i've moved on (denial)

*239 days after love*

I’m sitting in the backseat of a car, on my way home from the airport, chewing on mint gum and trying not to vomit from my hangover.

I used to travel a lot without you. And when I do, you never fail to pick me up from the airport. Your presence at the arrival bay is always a given, flowers in one hand and a sign on the other that says "I MISS YOU”.

The first time you did that, I just survived 26 hours of flights and layovers. The moment I got inside your car, you pulled me in for an intense makeout session, as if to prove just how much you missed me. You tell me how glad you are to see my “beautiful face” beyond a screen. And you said it so genuinely that even if I knew I looked like shit, I couldn’t help but believe you.

I’d never really been interested in visiting Japan until I met you. I loved to travel. You didn’t - but Japan was your exception. So I bought us tickets to Japan as much as I could.

I learned to love Japan. In the same way, you slowly learned the joys of discovering new places.

I now think of places in seasons. We learned how to ski together. We had a fight at Disney Sea because it's hard to have fun on a hot summer day. I forced you to take so many photos of me at Gion until I got the perfect burnt orange foliage background.

Love hotels. Discounted supermarket bentos. Shinkansen rides. Midnight izakaya runs. Stuffing our backpacks with convenience store onigiris.

For years, Japan was “ours”.

But I just spent two weeks in the land of the rising sun - and all I could think of is how much I can't believe I was there without your hand holding mine.

I’m an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of person. I can move on from things in a jiffy. And maybe right now you believe I’ve already erased all traces of you in my system. But we’ve been officially done for a while now and I still chew on mint gums during flights back to Manila for kisses I won’t get anymore.

All I know is that I’m sitting in the backseat of a car from the airport, trying not to vomit from my hangover. The mint gum is helping.

A little bit.

Maybe.

I don’t really know.

'i've moved on' is for the sad girls after getting their hearts irreparably shattered.

scent strength guide

perfume oil