She Never Liked the Numbers.

I never liked numbers for most of my life. Yes, the math kind. And yes, the kind that show up in every meaningless small talk — the how much, how many. How old am I? How much did I score on the test? How many kids do I want? How many steps did I achieve today? The 642 calories in a nasi bebek. A freaking 55 thousand rupiah for a single cup of coffee? How much IV fluid has filled up my body every two weeks? How often do I play music when I feel like the world is caving in? How many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years can I handle being with Him?

Numbers never stop. They pile up, tick forward, demand answers. But He is the only one who quiets them all. He never asks me how much or how many. Just one simple how, that is: How was Your day?

In the endless noise of numbers and meaningless exchanges, I found myself waiting — hoping — that just once, he would break the cycle. That instead of another metric, another tally, another fact to be recorded, he would simply ask me the only question that truly mattered. But he never did.

The world around me remained relentless in its counting. Steps taken, hours worked, messages sent, moments lost. Conversations came and went, filled with figures and fleeting details, yet never once did they pause for the one thing I longed to hear. I carried the weight of unspoken words, of days that stretched between us like unwritten pages, waiting for him to notice that beneath all the numbers, beneath all the calculations, there was just me — aching to be seen beyond the measurable.

And so, the days continued, marked not by the passage of time but by the silence between us. He asked everything but the one thing that would have unraveled me, the one thing that would have made all the numbers finally, blessedly, quiet.

How many times would I let this slide? How many times would I let my lovely best friend do this to me?

Hey. As I said, I hate numbers. I don’t want to count. I don’t want to know — as if I don’t want to know how many months I spent waiting for him to ask me “Will you be my girlfriend?”. I don’t want to sit with the math of it — the calculations, the answers, the numbers, the truth spelled out in figures too clear to ignore.

So, screw it. He’s my best friend — my Ride or Die. And it’s easier — quicker — if I just say,

“Hmm, jalanin aja kaya gini dulu.”