The sun was setting over the horizon and it illuminated the sky with an orange intensity. The once blue ocean now looked like it was covered with pale-red sparkling diamonds.

The sea breeze kissed her cheeks and the scarf she loosely wrapped around her neck is now bobbing in the water like a lazy leaf dangling on a branch in autumn.

She stared at it and contemplated if she should pick it up.

Then her mind went back to exactly a week ago at the exact same place she stood now.

She had her eyes closed and felt the soft, silky touch of the pale-blue scarf as he wrapped it around her neck.

"I thought it would look beautiful on you," he said. Then he stared into her eyes and at that moment she felt as if he went down into her soul and released her from the prison she has built to protect her from the greatest hoax on Earth - Love.

She never believed in that emotion. She never really believed that it ever existed. All she knew - or rather, all she wanted to believe in - is that love is nothing but a mere fantasy little girls read in fairy tales and books. She wasn't a little girl and she didn't want to deal with that emotion for as long as she could.

Love, to her, is a short-term stupidity and that makes the people involved vulnerable like an open wound exposed to dirty water. She didn't want that for herself. She knew the consequences and would rather be safe than sorry.

The gentle swaying of the soft wave brought her back to the setting of the peaceful sun.

So she let the scarf float. She stood there and watched it drift away with the tide and hopes that it will find solace in the world we now recognise as something that can expose us to the harsh reality that exists.

Siti