By WSM
Poor little thing. That phrase was what most people would say, or had that look on their faces when I told them I was betrothed to the man who was currently my arranged marriage partner. I was not bothered much by their mock sympathy towards me, because they were saying those out of mere judgment from what they saw on the outside. I was no stranger to my husband; I knew him more than anyone, or that was what I hoped, at least. Or more like, I knew a fragment of his life better than anyone else.
Atlas was my childhood friend. Though it was probably more like I was the one who clung onto him like a leech, certainly not in a bad way. I considered him one of my dearest friends at that time, and he never seemed to hate the idea of me hanging around him. He was a gentle soul despite his large and rough appearance, which also made people around him misunderstand him almost all the time.
I was one of them too, at first. When he approached me with that frown he had on his face, eyebrows knitted, he stared at me intently as if I were a dirty rat when I fell off my bike at the side of the road near his cottage house. His intention was only to help me, but for some reason, his face was so tense. I only knew later on that he made that kind of face whenever he felt pity for someone. It was a bit hilarious to recall the moment I got so scared by him, thinking that the roadside was his property for a second, only for him to silently help me and my bike up. Ever since the incident, I have been stuck to him like glue, deliberately riding my bike near his cottage in hopes of meeting him every day. We were 12 at that time.
But fate was not on our side. Even though I tried my best to enroll in the same high school as him, he went to study abroad, far from our home to pursue engineering. We parted ways without a proper goodbye, and our little story ended just like that. It felt silly whenever I reminisced about our times together, although it was just me annoying him on a daily basis, and he pretty much went along with it.
As I grew into an adult, those memories seemed to fade away until I completely forgot how he looked, how his voice sounded, and how his eyes twinkled with amusement for a fleeting second when I made a fool out of myself in front of him. I became an average farmer, just like my family ordered me to. I didn’t realize how long I had been working like a slave, but when my parents pressured me into getting married, I was already nearing my 30s. A woman of this age, unmarried and not even dating would only be looked down upon by society, my mother said. What she didn’t know was that nowadays most ladies my age were just like me, and it was perfectly normal to be single, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that to her face, so I decided to just find a marriage partner; anyone would do.
But of course, it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. I tried everything from dating apps to physically flirting with random men I found; nothing worked, and at one point I was beginning to give up on entertaining my mother’s wish. Until one fateful day when the sun’s blinding light was blocked by the moon, I was just heading to town, trying to grab lunch as I rode my bike, when the sky suddenly dimmed. I didn’t remember being informed about an eclipse occurring that day, but maybe I was lucky enough to witness it right before my eyes (I didn’t try to blind myself by looking at it directly, for sure).
Alas, I was clumsy enough to space out in the middle of the road, and I fell yet again, landing perfectly on the soft bed of grass at the roadside. I didn’t know what overcame me back then because I just decided to lay there, not moving an inch. I even started to tear up a bit because I suddenly felt overwhelmed with self-deprecating thoughts since so many miserable things have happened to me lately. I cried my heart out during the eclipse until a shadow engulfed my entire being, covering me from the dim sunray.
“Athena?”
My body jolted in surprise upon hearing the distinct yet pleasant voice, and what greeted my field of vision after I looked up at the person bending down next to me certainly made my jaw drop as if I wasn’t on the ground already.
Those eyes. Those bluish-green eyes that had a lighter-coloured ring around the black pupils. It was as if I were staring at the eclipse itself, except that this one wasn’t harmful to look at. Those breathtaking pair of eyes that always managed to make my breath hitch at one glance belonged to none other than...
“Atlas…?”
He seemed to be surprised that I could say his name and recognize him almost instantly. It was right for him to feel that way though, because his appearance compared to when we last saw each other was like night and day. If he looked like a snobbish young boy, chubby and a total loser in the past, now he looked like a man from the high class, an aristocrat even, with his black suit and slicked back hair complimenting his features that seemed to enhance in adulthood.
His face tensed up a bit, and I knew by that expression alone that he was starting to feel pity for me.
“What are you doing out here during this hour? You’re not supposed to be outside,” he said while briefly helping me up, just like how our first meeting went, and it kind of choked me with nostalgia for a second.
“Lunch,” I replied shortly with a stupid grin on my lips, getting up with his help. I immediately brushed my clothes that had a bit of dried grass on them in a feeble attempt to make myself look good in front of him. But I forgot about the tears that were all over my face.
With a sigh that I wasn’t sure out of amusement or disappointment, he shook his head gently before staring into my eyes again with a look I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.
