Coffee

Coffee, what are they good for, anyway? Everyone says caffeine is good for those who needed instant adrenaline pump. Caffeine is supposed to shake you up, or wake you up, or psychologically knock your senses up and brings you back to reality after hours traveling to places that you thought existed, but aren’t forever.

So she prepared a jug of cappuccinos she had managed to salvage from her emergency stock of instant drink packets at the bottom of her big, black, metal studded Cotton On handbag which she often used for overnight stays and short travels. Devonne wasn’t that fond of zipped traveling bags which looked like the conventional traveling bags when she travels, and boxed luggage bags aren’t exactly convenient for one or two nights staying out. The bag was now seated in the second top shelf of the small luggage cupboard of the small hotel room, with its contents messily poured out – make-up bags, used clothes and undergarment, folded but still, untidy.

She seated herself on the bed, facing a small table and the giant glass windows which made up two third of the wall. The curtains were half pulled, so she could easily see the view from the twenty third floor of the colourful hotel building. Even at four in the morning, lights from below illuminated as if funfairs, parties and Vegas festivals decided not to sleep. Devonne, being easily fascinated, smiled as she stared out of the window, half-minding herself not to spill the cappuccinos when she poured them into two separate glasses.

“Mmm,” she heard him moan as he stretched himself from the bed, pulling himself closer towards her and finally seated beside her. Only in his blue boxers, with prints of a T-Rex playing basketball – how the hell did he become someone who is secretly fond of things designed for someone no older than twelve? – he gave her a good view of his built torso, before he grabbed a glass of the drink.

All night they have been doing nothing but staying up, talking, talking about useless things, whining about their current miseries, dreaming about impossible dreams, those little traveling dreams, dancing underneath a downpour, dreams that you’d only see in the movies, or on low-contrast photographs you’d find on hipster Tumblr blogs. That very night, they were Adam and Devonne, the two people who used to dream of colouring the world like painting an empty room with innocent white walls. They were the two people who used to promise each other the world, but life was being unfair, and they’re trapped in the modern ideology of how life should be – graduate, get a job, get a car, buy a house and get married! There were no room for the adventures they wanted, there were no room for their love to be carried on to the end of the road.

“Bali,” she said, suddenly. With her short hair waved messily at one side, messily but beautifully, she turned to him, still hunching in her black singlet and green Dockers men’s boxers she found herself so comfortable to sleep in.

“Bali?”

“Bali,” she repeated, and he instantly realized that she was picking up where they had left off after Adam complained of being thirsty. Where would you want to be right now? He asked her. He knew she had once told her of her dream of spending a week as a stranger in Bali, if not that, Paris.

“Still wanted to ride a bike in Ubud?” He guessed, with a slanted smile which made his right dimple appear. She nodded. “But you can’t even ride a bike!”

“Who cares?” She said, raising her thin, bony shoulder. He realized she was much thinner than before – had she been skipping meals all these while? However, her small biceps showed whenever she folds her arms, toned arms, but still skinny, and he had found this a little appealing.

“Do you want me to be there? In case you fall over or,” he joked, half-laughing. He placed his free hand on her thigh, his fingers slowly tracing the bluish vein underneath her pale skin. “You are so pale.”

“Is that good?” She laughed, being amused at his random comment.

“Doesn’t matter. You still look sexy.”

Flirting. The moment he kissed her shoulders so early in the morning, twenty one hours ago, was the moment they both had decided to stop holding back and flirt endlessly. Who cares about what happens next? Adam and Devonne turned into the people they used to be – living in the moment, they say, and they held onto that like nothing else matters. The consequences are always, unpleasant and mentally agonizing, can we put it that way? But who cares about what happens next? Adam and Devonne are the kind of people who, no matter how painful it is to look back at things they cannot grasp for again, they will always regard them as beautiful, beautiful. Not a second spent being regretful of what they have done. Nothing.

She placed her glass, which was already half-empty, back on the table. Still her seat, she pulled a pillow, and threw her back onto the bed, sighing. “So you? Where would you want to be right now?”

“Me? Here,” he joked, immediately his hands crawled underneath her black singlet. She struggled away, chuckled, and he removed his hands straight away. He lay down beside her, moved her hair a bit because they were poking into his ears, tickling. “Where would I want to be right now? At the beach, I guess.”

“Who with?”

“I don’t know. You?”

“But I’m now riding a bike in Ubud,” she said, shutting her eyes, as if imagining her sweet bike rides in a place she had never visited, but she saw the pictures of Ubud, cultural but lovely, Ubud.

“So, I’ll kidnap you!”

They laid there in silence for a couple of minutes, the sound of crickets and the slow-speed fan took over the atmosphere. So blissful, she thought. She wished she could lie there with him forever, but life is surely a bitch, and in the morning, they would be packing for home – a place where they could be happy, but not this happy.

“Devonne?”

“Hmmh?”

“I like the sound of your heartbeat.”

She smiled. He turned sideways, and pulled her closer by her waist, enveloping her with his warmth. “Are you sleepy?”

“A little. Maybe.”

“Do you want to go to sleep?”

“No,” he told her, and kissed her shoulder once more.