CHAPTER 4 : WISH I WERE 20 ; DAY 2

"Lost time is never found again – Benjamin Franklin"

The next day, as usual, Shasha woke up at 9 or 10a.m. Sean was already off to work. It was like her habit to have only 4 to 5 hours sleep every day and she was used to it but her eyebags was getting worst though.

She went to do her body check-up a week ago. Everything was good except for there was an abnormality in her heartbeat.

She was advised by the doctor to put a Holter monitor on her body for 24 hours. It recorded the data of her heartbeats. When she had done the test required, the report came out. It was confirmed the condition of her heartbeat was abnormal but harmless.

Still, she needed to have one more test to clarify it won't turn into something serious. She made an appointment for the Stress Test early next month. She thought better to be safe than be sorry.

When she read the causes of the heartbeat abnormality. She noticed two of the causes were smoking and over-caffeine. Even though she was not a coffee lover, but she was totally addicted to iced milk tea and would be able to drink it more than 5 times a day. She felt like she couldn't live without it.

Still, she thought she could try to reduce both of her bad habits. She said to the doctor, she didn't think she would be able to stop smoking and stop drinking iced milk tea. But she would try to reduce them daily.

So, she bought chewing gums, fresh milk and juice. It was not easy, but she also wanted herself to be as healthy as she could be.

After she washed her face and brushed her teeth, she prepared her lemon drink which was quite effective to flatten her tummy and detoxifying. She would do her workout at home mostly every evening except when she was on her period. She would be so lazy and laid down all day like a salted fish.

After she had her brunch, she took a picture and like before with 1% of filter she sent it to Eden with a message {Good morning my baby!} Then she started to do her house chores and it only took her an hour or two to settle everything.

She picked up her guitar and sang till she thought she had enough. Then she would read her novel. This was Shasha's life. Every day from Monday to Sunday, everything would be the same.

She didn't like to meet people out there. She had a car, but she was too lazy to drive. She might better put her driving licence in a frame.

Furthermore, she felt suffocated wearing a mask nowadays. If she was not really that desperate to go out, she would message her husband to ask him to buy anything she needed.

Once a day, her children would call her, and they would chat for a bit. As long as her children were fine, she had nothing to worry about them.

She didn't like to be controlled when she was younger, so she didn't want to be too strict on her children. She just told them the dos, the don'ts and all the advices that she could think of and let them think about it themselves.

The best teacher is the experiences in life.

While she was taking a break from her reading, she was thinking about her own life again.

She broke up with her boyfriend after the incident. She was the one who walked away from him and moved to a place where she thought he would not be able to find. She was afraid she might get hit again and something bad would happen to her baby. She was in her 3rd month of pregnancy.

She rented a 3 bedrooms apartment on the 5th floor with no elevator. Every day she would need to climb the stairs.

One of her friends supposed to join her, but at a last minute she cancelled her plan. Since she already signed the contract and the rental was affordable too, she preferred to live alone. It was better that way.

Even though her financial was very tight with the baby in her belly, she knew she needed to be strong.

She didn't dare to tell her parents about her pregnancy. But she desperately needed to tell one of her sisters who she was close to about it, because she really needed her help.

Shasha and her elder sister were really looked alike. There were only few slight differences. She explained everything that had happened and asked for her sister's ID and marriage certificate since her sister was already married with 6 kids. She was 10 years older than Shasha.

Shasha had been informed by her friend that if she delivered the baby without a marriage certificate, the baby would be taken away from her and then her baby would be sent to the orphanage.

She was so scared and didn't want it to happen to her baby since she got pregnant out of wedlock.

She always thought once she did a mistake, bear with it and did whatever she could do to amend it. She never blamed anyone other than herself.

She was 23 at that time. So, the only thing she could do was asking for help from her sister. Fortunately, her sister agreed to help her and prepared all the documents needed and told her, she would call from time to time. She felt relief after one of her big problems solved.

On weekdays, she would go to work at 6.30 a.m since she needed to catch the earliest bus to go to her workplace and off from work at 7p.m. At least she had few hours overtime pay that could be added up into her salary.

Her colleagues asked, when did she get married when they saw her belly was getting bigger. She told them she only had a small wedding among close family few months ago and didn't want to talk about it. Luckily, they didn't ask her too much either.

Her life could be said monotonous. She would be off to work and go back to an empty apartment where she was all alone every single day. But when she felt the living human inside her, she felt she could do anything. Whatever came she would have a gut to face it.

Occasionally, one of her colleagues, Andrew who knew Shasha's real situation, would send her home by car when the two of them worked overtime on the same day. Since she was pregnant, it would be dangerous for her to go back at night alone.

Andrew was a new consultant at the company, and they became close friends after Shasha always gave Andrew a hand in adapting himself to the company.

When her pregnancy reached to the 8th month, one night, someone knocked her door. When she heard the voice of the person who called her name, she was stunned and for a while she didn't know what she supposed to do. Should she open the door or just let the person go away. She didn't open the door at the end and fortunately the next morning, that person was not waiting outside of her apartment anymore when she was off to work.

