When he snapped his finger, in a blink of an eye, he was already holding a small heart-shaped cake. There were also candles on top of it. It was… lovely. It was exactly like Grandma Violet’s cake that Alexandros brought earlier but that cake was three times bigger. Grandma Violet was the bubbliest and the funniest person in the entire facility.
“I know that we won’t always be this happy, but I wish we could still be together even if sadness comes our way, Alison. I wish we could still be together to face the challenges even if the smiles on our faces are already gone. I wish we could still be together to hold each other like this until we find the courage to smile again and to be happy again,” Alexandros whispered. “I wish that our love would be enough to lessen the pain that tomorrow might bring.”
I closed my eyes and made a wish, too.
“I wish we will be able to find a reason to continue in our darkest hours. I wish we will always look back on this day, on this very moment, and remember this hope in our hearts right now. And I wish that hope encourages us to carry on.” When I opened my eyes again, our gazes met. We understood each other right away. We blew the three candles together and smiled at the same time.
I will let myself worry tomorrow over the things he said. Today was still a beautiful day. And I don’t want to ruin it by worrying.
“Happy first month,” we both whispered after a while.
When the flames of the candles died down, the cake vanished.
“Oops. Sorry.” He smiled apologetically. “I told you, spells have limitations.”
I laughed and leaned on his shoulder. But the thing with the spell silently bothered me knowing that I could only look at the cake, admire its beauty and be tempted by it, but I would never have a taste of it. Because it was not real. Because it was just an illusion. It made me realize that magic was such a scary thing and so was the illusion. All the things that were not real were scary. But what scares me more now were the people who possessed magic. They could change or manipulate a mortal’s belief and even its whole life through a simple spell.
They could create a huge impact to anyone especially to average humans like me. It made me remember the things that happened to me and Alexandros when I thought that he was just a part of my dream.
The cake was an eye-opener of our countless differences that I tried so hard to ignore before. It reminded me that in a blink of an eye, I could lose everything. And when that happens, there was nothing that I could do.
“Alison?”
But then again, it was scarier not to be able to hear Alexandros’ voice. It was scarier not to try and to be trapped by the never-ending what-ifs afterwards. I can’t allow myself to be consumed by my fear. At least, our love was real. Our adventures were real. He was real. And it was all that should matter.
“The elders really adore you, you know,” I said to divert our attention to something else. “The grannies even told me that if only they have granddaughters, they would introduce them to you. But I told them not to do that.”
“That’s good.” Alexandros nodded. “I’m really not interested in knowing everybody but you. Why did you say that, though?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because you already belong to me. You are no longer available.” A naughty smile appeared on my lips. “About the doctors, I must admit, they are nice. And they are all good looking, too. Come to think of it, the grannies here are so lucky. This place was filled with so many good looking men today. But my head could only think of one good looking man that I know. And it’s you. Because you also have no idea how lucky it feels like to be your woman, Alexandros. Besides, when I talked to those guys, you were our only topic. We talked about how proud we are for having someone like you in our lives. So, don’t be jealous anymore, all right? Next time, don’t make me nervous again by saying there’s an emergency. Maybe you can try coming up with another excuse or…” I winked at him. “You can just try to be honest and tell me that you’re jealous.”
“I said I wasn’t,” he insisted, but without much conviction this time. After a few seconds, he scratched his head as if he was embarrassed and took a deep breath. “Fine, I was jealous. I always feel that way. But I couldn’t admit it even to myself. I didn’t know how I was able to hold it in before. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. Just like what I told you before, you can be whatever you feel like when you’re with me. Besides, you are cute when you are jealous, Xandros,” I added while laughing. “By the way, have you eaten? You’ve been gone for a while. I wanted to call you earlier but it seemed like you were having an urgent conversation with someone on your phone. Were you able to taste Grandma Violet’s cake? The real one?” I raised my thumb. “I’m telling you, it’s superb! It’s so delicious that you’d forget your name once you take a bite-“
Before I could finish my sentence, Alexandros grabbed my nape and passionately kissed me on the lips. My eyes went round. Whenever he would kiss me, I’d often feel like the world had stopped turning in all those years that I hadn’t seen him. It only turns every time our lips would meet like this. And each time, it was turning swiftly, leaving me craving for more.
Alexandros licked my upper lip, encouraging me to open my mouth more. And when I did, he pushed his tongue inside my mouth. Our tongues met and collided. I closed my eyes and held on to his shoulders. I feel like melting by the intensity of his kisses.