text: The stars are bright tonight. They shine so much brighter tonight because the whole city has been without electricity for almost 2 weeks now-an effect of the recent very devastating typhoon. But her eyes, though hidden behind her lids now as she takes shallow breaths beside me, are still the brightest. And I could stay in this moment forever if I could. Seal this (her, me, the skies, the lack of electricity, everything) in a capsule of a moment. "Hey", she whispers as she catches me watching her sleep. I used to blush and pretend to not have done what I was just caught doing. Now I just returned the greeting and kept watching her. So beautiful. She looked back up. At the sky. And I did the same. Just content in having her with me. Right now. In this moment. "What would you do if tomorrow, I told you that you only have 12 hours to pack your bags and decide whether to come with me somewhere far from here or not? No turning back. They'll hate us for leaving without a goodbye, anyway. We can't go back after leaving like that," she asked after a while. I was taken aback. She's always mentioned wanting to run away. But usually, she meant it as a thing she'd do alone. Never considered bringing me with her, she said. Never considered coming back for me either. So for her to say it like this took me by surprise. A bittersweet surprise. "I guess I can't really tell. Unless that time actually happens, that is," I replied. With that, she closed her eyes and slept again. I woke up the next day to find her gone. I looked for her around the place. I mean, she might have just woken up early and wanted to look around. So I checked the time first. On my phone. I saw that she left a message. Says she went home early to prepare for work. It only came to me then that today is Monday. So I went back home. It's 10 am. She'd have gone to work and been working for 1.5 hours now. I'll bring her some lunch instead and fetch her after her working hours. Today was good. I just dropped her home. We had a great dinner. Watched a movie even. I'll have to report back to work tomorrow too. God, I love her smile I called her phone this morning on my way to work. Make sure she wakes up early enough to at least shower. It didn't even ring. I'll drop by her place instead. It's only 6:40 anyway and I'll still be early if I took a quick detour to wake her up. Her door is closed. She must still be asleep. What a sleepyhead. 😅 I took the extra key from under the third cactus pot on her porch and sneaked in. This will be a good surprise. "Oh..." Her place is spotless. She's a bit OCD. But hella sleepy and lazy haha. She must have gotten bored. I sneaked into her room. Trying not to make a sound so I can make a good surprise. Everything is as they are. Except for the bed. That lay flat. "Oh.