There are times in life when the universe goes out of its way to seemingly stop you from doing something you’ve planned. It might be as mundane as a traffic jam, or at times it might be as obvious as friends doing an intervention. Nevertheless, people do have these moments.

Sometimes, the universe does this because it knows we are about to do something terrible. Or perhaps it is trying to save us from a buttload of pain. Sometimes, the universe does this just to mess with us. Or perhaps to spice things up by giving us an obstacle to overcome.

The problem with such situations is figuring out whether the universe actually wants us to overcome the situation or heed the warning to go back. This is something we can only really fully determines in hindsight.

And if life taught me anything, it’s that hindsight’s a bitch.

* * * * *

It was already evening when the request to work on Saturday came to us. The people from other projects had already left the office, so I couldn’t tell either Vivien or Shirley about my predicament. So I was pretty much there all alone thinking of possible solutions.

I thought about saying no to the request, but it kind of felt like doing so was a one-way ticket to career suicide. Or at the least, I was slightly afraid that would reflect negatively on me and thus affect my future increase negatively.

So I had to get creative. Perhaps, I could make some kind of bargain? Like, I could tell my team leader that if they needed me, they could just give me a call and I would show up in the office within 10 minutes. Or I could just secretly sneak out of the office, and just hope they don’t look for me.

None seemed like a good idea. But then I thought that maybe I didn’t really need to come up with a contingency plan right then and there. Our work for Saturday was largely a standby, meaning that we would be for the most part waiting on our counterparts in another country to verify the functions that we implemented. It wasn’t like we had a lot to do; We’ll just be there in case something needs to be fixed.

So in essence, if nothing disastrous would happen on Saturday, then for all intents and purposes, we should be released from work fairly early enough. At least, that was the positive view on things. And hey, I wanted to think positively.

So deciding to put my hopes in the scenario that we would not need to work until the evening, I shot out a text message to both Vivien and Shirley telling them that I needed to work on Saturday but that I didn’t expect it to extend till the evening.

And if everything goes well, that just meant I would be quite early at the cinema since it was quite near our office.

* * * * *

So the next day finally came. It was the long awaited day for Eiga Sai. I was pretty excited about that day. Somehow, it felt like I was in high school again with all the butterflies in my stomach. I knew I was feeling quite silly, given that I was a full-grown adult. But that was reality, and I was enjoying the feeling.

I arrived early to work on that Saturday, hoping I could start doing whatever stuff I needed to do early so I could finish early. Our foreign counterparts did have a few things they wanted us to change and / or fix in the system, but overall they didn’t seem anything too drastic.

After going through their list of comments and identifying which items were mine, I quickly got down to business, hoping to finish all my items before noon.

* * * * *

“Carl,” our project manager Marianne, called out to my seatmate. “You don’t have any pending items at the moment, right?”

“Yeah, none,” Carl confirmed.

“Can you help check the comments assigned to Bertram? He won’t be able to come in today.”

“Okay.”

Damn it, I thought to myself, I could have been the guy who wasn’t in the office!

* * * * *

“Carl,” Marianne called out again. It was the second time within the hour that she visited our block. “Can you check the build script for the mobile component? Jay said it’s showing an error.”

“Okay,” Carl replied.

Hearing that, I got worried. It didn’t seem like just confirming that our individual functions didn’t have any problems was enough. It seemed like anyone not occupied would be asked to help out in other modules.

Sure, Carl might have been a bit too helpful. But he already set the precedent, and that would probably be expected from all of us as well going forward.

I could only hope that nothing goes bad in the entire system we implemented.

* * * * *

When lunch time arrived, I had managed to both finish up all my items and help other people with theirs as well. Feeling pretty good at our pace as a whole, I decided to have a quick lunch first while waiting for the verification of my items.

I decided to simply have a light lunch in a nearby fast food outside our office building. After all, I didn’t really want to feel bloated during that evening’s movie. Eating lightly before any major activity has been my thing since the past.

While eating, I enthusiastically simulated the things that would happen later that day, going through my plan over and over again. I spent roughly twice the time eating than what I would have any other day.

On my way back to the office, I received a text message from Shirley. Thinking that she was just confirming the plans for that day, I hurriedly read the message. It said:

v’s boyfriend might be joining us tonight… i’m not really sure but v mentioned something like he wants to join just now

* * * * *

Immediately after reading the message, a sudden heavy feeling bore down on me. It wasn’t so much that I felt lethargic, after all my heart was beating crazy at that moment. But it simply felt like something ominous was upon me.

I knew I had to calm down and think this through. At the very least, I didn’t want to remain standing at that moment for fear of my legs giving out one way or another. So I hurried back to the office to the haven of my chair.

There, after awakening my computer from its slumber, I stared blankly at the screen. There were a couple of messages in my inbox, most likely related to the items I just fixed earlier. But I was not in the mood to read them. Nor was I actually in any mental capacity to understand them. My mind was only occupied with one thing: the impending reality of Vivien’s boyfriend joining us.

