I drank the last of the lemon teas you gave me this morning. I gulped it down without either the usual feeling of happiness or sadness; the only reason why I drink that lemon tea. But rather, this time I drank it feeling a bit of hope. Little did I know that it was a premonition for things to come…

I’m always glad to see you when we meet up. Somehow, just the sight of you lightens up everything, and the worries of the world seem to vanish along with smiles we greet each other with. And so I thought today would be like any other day that we meet up, and yet the surprise just came out of the blue:

“This is your last day”, you nonchalantly told me. And it sounded so cool and casual that to you it was just a notice for me for the end of the academic help I had given and grown accustomed to over the past months. I knew it would come sooner or later, the time wherein all this would end… but I must admit I didn’t expect it to be this soon.

In reply, I smiled back at you and didn’t say anything, even if the sadness was slowly swelling inside me already. To keep the sorrow at bay, I rationalized that it is the best for you for I couldn’t possibly compare to a person with a degree on that subject, and I understood that your mom probably feels so embarrassed already with me always helping you almost thrice a week.

Sometimes after a hard day’s work, somehow I think of what it would be like if I just head home and rest. But despite the fatigue, stress and lack of sleep, I was never happier than to know that I was being there for you when you needed me. Though my body complained, the time spent with you more than compensated for any good night’s sleep.

And this coming week, I will no longer get a miss call from you after office hours. I will no longer stand outside to wait for you while your car passes to pick me up. I won’t hear your stories, or see how your day went (if it was “just normal” or not). We won’t eat dinner together… or joke around while we try to decipher the accountant’s secrets and the statistician’s sordid ways. There won’t be emoness in the air and everything… everything will just seem bleaker.

“This is your last day.” To you it was just the end of my help, but to me it probably would be the end of how our lives crossed… Yes, we will still be there for each other, but the time we have together now has gone… I will miss everything, terribly miss everything, even down to the corniest of our jokes and the deepest of our conversations…

This was my last day… and I could never have been happier for the time you gave me… and yet pardon me, but it is the sadness of knowing that those days will be gone that envelopes me right now.

And now looking back, I wonder as to the meaning of hoping as I drank the lemon tea this morning… had it really been for hope? Or was it for the sorrow I now feel?