marble

Two blocks from mine, to avoid the prying eyes of my older brother or father coming home from work. Your bike against the parallel yellow lines, with the spare helmet placed haphazardly on the edge of the seat.

There used to be another couple sitting on the ledge of 607, but we outlasted them. Maybe they broke up, or maybe they were platonic friends who found other people. Or maybe they just got bored of the mediocre view, the ordinary parking lot with hardly any wind.

In the beginning we sat on the kerb, where we had to keep shielding our eyes from the sudden headlights of cars turning in. Confusion and an identity crisis, when I told you not to fetch me from work like you usually would. But you showed up, a shadow on the ground before you pulled my shoulder and spun me around.

We talked it out, something I wasn't very familiar with. The argument closed when we leaned in to kiss, and the moment ended when a cockroach scurried past, along the kerb and somewhere among the grass.

Over time the marble table at 608 became ours. I have never seen anyone else sit there, not since we made it routine. Not even the one time I confidently declared out of the blue: I have a feeling that someone is sitting at our table right now.

But like magic after every trip to the minimart near my primary school, there it waits. There are always new cigarette butts around it, probably the only sign the table has of other occupants. Sometimes an empty pack or two is abandoned on it, prompting me to snort with disgust.

I will always sit facing the end wall, with you on my right. Your best friend joined us once; he had to sit opposite me. On another night, two of your secondary school friends visited, one of whom started smoking with you. I stood my ground despite the smoke wafting towards me, being seated between you two. This is my seat, I had whined like the 1995 kid I was to you guys.

The marble has seen enough of us, guests or no guests. From laughing at videos on Twitter to playing games we discovered from ads on Instagram. It's watched us down our lychee tea and milk coffee only a hundred times, while we rushed to decide the minute to leave.

Sometimes I liked to imagine the tiles of the chessboard holding pieces of our conversations. A black tile for the time we insisted on our own definitions of a 'half day'. A white for the time we talked about our fathers and their different ways of discipline. Another chipped tile for the night we sat there in silence, neither refusing to give in.

At the end of the night we always have to let go. It's never our home, this lonely table at this quiet void deck. When we're gone, or even before we frequented it, who knows the habits its occupants have. Who knows if there's some other couple or lonely old man out there who loves this sadness like I do.

Yet at the same time, I know each time I leave I never look back longer than I have to. A two-seconds glance just to make sure we haven't left anything behind, and that table will be off my mind until the next time you fetch me from work. Until the next time we are lost and have nowhere else to drink.

You have one last smoke, while I am already on my playlist, one bud hooked over an ear. You finish your cigarette, then the last bit of your tea before you dump our bottles into the recycling bin. I get up from your still bike, watch you strap on your helmet and get on it.

I balance along the edges of the kerb while you follow me on your bike, until we finally have to split paths. True that I will never once look back at it, but it is always then that I choose the marble table over which we talk, about the past eight hours and their little tests.