey’s rendition of “All Out of Love” by Air Supply. Darn, I could almost run straight to the shower room and cover his mouth completely. The melody alone… Oh, they said it all, and shattered my heart all at once.
I wished for a bathtub when Jeffrey exited the shower room. I wanted to plunge my body in warm water and sprinkle myself with rose petals and lavender oil, then reality sank in and there was no bathtub, instead a rust-brown shower pipe and a flickering light bulb overhead.
I began a shower but the unsteady shade of light revived the headache of a while ago. I should have dropped by a pharmacy to buy some pain medication. Apparently, I am failing to look after myself.
I continued my bath and tried to ignore the throbbing pain stemming from the sides of my head. It seemed pain has become a part of my daily function lately.
I washed my face first and let the water run through my body. I stopped myself before I could feel Ethan again. Night showers remind me so much of him. Of his hands slipping through my back, my neck, my thighs, my entire body.
Mostly, we’d take shower together, especially after work and before bedtime, or in between those discussions about our new strategies for the company.
Ethan and I were both part of the marketing team. Lee Jr., they used to call him in the office. Ethan was always good in illuminating new ideas. One of the smartest guys I know. Our fathers were former business partners, both Malaysians, and the company they built together in the foreign land of the Philippines where they met their Filipino wives gave us the special bond since childhood.
It was the company that gave us so much comfort, and the reason that we studied business together in Boston and eventually became lovers.
I turned off the shower and began drying my hair. From the other side of the room, I could still hear Jeffrey’s heartfelt singing. And this, I also began to miss another important man in my life.
My father.
If dad was here he’d tell me endless words of love and encouragement. “I’m always proud of you, sweetie.” Dad would talk to me and call me “Tal”—short for my name Natalie.
“Go out there and be the best you can be.” These were the words he’d utter each time I find myself failing… in school, in my ballet class, and everything else I failed to do.
I was always reckless, hard-headed, and defiant. And dad… he would always talk to me in a calm and gracious manner while Mom would rebuke me from time to time—her only means of communicating to me.
Somehow, my mother is right. And I could not even begin to evaluate myself right now. I was always the daughter Mom detested, unlike Yvonne, my older sister and only sibling.
Yvonne and I are polar opposites. She is the jewel of the family crown. She lives up to Mom’s expectations. And she even inherited Mom’s Spanish-German and Filipino bloodline.
And I, although the European DNA of Mom runs dominant, I had a bit of my father’s dark eyes and complexion, and an inch shorter than Yvonne’s five-foot-nine figure.