* * * * *

If viewed objectively, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the scenario. It was just a movie after all. But I was incapable of being objective then. It was all about my heart screaming at how badly things were going.

I felt dejected. I felt betrayed. I felt as though the world was against me. Why was I given this chance, only for it to be taken away so grandly? I was already content to like her from afar, why did life have to still twist the knife? I never wanted to hope, but why did hope creep up to me only for the sake of inducing despair.

Even as I tried to insist to Shirley and to myself that it wasn’t a date, the fact is a part of me hoped it was a date. I wanted it to be a date. I had hoped that it could have been the start of something. Even though I was embarrassed to admit it, I still wanted her.

I wanted a villain in this story, just so that I can put all the negative emotions on that person. I wanted to blame someone, to be angry at someone. But there was no such villain.

Sure I could have blamed Vivien. Why did she agree to this movie in the first place? Everybody was already teasing me that I liked her. Surely she knew that. Why was she giving me false hopes? But the fact of the matter was that she did nothing wrong. I brought this to myself.

Could I blame Shirley for giving me all these weird ideas, all these unnecessary hopes? Perhaps. But she only did what she thought to be the best for both her friends. Ultimately I was the one who let this happen. I should have known better.

There was no one to blame but myself. Why did I allow myself to hope when there was nothing to hope about? I knew that the high road was to root for Vivien and her boyfriend, but then why didn’t I stay true to that?

The bottomline was that I had hoped that things would not work out between Vivien and her boyfriend, and I hated myself for becoming that kind of a person.

* * * * *

There was not much left in me at that moment. All the excitement, the anticipation and the sheer bliss vanished. I felt deflated. All that was left was hollowness. It just became a reality I had to face. If I had the option to do so I wanted out of the situation and simply go home and sleep.

There was not much left for me to do then but to simply drown myself in that afternoon’s work.

* * * * *

A glimmer of hope came to me later that afternoon at around 5 PM. It was an email sent to us by our project manager requesting as to hold on as they are discussing with our foreign counterparts on who needed to further stay in the office on standby.

That was my hope. Maybe, just maybe, if I was included in that list of people who needed to stay in the office until late into the night, then I would have the perfect excuse to beg off from the movie. For the first time ever in my life, I so wanted to work overtime.

* * * * *

But it was not meant to be. Later at around 5:30 PM, another email was sent listing down the names of the people who had to stay behind. I went through the list thrice to make sure, but sadly my name was not there. Never was the reality of early release pained me that much.

I had no other choice but to face the music.

* * * * *

So after reading the email, I stared blankly at my monitor for a few good minutes. Then I stretched at my seat. I decided to wipe some of the dust on my desk. I did a number of stupid random things just to kill time, hoping to tarry from leaving.

But Marianne soon came to our block, asking me if I’ve read the email saying that I could leave. I put on my best poker face, pretending all is well, and told her that I was just about to leave.

And with that, I slowly and begrudgingly packed up my stuff and left the office.

* * * * *

The walk from our office to the cinema house was roughly 10 minutes long. If I walked briskly, I could even probably reach there in 5 minutes. But I didn’t want to be there. So I tried to walk as slowly as I could. Perhaps if we were all late, then we wouldn’t be able to get any tickets for the movie and I’d be spared from that night.

But even walking slowly could only make the short distance last only 20 minutes.

* * * * *

It was a little past 6 PM when I arrived at the cinema house. If I could opt not to show up, I would, but then I wouldn’t really know how to explain things without implicating myself in something complicated. So I proceeded to queue up.

The queue was already pretty long when I arrived, so perhaps my hope that we wouldn’t get any tickets was still alive. I proceeded to the end of the line by my lonesome self, and soon enough a few people lined up behind me.

I decided not to message both Shirley or Vivien if they were already there. I figured, if they were already lining up in front of me, then they should just proceed. I would just use the excuse that I was not able to get any ticket. If they didn’t look for me, then all would be well.

I was grasping at straws on any chance that maybe there was a way out.

But there was none.

Slightly before 6:30 PM, I received a message from Vivien saying that she had met up with Shirley and that they were late but on the way. So in the end I was the earliest, and they would be looking for me in the queue.

At around 6:50 PM, the queue started moving. Tickets were already being distributed and people were already entering the cinema. My hopes were renewed. If my place in the queue reached the ticketing booth earlier than Vivien and Shirley’s arrival, then they would not be able to get any tickets, and the plan would go up in smokes.

But when I was a few meters away from the booth, Vivien and Shirley finally showed up. It was just the two of them. There was no boyfriend with Vivien.

Was I happy? No, not really. By that point I was already numb to everything. I already gave up my ability to feel that day.

And thus we proceeded to watch the movie that night, the three of us. But all feelings were already gone. I was simply at my best behavior to be as sociable of a person as I could be. At the end of it all, it was simply just a movie.

* * * * *

Later that night on my way home after parting ways with both Vivien and Shirley, I vowed to myself to never let this happen again. I vowed to finally let go of my longing of Vivien, even the tiniest thread of it.