2. Breaking Up

Helena walked alone in the apartment lobby. She was still contemplating whether to walk away from the building or turn around and apologize to Nathan for her refusal. However, her steps had already swung out, and the night breeze made her look up and stare at the garden lights among the cypress trees in the apartment courtyard.

Helena tightened her grip on the sling bag as if to convince herself that her choice to refuse Nathan's invitation was the right one. However, as her slow pace drifted away again, something bothered her. Fragments of the shadow of her parent's divorce stopped her steps, the image of her crying that she deliberately silenced herself with a pillow at night made her waver again, and the lonely shadow that kept her at home all day made her hesitate to leave.

That sadness, that cry, that loneliness, had imprisoned her since her parent's divorce. And Nathan came and set her free. Sadness is gone, crying is gone, and loneliness is expelled. Her life was so full of everything about Nathan that he forgot that sad thing that had happened to her.

Nathan... made it look less pathetic. Nathan couldn't go. Or rather, she couldn't make Nathan leave.

So, with one breath, Helena made a decision. She walked briskly to a convenience store next to the lobby, immediately stood at the counter and grabbed the latex contraception device, and paid for it quickly.

Her steps swayed back toward the sixth floor, where the man she'd rejected was dumbfounded and let her go. Helena didn't look around and didn't remember how many people were standing with her in the elevator. All he knew, there was a woman and a man who came out together with him on the same floor.

Helena walked behind and watched the man stop at one of the doors and enter, leaving a woman walking in front of him. Helena remembered the woman's appearance, the long brown hair that flowed past her shoulders, the red mini dress with the same length outer covering, and the long legs that could make every woman envious in a few seconds of looking at her.

Her stride would have continued to swing past the woman with a hasty pace, if only she hadn't stopped at door number 067 and received a gentle "Hi, honey."

Helena was stupefied. He wouldn't remember wrong, door number 067 was the only door he'd visited when he stepped into the building. Nathan, the man should have been behind the door with deep disappointment that Helena had just left, instead of gently welcoming another woman who visited her room with the greeting 'Honey'.

The contraceptive in her bag, which she took confidently after withdrawing all her scattered faith, must be laughing at her right now.

****

Helena found a pair of benches facing a round table in front of an Indomaret Point. There were several crowds of boys aged around junior high or elementary school, at several other tables, noisy, full of laughter, and endless chatter with gadgets that could not be separated from their grasp.

Helena couldn't walk any further or find a better place to rest after walking several hundred meters non-stop. Her head was even worse work because sometimes Jason's figure was the first to come to mind to ask her to come with her at this time.

"Jumpshots!" shouted one of the boys as he continued to focus on his gadget.

Since then Helena heard the sentence. "Haha. Knock bastard!" Or, "Sandwiches!" And other terms he didn't understand at all.

Maybe three seconds after glancing at the noise of the children, Jason's figure appeared behind the Indomaret glass door carrying a bag of groceries. The man put his luggage and motorbike keys on the table before pulling up a chair and sitting across from Helena.

His hand momentarily reached into a plastic bag took a can of drink and opened it until it produced a free-foaming sound. "You can open the drink seal yourself, right?" he asked as he handed Helena a bottle of mineral water. "I'm not Kai who is always there to open the seal of Jessy's drinking bottle."

Helena grabbed the water bottle, then glanced again at the source of the shouting to her right. Those boys again.

"Indomaret Point?" Jason asked while tapping on the table, again drawing Helena's attention to him. "So, how is it?" Contrary to his previous words, seeing Helena silent, Jason opened the bottle seal and put it back just like that. "Drink first, okay?"

Helena took out a box of contraceptives she had bought and put it on the table.

And it managed to make Jason gape in disbelief. "Helena..."

"Not yet," said Helena. "I haven't used it yet." Helena tries to erase Jason's bad thoughts about her.

"Did you catch him cheating before using this?" Jason pointed at the damn thing.

"Is he cheating?" The real question falls to herself.