“You haven’t changed.” An unexpected smile wormed its way up on his lips as he brought his fingers to gently wipe my face, and I was so caught off guard by it that I became as still as a statue. “You’re still the clumsy Athena whom I knew back then,” he added with a soft chuckle, and if I didn’t know any better, it was as if he was treating me with a certain fondness.
Was this really Atlas in front of me? The one who used to smile only once in a blue moon? Now he seemed so... sweet and dignified, and it definitely didn’t help that my feelings for him that I buried long ago were starting to resurface once more.
“Marry me,” I blurted out of nowhere after a few seconds of just staring at him with a dazed look. By the time I realized how I made a fool out of myself right after not even a minute passed since our reunion, the moon was no longer blocking the sun that was beginning to shine brightly again, highlighting his radiant eyes that gleamed with utter shock.
Embarrassed to death, I tried to play it off by letting out a forced laugh, and raised my shoulders, almost in a nonchalant way to hide how much cringe I had in my body. “Just kidding! Not a good joke, I know—”
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
“Yes.”
Silence engulfed both of us right away, with just the buzzing sounds of a few cars on the street beside us passing by accompanying our awkward expressions. Only after we were staring at each other for a whole minute, unblinkingly, did I open my mouth again.
“What do you mean yes?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” Atlas replied instantly as if it were already a known fact, and what made me further puzzled was that he looked and sounded eerily calm with that sentence he uttered, as if my sudden proposal was a perfectly normal thing to ask to someone they just met after years of no contact.
“But we—”
“I was on my way to your house. To propose.”
“Huh?”
And that was how our confusing ‘arranged’ marriage began.
However, as absurd as it may sound that my marriage would be as sudden as this, it wasn’t entirely that bad, but I wouldn’t say it was fantastic either. If people thought my marriage would be all lovely and sweet just because I married my childhood sweetheart, well, they were wrong. The only knowledge I had of Atlas was during his adolescence, and who knows if he already grew out of everything I knew about him, like how he had a habit of biting his nails when he was anxious or how he would actively avoid getting any milk from entering his stomach.
Maybe marrying a person I only knew a part of wasn’t the best idea, but I didn’t really want to think much about it when there were always voices screaming in my ears to find a husband, and every effort I made into throwing myself into a marriage was in vain. With Atlas, at least I knew what to expect, but it seemed that my idiotic thinking was proved wrong almost instantly after a few weeks of us living together. Yes, that was what best described our situation; we were just a man and a woman who happened to be bound by a certificate and lived in the same house together, minding our own business while doing the bare minimum expected of a married couple.
Atlas did his corporate job from eight to five every day and continued his side hustle of working as a part timer in a cafe his friend owned, while I was out all day tending to my farm. The only time we would meet was at the break of dawn, exchanging glances and sometimes a few words if something urgent came up. Most of the nights, the other side of our bed was empty, and I never recalled ever getting into bed with him or waking up to find him the first thing in the morning. We lived like that until I felt like I was better off single again, and the worst part was that the neighbourhood we resided in had a bunch of nosy and busybody people, so they were always up on our noses by asking personal questions.
But one thing I overheard them say that made me stay in this marriage, despite how bleak it was, was the fact that Atlas changed a lot when we got married. I was just passing by with my laundry basket in my arms, trying to get down the stairs, when I overheard some aunties mention Atlas in their heated gossip session. I immediately stopped in my tracks and kept myself out of their vision, but close enough to let their annoying voices reach my ears.
I could catch some of their sentences; “That mess of a man looked better now, don’t you think? Ever since that girl became his wife, I’ve never seen him hanging around the balcony to smoke in those ugly shorts again. He used to be such an eyesore, but now he looked like a gentleman. Who knew he could look like that?”
Well, I didn’t want to brag and blow my own trumpet, but thinking that I had that much effect on Atlas was quite satisfying. Because I, for one, never thought that he even had those habits before we got married. It made me kind of want to ask him about that or even more, just to know how he lived all these years when we were far from each other—if he ever had an ounce of feeling for me, like I had been for him. But now that we were finally together, I didn’t know how to light up the spark we once had.
Until I found myself forced awake in the middle of the night, and the first thing that assaulted my hearing sense was the sound of deafening thunder. Stretching my stiffened body on the bed, I took a deep breath, and my eyes settled on the pitch black sky through the window beside me. Even the weather was not on my side tonight—sleeping alone in this bed devoid of the warmth from a husband with the thunderstorm raging outside. The harsh sound of droplets hitting the roof was like punishing rods, as if they were getting angry on my behalf.