But when she returned to her apartment after work that day, she saw that person was waiting for her in front of her apartment. That person was her ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey. He said he was sorry and begged Shasha to give him a chance so that he could be responsible for her and the baby.

Shasha was so damn exhausted, and she didn't want to put any hope on him anymore. She didn't say anything. Be silence was the best treatment. She knew even she pushed him away, Jeffrey would bug her every day. So, she just let him be. He would walk away by himself in the end. She was really sure of that 'cos she knew him too well.

Jeffrey stayed at her apartment, but he slept in a different room that night. Shasha locked her bedroom's door and she tried to sleep since she needed to wake up early. She just acted as if Jeffrey was invisible like a ghost. He acted like a good boyfriend and installed a phone line in her apartment for her to use in case of emergency.

When her due date came, she had her water broke at 5a.m, she only felt mild contractions afterward, and the pain was bearable. She told Jeffrey about it and he called his friend who had a car to send Shasha to the hospital.

Jeffrey only had a motorbike. Shasha was familiar with that friend of his because they used to hang out together before.

At 7a.m, his friend came and Shasha went to the private hospital where she did her check-up a month before and registered under her sister's ID. Five hours later, she had successfully delivered a cute baby boy.

Jeffrey was waiting outside the ward when she delivered her baby. She stayed only one night at the hospital since there was no complication. Next afternoon Jeffrey and his friend came to fetch her and her baby back to her apartment.

Shasha was taking a maternity leave from the company for 2 months starting from the day she delivered the baby. She still got paid and that was a big help for her.

She didn't give a f*** at all about what Jeffrey was doing. He bought a food but a total useless for other things. One day, he brought his parents to her apartment and he said he wanted to take Shasha as his wife.

Shasha used to meet his parents for a few times before, when they were still in a relationship. His parents looked at her like she was some kind of a gold digger when they knew Shasha lived in an apartment. 'Who the hell they think they are'.

While having this thought, Shasha looked at them, and said "I don't want to marry your son, I don't want to have a husband who will hit me and my child when he is mad". The answer was as simple as that and then they left with Jeffrey who was looking at her with disbelief.

That would be the end of the uncertainty in their broken relationship. She had no regret.

Ding!

Shasha snapped out from her memories of the past. She inhaled the air into her stuffy chest and picked up her handphone.

There was a message from Eden. {Good afternoon, I just woke up.}

Shasha smiled and replied to him. {You are better than me in sleeping in😂.}

Eden sent back his reply. {I can't sleep early. I need to change my sleeping habit since I will be back to college next week.}

{Yup! You'd better change that. Wash your face? Brush your teeth? Had your brunch already?} Shasha asked him all the questions at once.

Eden sent his reply, {Yes to all three. 😂.}

Shasha laughed and felt like she wanted to tease him, so she sent a message. {Oh really? then I can bite you 🤣.} Even though the sentence was a bit ambiguous but in Shasha's definition that was how she showed her adoration. It was like pinching a baby's chubby cheeks.

{You can do whatever you want. It's yours.} The reply came from Eden.

Shasha was laughing out loud and typed {Right! Since you are my baby. I can do what I want huh? 😝.}

{Yeah. 😆} Eden replied.

Shasha was grinning like a silly little girl when she saw his message. She told Eden, {You are really a sweet boy you know that? If I were 20 🥴.}

Eden replied, {If you were 20, I would be 15 😂.}

Shasha paused for a while and typed, {So you don't want to be at the same age as me? You still want to be younger than me huh? 😂. And how do you know if I were 20 you would be 15 anyway?}

{I'm just assuming that you are 25 years old} he said.

Shasha pursed her lips and said to him, {I might be 25 or 35 or 45 and so on, I've never told you my exact age. I think I just told you that I'm older than you.}

Shasha thought it would be great if she could tell him the truth, but she just didn't want to lose this new little friend of hers yet who she think could bring more smiles on her face.

Maybe she was selfish, but she was just desperately craving for the feeling that she thought was lost in her. The feeling of excitement and looking forward to life.

She started to lose that feelings when her husband lied to her 3 years ago. Not that he was cheating on her but lies were lies. From the beginning of their marriage 20 years ago, she had never lied to her husband because she was very grateful to him and loved him.

He knew every single thing about her past because he was one of Jeffrey's close friends and she didn't hide anything. Not until he had broken her trust.

For her, what you give, you'll get it back. Love with a broken trust is like a fragile empty shell.

{Who cares about age anyway. We are all the same.}. The message from Eden brought Shasha's attention back to her phone.

She laughed when she saw it. {Yeah. you're right 😬. Do you have plan for today?} Shasha asked.

{I always have plans 🙃} he said.

Shasha told him, {It feels great to be at your age, have fun okay! And if I'm disturbing you with your thing, just tell me}

{Don't worry. I'll tell you if I am busy} Eden replied.

{That's cool. So whatchudoin rn?} Shasha asked him.