Chapter Eighteen: That Long Distance Thing (~jinghan)

I always thought that it was the quality of the time you spend with someone that mattered the most… but perhaps the quality of the time you spend away from someone is just as, if not more, important.

—

The ERC (Easter Resource Centre) is quiet, but not too quiet. There’s a gentle hum of hushed conversations and the tip tap of computer keys. I sit at the desktop and scroll leisurely through notes and tip tap my way across the page. You’d hardly suspect that this is the last day that my boyfriend will be in Melbourne before going back Adelaide for the rest of the semester.

My phone blips. And for a second I wonder who’s phone it was.

“Hey~ How has your day been? Meet me at 12:45 in china town?”

“Yeah, it’s been good. Got some work done. See you then,” I thumb back.

As I toss my phone back into my bag, it gives me a small jolt of pleasure to notice that the days when having a boyfriend equated to flipping my phone open and closed in the hope that said boyfriend will make contact are finally over — as if I’ve finally up-levelled in this game of love.

It’s 12:35, and almost too late, when I madly type in the last few lines of a topic summary, swipe all my possession from the table top into my bag, log off, sling my bag over my shoulder and skirmish my way to the tram stop.

I have lunch with my boyfriend, his mother and uncle. Afterwards I made a detour to the arcade to watch him drive an imaginary car around an imaginary road at an imaginary (thank god) dangerous speed. (“Just one game, okay? Only a selfish bastard would take his girlfriend to the arcade and make her watch him play.” “I don’t mind at all! But yeah, okay, one game.” ) I must admit that I have no interest in the actual driving, but I do enjoy watching the confidence and competence with which he drives and his admirable ability to concentrate under immense stress.

“I’ll leave you to it, I guess. Catch you for dinner?”

“Yeah, I need to get a few things before heading back to Adelaide anyway. Call me when you are done with your work.”

Neither of us seem to notice that we both make the assumption that we are making way for the other. By instinct I wander off to the Rowden White. I savour the solitary luxury of absorbing myself in a book. I inevitably borrow the book, not so much for wanting to read all of it, but for wanting to make the luxury last a little longer… before heading back to finish off my summary notes.

By the time I see him again, the air is filling itself with the beginnings of night, lazy jazz from a nearby bar seems to linger longer and longer and high-rise lights appear in emotive smudges on the dark water. We sit by the bank of the river across the way from the train station and watch the day fold into night time.

I lean my head on his shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?”

I think for a moment. Some part of me feels like I should be full of the anticipating of separation, that there should be something I can think that will make the most of these last couple of hours.

“Nothing, actually.”

The moment I say it, it is already transforming itself into a lie. I’m thinking about how beautiful it is to sit in the comfortable silence of someone’s company. How rare and perfect the opportunity for such appears to you.

And when he is gone, I will sit and remember the perfect silence.