This chapter will be heavy, so if you’re not in the mental capacity for some heavy topics (cheating, chronic illness, toxic relationship), please do get back to it once you are.

For a Friday night, Omnia is not as packed as I expected it to be. Or maybe because I’ve grown used to clubs that are so congested that it’s so hard for me to maneuver around. I haven’t gone to an event for a while, mainly because it’s so hard to find free time and a day when I can be hungover without actually having to do some work or go the office. These days my Outlook Calendar is filled to the brim with meetings and seminars and trainings, I can’t possibly slap on my sunglasses and call it a day — pretending that I didn’t get hammered the night before. But as I enter Omnia and the ever-so-overwhelming scent of alcohol, sweat as well as the deafening songs rattle my brain, I realize that I don’t miss this kind of atmosphere at all.

I’m getting too old for this shit.

Everywhere around me are early-20s kids (most of them partying with their parents’ money) that are taking shots after shots of tequila, the idea of a hangover an abstract one in their minds. There are a lot of them who’s giving me the side-eye because I definitely look like I don’t belong, with my tweed jacket and straight pants, I look like a mom who’s looking for their underaged child in a club. Thankfully, Mardan kept his word; one of his friends has come and fetched me near the entrance where he claimed he knew about Joshua’s whereabouts.

Okay. I will never admit it to my best-friends but I think I have gone soft on Joshua. When we first met, I never expected out ‘friendship’ — or as we call it, the deal — to be this serious and dangling over dangerous. There’s a reason one of the clauses, and the most important one, was to not fall in love with each other. It’ll overcomplicate things. Me and my commitment issues and the oath I gave myself when I left home and him and his tendency to overcompensate and overcommit. It’s like attempting to mix oil and water. Obsolete. No result.

But I’ll be lying if I say that I don’t care about him because I do. And that says a lot because I don’t care about other people. Maybe it’s the narcissistic trait in me or the perfectionist attribute that I can never seem to shake off from inside me, but our similarities just pull me closer to him. Tugging onto my sleeve like a clingy toddler in a mall. Like a moth to a flame. Too dangerous if I get too close but interested nevertheless.

“Kayaknya di sekitaran sofa situ, Thal,” Mardan’s friend tells me as he motions towards a huge sofa beside the DJ booth. There are empty alcohol bottles all over the table and 5 ice cube buckets that are depleting from their resources.

I give him a nod of acknowledgement, squinting my eyes in search of the familiar figure and face in the midst of the crowd and epilepsy-inducing laser lights. I am getting too old for this shit. Parting the crowd in front of me, I whisper half-assed “sorry”s and “excuse me”s that are disregarded in the grand scheme of things as the partygoers keep on dancing without a care in the world. And finally, I spot him.

This time he’s not wearing his signature button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Joshua’s wearing a black Polo Ralph Lauren shirt that looks a size smaller than what he’s supposed to use. He isn’t cladded in long pants or jeans but rather a pair of shorts that show off his calves. He has an empty glass of liquor in his right hand and his left is scrolling through his phone. How are we not able to reach him if his phone is right there in his grasp? As the white LED light shines on him for a split second and I see his grin as well as red face, I know for a fact that he’s drunk out of his mind.

It’s going to be a long fucking night, I think to myself before parting the crowd in front of the sofa and walking towards him.

A sofa in Omnia on a Friday night? Man, he’s a big spender when he’s drunk.

My heart is beating out of my chest and I can hear my pulse in my ears as I decrease the space in between the both of us. There’s a prayer I shout into the void, hoping he doesn’t see me before I’m ready to talk him out of his trance. And as I finally stand in front of him, towering over the man who makes my chest warm and my cheeks red, our eyes finally meet. How he’s able to find my gaze amidst the crowd and the low lighting, I’ll never truly understand. But he is. Now I wish he hasn’t.

“Thalia?” My name rolls off his lips perfectly, like he’s spent days reciting it in front of the mirror in order to nail the delivery of it.

There are a lot of things rushing through my mind at once — I need to get him home, I want to know where he has been, I need to know what Sabrina said to him that prompted him to go haywire. I realize, though, that this isn’t the perfect atmosphere to raise such questions so I keep my lips shut for a while before speaking, “You need to go home.”

I have taken care of both of my friends when they’re drunk and suffice to say, I’d rather not do it again. Mardan gets whiny — like super, fucking whiny — and I’ll have to drag him to the car most of the time. However, there are some times when he gets all philosophical and starts talking about his beliefs in God. This is almost as annoying as him yelling, “I don’t want to go home!” right into my ear.

Julian’s the sleepy drunk. After a few shots of vodka, he’ll be passed out on the couch, hugging a bottle of Jägermeister into his chest — where’d he get the bottle from? No clue. Then I’ll have to ask one of the securities to carry him into my car. Thankfully, we’re always getting drunk in one of Mardan’s clubs, makes it easier for us to sneak in and out without garnering public attention. But as we grew up and became more and more busy with work and mundane activities like weekly luncheons, we’ve stopped going to parties.

Therefore when I tell Joshua that we need to go home, I expect him to revolt against the idea. Trash and turn in the sofa where security guard will reach out to us and ask us what’s happened. He’s a man who’s just gotten his heart broken, finally meeting his ex once again and then getting triggered by whatever she said to him. So I expect him to say no to me and I expect some kind of rebellion against the suggestion. Something that shows me another side of Joshua Hadi.

However, rather than being faced by a yapping 27-year-old, all I get is a simple nod and whisper as he looks onto the ground, “Okay.”

“Okay?” I ask back, leaning towards him so I can hear him speak the word into my ear. I thought I’ve misheard what he said.

“Take me home,” there’s a small pause, “please.”