For some reason, I woke up feeling irritated the first thing since I was so sure I was sleeping alone again, and the thunder that kept on roaring in the sky added to my agony. Seeing the lightning blind my vision for a split second multiple times was not a pleasant sight, and I rolled my body to the other side in hopes of hiding myself under the blanket, cupping my ears. But when I moved my hands around on the mattress, I could feel a figure right beside me at my fingertips, and it almost made me yelp in surprise.
Wait. I wasn’t sleeping alone after all. My eyes widened as they slowly adjusted to the dark, and what greeted my vision completely baffled and relieved me, as if the dissatisfaction I held towards my husband and the thunder vanished completely. Atlas was really sleeping beside me, and only then could I hear his faint breaths, which was enough to make me focus on him alone and drown out the harsh sounds of the thunderstorm. My body instinctively leaned closer towards his forearm, which was the closest to me—probably out of desperation to get a sense of comfort when I was facing my worst fear.
A breath of relief escaped my quivering lips when my forehead gently came into contact with his skin, and I could only pray that he wouldn’t stir awake and find me being so close to him uncomfortable. My eyes slowly fluttered shut again, as if this little physical contact I had with him was reassuring my whole body and-
“You’re still afraid of thunder, huh?”
My head immediately jerked backwards when a gruff voice and a soft sigh suddenly piped up as I was just about to drift into dreamland. Please don’t tell me Atlas was awake all this time…
Before I was able to think of a reply to explain or even save my face, a heavy, large, yet gentle arm snaked towards the back of my head, bringing me closer towards him in a swift motion. In just a blink of an eye, my face was pressed against the crook of his neck, which only made my whole body freeze. This was probably the closest I had been to Atlas.
“It’s okay; I’m here now. The thunder won’t be able to harm you, Athena.” He said it softly to me, almost whispering. Maybe he could feel me trembling slightly at that moment, so everything he did or said was as gentle as it could be.
“You... remember that?”
“Of course I do,” Atlas replied, and I could hear a faint smile in his voice as the hand on the back of my head started to caress my hair. “I’d be a fool not to remember every single thing about my wife.”
“But you—”
“I know. I haven’t been a good husband to you. But Athena, my sweet, tender, supple love of mine, believe me when I say I care about you more than you ever know.”
My body tensed up at the sudden (and corny) confession that I almost thought that the man in front of me wasn’t Atlas, but his voice, his little Northern accent, his rough yet tender fingers raking through my hair—everything confirmed that he was Atlas, but to hear him uttering these warm words was quite out of character, especially with how our relationship was after getting married. Was it because he knew I was feeling vulnerable, or was it because he was simply in an affectionate mood? I always knew he was gentle, but still, it was hard to believe that he had this loving side to him, and I really had no idea how to react to this situation.
Atlas was probably aware of how dumbfounded I became, as his words were only met with silence for a good minute. There was another movement from him, and my whole body ended up being wrapped tightly in his embrace.
“I am truly sorry for not showing you what I felt all this time, and I know my apology won’t be enough.”
My body was still unmoving, but the more he spoke and apologised, the more I felt the need to shut him up since it wasn’t entirely his fault. I didn’t really like it when someone was painting themselves in a bad light, especially if they acknowledged their mistakes, and hearing my husband being like that was quite heartbreaking, in a way.
After a while, the hands on my sides finally moved as I returned the embrace, wrapping my arms around him as well, hoping he wouldn’t continue with his self blaming tendencies.
“It’s alright; you don’t have to apologise,” I whispered against his neck—my voice was a bit muffled and I hoped he could hear me. “Let's just... sleep, for now, okay?”
Atlas sighed and gave me a faint smile as I could feel the muscles of his jaw moving, his warm breath lightly caressing the top of my head.
“Okay,” he simply replied, though I knew he wasn’t disappointed by my subtle dismissal of the issue between us. It was late at night, the storm was still raging, and we were both probably too tired to hold a proper and serious conversation. It just wasn’t the right time.
“Goodnight,” I said to him, squeezing him a bit to make sure he knew I had no hard feelings for him.
“Goodnight too. Don’t let go of me, alright?”
I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at his request, finding it somehow adorable now that he was starting to be clingy. Maybe he was feeling vulnerable too, and I felt touched by his willingness to show me this side. There was hope after all for our relationship.
“Never.”
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