“what happens after”

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I drove to my friend’s house for lunch, unaware that I was already stepping into life after a near-death experience.
We’d agreed to meet. It was on the list.
My last few days in Asia were just that, a list.
A blur of scheduled goodbyes and check-ins, people I needed to prove I still cared about.

I went mostly out of obligation, but honestly… showing up always felt easier than not.

I didn’t realise it then, but this is what life after a near-death experience feels like: that strange mix of gratitude and numbness,
the way everything feels precious and slightly out of place,
like my life had a minor glitch and no one else seemed to notice.

Her kakak made my favourite dish, hot, fragrant rice with fish sambal that punched exactly where it should.
And I devoured it.
(Which made no sense, because I’d just come from a bottomless brunch. Maybe almost drowning burns calories.)

My best friend wasn’t even home. She didn’t know I’d be dropping by. I’d planned it with her mother-in-law, and her husband happened to be around too, which only made the moment feel more… misaligned. Like the friendship itself.

We were complicated by then, two avoidants pretending we weren’t drifting, acting like the distance didn’t sting when it absolutely did.

Still, I showed up.
That was the script.

Everything felt familiar but… off.
The furniture. The dogs.
Even the fluorescent light felt harsher than I remembered.

I used to come here after school, hiding from the version of myself I had to be at home.
If I got back before six, I could dodge my dad’s disapproving look,
the one that always said out again?

Lunch was served.
And of course I told them about almost drowning.
Casual. Like it was comedy.
Like a funny scene in a movie I wasn’t sure I survived.

Aunty laughed, somewhere between amused and uneasy.
Typical Mimi, the wild one.

Except I was never wild.
Just curious. Restless.
Trying to behave, even when it didn’t look like it.
Different standards, I guess.

The days blurred after that.
I wrapped up my little Asia trip and flew back to California,
another new-old life waiting.

I met up with some London friends who’d just moved here.
Lunch again. A repeat scene.
Different hemisphere.

And of course, the drowning story came up.
This time, I wasn’t even trying to be funny;
the humour just slipped out of habit,
my defence mechanism stepping in like it always does.

But they didn’t laugh.
He didn’t, at least,
the guy with the piercing blue eyes that reminded me too much of the water.

He looked straight at me, right through the noise, and said,
“You know this is your second chance in life, right?”

Everything froze.
A jolt ran through me, sharp, bright, almost ugly.
Because he was right.

Then he just… moved on.
Back to small talk.
Back to normal.

“If you could do life all over again, what would you do differently?”

Everyone answered, some serious, some joking.
I smiled along, but my mind was elsewhere,
still stuck on the part he’d said out loud that I’d been avoiding.

I wasn’t ready to move on,
but I also wasn’t about to unpack it at a table of acquaintances.

The weight in my chest didn’t move.
It stayed.
Pressed in.

The question lingered long after the plates were cleared:

What am I doing with this borrowed time?