A deafening silence falls upon the balcony as Joshua’s words are processed by everyone in attendance. Sabrina looks shell-shocked, her cheeks turn redder (it’s pink enough already with the blush she’s wearing) as she glances at me and then back at Joshua. She likes to talk most of the time so to have her standing in front of us with her lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed, she’s dumbfounded, unable to find the words to express how she’s truly feeling. She’s not the only person there who’s taken aback, I — who’s supposed to be in on the whole scheme — am also taken by surprise. I barely know the guy standing beside me, what makes him think that I, for the life of me, can act like his girlfriend?

Sabrina and I don’t go back like Josh and her do. I met Sabrina Robertson when we were both still fresh graduates, juggling one job and another while trying to maintain a stable condition mentally. It’s difficult to find jobs in Bali that stimulate my mind or are in line with the path that I want to go down. So, when I had Sabrina through it all, it felt nice. We’re not exactly best-friends since our similarities start and end with us both going to an Ivy League — her in Columbia and me in Pennsylvania — so I never met Joshua Hadi, the man that she’s been swooning over for the last 7 years (before they broke up).

I’ve only heard stories about him. Mostly drunken anecdotes that Sabrina would usually tell after she’s had too much to drink — she’d say how he’s the best boyfriend to ever graze the Earth, she’d say how smart he is, she’d show off his humanitarian foundation that aims to house a lot of stray animals. She was in love with him, head-over-heels in love with the man I’ve only heard through the eyes of a hopeless romantic woman. I’ve never heard the full story about what happened between her and Josh, I just sort of assume that she doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s a little bizarre for me, how it’s so easy for her to get over a man that mere moments before the downfall was the love of her life.

I’m one to talk considering I witness a lot of peculiarities in relationships growing up. Don’t even get me started on my parents’ relationship with one another. But that’s a wound that I’ll probably pick on at another time.

Joshua Hadi is handsome. The kind of handsome that takes you by surprise. He has soft, kind eyes and naturally-upturned lips that make him look like he’s smiling all the time even during moments of sorrow – like this one. His jet, black hair is kept but it’s grown past half of his neck although it doesn’t look like it bothers him at all. He also, surprisingly, knows how to dress well. He knows the articles of clothing that will compliment his body perfectly and he seizes that wholeheartedly.

When Sabrina used to talk about him, I imagined a nerdy man with thick-rimmed glasses and scratchy, Christmas sweaters that he probably got 50% off from during the Macy’s Boxing Day Sale. So when it’s revealed that the attractive man talking to me about vaping and quitting smoking is apparently the man whose heart Sabrina has broken, I feel a sense of hatred that washes over me. Why and how is it possible that she has the audacity to break a heart like his? From her stories, he has a great personality and even greater appearance, what the fuck actually happened between them?

“Kalian emangnya udah berapa lama?” It’s weird to hear Sabrina talk in Indonesia because she has such a distinct American accent that it makes her sound like a knock-off version of Cinta Laura Kiehl. “Kok aku engga tau?”

Joshua flinches at the pronoun and I try to not roll my eyes at him, he looks a little pathetic right now. His broad shoulders look small and he constantly tries to make himself look minuscule by constantly bending his spine. If he straightens up his posture, he’ll easily tower over both Sabrina and I. But I guess the situation makes it far from ideal for him to show his confident stance and I understand.

Another thing I learn from Joshua? He takes too long to come up with a lie so I have to be the one that covers up for him (again), “Baru jalan 2 bulan sih, Sab, that’s why I never told you.”

2 months? More like 2 fucking minutes.

“Where did you guys meet?”

Before I can think up a lie, Joshua – finally – swoops in to take the question, “Bali. I had to do something with the shelter and as I went back to the hotel, I met her and we instantly hit it off.”

“What are you doing in a hotel, Thal?” Sabrina raises an eyebrow and grips the champagne glass she’s holding tighter, I can see her palm turning white with the force that she’s exerting on them. Joshua doesn’t know that I live in Bali full-time, rookie mistake, but it can easily be fixed.

“New trainees need a place to stay so I’m surveying.” I try to answer as calmly as possible so it wouldn’t raise suspicions or **more questions from her. If I’m forced to think about a lie once again I think I’ll just jump from the balcony instead.

“Wow.” I think she’s finally finished processing the matter at hand as her grip on the glass finally loosen up. She stares at me once again, giving me a whole one-over from head to toe, probably comparing me and her. We grew apart after she and Alan started dating. I never quite understood why she decided to quit her job and move to Kintamani with him. Again, we are not that close and we are not the kind of friends that ask about each other’s well being.

Next thing I know, I receive a bouquet of tulips and an invitation to her wedding. It all feels a little rushed. Like she’s constantly trying to prove something to someone. I shrug the thought off from my head, it’s definitely not the time to overanalyze someone’s psychological response to an event or a moment in their life.

She finally gives us a little nod and raises her glass a little before taking a sip from it, “You guys have a lot in common though so it’s not really a surprise.” She pauses for a little while, “I’m surprised it actually took you guys so long to finally connect with one another.”

“Yeah, well,” Joshua has taken the duty to answer Sabrina’s question again, “good things take time, right, Thal?”

He throws me a quick look, to see how I’m doing with all the conversation that’s been going on. There hasn’t been an agreement between him and I about the whole ordeal, we haven’t had the time to orchestrate a plan, haven’t had the time to know more about one another other than our names. When he sees that I don’t show any inhibitors of discomfort or anger, he puts his attention back on Sabrina.

There’s no valid reason as to why I should help Joshua – we’ve only just met and I’m not indebted to him in any way nor do I have the responsibility to cover up for him. If I didn’t go along with it, it would’ve been fine but there’s a nagging part of me that wanted to help him out. Maybe it’s the humane response to seeing someone in an uncomfortable situation where you know you can’t just be **a bystander. Or it’s the hundreds of hours of HR training in work that made me want to give him a favor. Either one of that reflex has given me a task that I can’t just wiggle out of. I can hear the Slack app **notification in my brain as I look over at Joshua who’s still staring at Sabrina.