"What?" Jason was leaning forward. "Girls. Late nights come to men's apartments. Greeted with affection--"

Helena looked at Jason. If she didn't see it right away and hear from other people like she usually does, Helena could say 'maybe she heard wrong or got the wrong person. However, she knew very well that Nathan's hand stretched out from inside the door and grabbed the woman's arm before pulling her inside.

"Helen, please this time... if you're not smart, at least don't be so stupid."

"In Nathan's room there is a photo of the two of us, he put it on the wall near the bed."

"So?" Jason still looks annoyed when he hears that Helena is still impressed by denial. "Helen, when she's arou--sed," Fadhil cleared his throat, replacing it with a word that he thought was more polite. "If he's already lustful, how do you remember that there's a picture of your face in his room? Even as big as the door, he won't see it. Your face is blurry."

"But--"

"I'll go if it's still a but-but." Jason got up from his seat while pointing at Helena's face, then he frowned when he heard the screams of a boy on the right side which was greeted by laughter from his friends. "Can't we just move from here? Do we have to hang out with FF kids here?"

Helena is relieved to see Jason finally sitting back down.

"Helen, your decision is correct--Oh, no. I don't mean to justify your attitude of buying these damn rubbers and returning to Nathan's apartment. I mean, at least that way you can know Nathan's behavior that you have never known all along."

"So?" Helena's head was just a useless lump of jelly now.

"You still ask, what should you do?" Jason pulled the packaged tissue from his plastic shopping bag and threw it on the table. "Break up, Helen. It's okay for you to cry. It's normal for you to cry, isn't it? It was a waste for me to buy this!"

Helena once accidentally found a message containing the word 'Dear' from an unknown number that appeared in Nathan's cellphone notification pop-up. Ever come across a snippet of a direct message 'Yes, honey.' when Nathan forgot to log out of his Instagram account on a PC that she happened to borrow. Then some people told her Nathan was driving a girl A, or B, or...

"Now you see with your own eyes. Not what I said, not what your other friends said," said Jason. His voice was lowered. "There's no reason to pretend you don't know like you usually do."

All that information, like chalk scraping a board, which she would erase herself in that second. Then she would forget about it. Because... "I don't know what it would be like without Nathan."

"You'll be fine." Fadhil tries to convince him. "Helena, whom I used to know, her life is fine without a human named Nathan," he mumbled later.

Unfortunately, the old Helena had changed when she met Nathan. Nathan makes Helena only live in his world. Nathan pulled Helena into a room that seemed safe to watch his friends move outside.

"Helen, there's me, there's Jessy, there are the others. We'll hear your sadness, we'll help you with your difficulties, and you're never alone. So far you don't only have Nathan."

Helena is still looking at Jason.

"We never left, Helen."

Yes, they never left, Helena who had been away all this time.

"Helen."

Helena grabbed her cell phone which had been lying on the table. Her cell phone turned on, her finger went to Nathan's contacts, and pressed the call icon. A man's face appeared on the screen.

Long. A few moments passed without a response, until finally. "Hi, darling."

This time Helena hated the greeting, Nathan used it not only for herself. "Hello?"

Nathan was heard breathing heavily. "Sorry, honey. I'm really tired. What's wrong?"

"Tired?" Helena muttered.

"Yes." Nathan's voice sounded shaky, replaced by short breaths. "When you get home, I go straight to the gym."

Had she always been fooled like that? It must have sounded nice to him when Helena believed what was said. "Nathan..."

"Yes? Why? Have you arrived home?" he asked. "Well, don't worry about it. I'm fine. We can try another time. Okay? Until you--"

"We broke up." The first word, she still sounded ordinary.

"Why?"

"We're breaking up." And now the weak vibration of his voice accompanies the teary eyeballs. Helena hung up the phone. Put the cell phone in any place. Pain hit her then, as her face lowered, her tears fell slowly, heavily later.

"It's okay, Helen. It's okay to go through a breakup that hurts like this once in your life, rather than sticking with the wrong person forever." Jason opened the tissue packaging. "The tissue I bought is finally used."

****