It was still drizzling as we were nearing the school, my Booty and I. Five hundred meters from the school gate, the traffic was a lot more ridiculous than just ridiculous. So Kitreena and I sat in the car holding hands listening to Miley Cyrus, track number seven on repeat, looking out to see nothing much except for a gentleman and his daughter walking in the rain.
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When they suddenly stopped in their track, Kitreena and I almost synchronously sat up to see what they were going to do next. The Korean Daddy handed the umbrella to his girl and almost effortlessly swooped her off her feet and carried her across the street with one hand, carrying her school bag with the other. Miss Princess helped holding the umbrella for Mr. Daddy. And when they got to the other side of the street, Mr. Daddy put the girl down and they carried on the last few hundred meters hand in hand smiling.
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Kitreena looked at me and I pretended not to see the tears in her eyes. For a few seconds that felt like one complete circle of four leap years, I took a deep breath and bent down looking for the Kleenex box. If it wasn’t because of the closed windows, I would have thought it was the rain that drizzled on our face this morning. And so I had two pieces of Kleenex in my hand.
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All I could think to say to Kitreena was, “I can love you like that, Monch.”
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