Relations

Name: Julie
Relation: Family friend
Occupation: Florist, Gossip central, Advice distributer.

“Any good news?” Julie’s standard greeting nowadays. After she had heard his name come up in conversation again she had immediately switched gears and entered the pre-wedding phase. Or rather the pre-engagement phase. With her at this point it was simply that I should marry the boy and call it game over. She was so certain of our eventual nuptials that she imposed a bet against anyone who said otherwise and in turn her winnings would go towards our wedding gift. Julie looked up from the large spring arrangement that she was working on with a mischievous look.

“I’m telling you, there’s no point in waiting any longer. You two have been dating for how long now?”

I start to toy with a discarded daisy in attempts to avoid her question. “We’re taking things slow right now. We want to ‘get to know each other’ again.”

Everyone in the store laughed. My aunt stayed quiet and listened to Julie berate me with her questions. Even as the words came out of my mouth it sounded ridiculous. He and I had known each other since the first day of high school. And even now, post college and into the working world, we were still playing the game of him and me. Sure there were points where we lost touch, but all in all it had been relatively consistent in some sort of communication. Or was that wishful thinking?

“Cie,” she called me. Though she was older, it had become a habit for her to call me “older sister” like everyone else in the family. Here, it was rank that defined you. After all, there were younger sisters, cousins, family friends that looked at the older siblings for guidance. “How old are you now?”

Oh god. The irrefutable count of how long we had been together. “I know I know, Cie Julie, it’s been forever. I know. But in our defense --!”

“No, no! Just how old are you?"

“Twenty-six. But it’s different!” I pause. Different, sure. How? Dunno. “Really, it’s different… I just don’t know how just yet.”

“Okay, now what’s twenty-six minus fifteen?” Julie was adamant. To her, we had been together for way too long.

I sigh. There was no point in fighting it. Logically, she was right. “Eleven. But again! In our defense, we broke up several times and dated other people so that number is completely inaccurate!”

“I don’t care Corinne, all I know is that you started dating him when you were fifteen and now you’re twenty-six. Which means, you two have been dating for eleven years now! Eleven! I don’t even know anyone who’s dated that long before getting married!”

Logically, reasonably, she had a point. Even without the breakups and the “just friends” periods, it was still about six to seven years of being in a relationship with him. And by then the question of marriage would have already been on the table for quite some time with many couples. But with him and me, the topic of marriage had always evaded us for some reason or another.
Either way though, I had no intentions of backing down from Julie. I was right. It was different. The counter started over when we got back together. “It’s different though!” I stubbornly argued. “We’re working things out and learning about each other again.” Because, you know, we forgot who we were. Right… That’s believable.

Well okay, it had a bit of truth to it. Truth is, no matter how much he loved me, and no matter how I changed, he was still worried about my flightiness. He knew we had both changed and matured during the past year apart, but he couldn’t shake the fact that I had a propensity for running. I was the Runaway Bride, only we’d always start talking again and I would always run back to him and then I’d run off again. And there was no ring or a white dress just yet.

“You should just marry him, Cie.” She grinned. “Then I can win that bet and we can have a big party finally!”

“E yah, Niek,” my grandmother chimed in agreement. Her English isn’t good, but when it comes to wedding gossip, she knows. Like a sixth sense, she’ll know. “He’s a good person,” she adds in Chinese. “Hurry, he’s a good person.”