It started with a longing glance.
You always had a thing for brooding and mysterious souls. You were reviewing for Criminal Law in the school cafeteria when you noticed him staring at you. He was at the other table reading a magazine on Psychology (of all things). He was wearing a gray sweater and stone-washed jeans. You try your best not to be fazed by his visual assault, so you continue memorizing your mnemonics while you pleaded to the heavens to have a good recit day. As you were about to finish the annotations on Estafa, you noticed him standing up and about to leave.
“Wait! Don’t go just yet! I wanna get to know you. You intrigue me.”
That was what you wanted to tell him but just like any typical and conservative Filipino woman, you exercised the art of self-restraint and kept to yourself. As he was walking out the door, you look at him for one last time. He briefly glances at you. And like a skillful artist you flip your hair and give him that well-rehearsed shy but sweet smile. (A skill you have mastered since you discovered that it disarms men and leaves them off-guard). You could see from the reaction on his face that he was pleasantly surprised. And as they say, the rest was history.
He was a fair man. No initial physical attraction. He was neither dashing nor debonair. Not that he was unfortunate looking or anything. He just did not fall within the mental list of ‘qualifications’ you have long crafted in your head since you were twelve. You wanted to marry a rock star or an artist. Either that or a business mogul. Nothing in his appearance reflected those set of ‘qualifications’. He was an ordinary bloke. But boy oh boy, did you fall ever so quickly. He was witty and quick to think on his feet. In him you saw a charm you have long been searching for in a man. The two of you had a wavelength that was made for bestselling romance novels and Hollywood movies.
You were not each other’s mirror, but together you were each other’s opium- ready to nourish, intoxicated by each other’s touch, and tongue and taste.
But somehow, things got awry. Souls were shattered. You realized that you were simply each other’s convenience store – ready for the taking, always consuming everything.
On the third month of exclusivity, the dates became less and less frequent. He always had an excuse for not spending time with you. And so you pored over legal provisions. The study of law and painting became your outlet.
Most men never initiate a break-up because they believe it is the more chivalrous thing to do. They will always wait for the woman to grow tired of them until she finally decides to end the relationship, be it exclusive or otherwise. But that is not chivalry. Sweeping things under the rug is perhaps the most cowardly thing a guy could do in a relationship. As you instigated the obvious, you decided to salvage the friendship. A thing you have never done with your other exes.
Barely a week after the pseudo-breakup, you saw him on a date with another woman. They were waiting in line to watch 500 Days of Summer. Suddenly, the lyrics to an Alanis Morissette song popped in your head, “Another version of me eh, Mr. Duplicity? It was a slap in the face, how quickly I was replaced. Coz the love that you gave that we made wasn’t enough for you to be open-wide.”
At that very moment, everything he said to you was nullified.
“You know how I believe in God? It’s because of people like you.”
“But I’m just a spectator and you are the player in this game called ‘your life’. I am not allowed to enter the game, but I’m allowed to cheer from the ring side. I can feel the blows you receive. I can feel the joys of your momentary success. It’s because I placed a bet on your victory the moment we became friends.”
“There is nothing you can say to me that can ever make you lose me.”
You pretended not to see what happened. But you drove home with a bag full of regret and nausea.
You have always believed that there is a thin line between decency and hostility. The former was always the general rule. You always took it upon yourself to be at peace with everyone. But how will one know when enough is enough? Respect and decorum are always a required minimum and when the two are breached, something’s gotta give.
The very first travesty incurred was during a birthday celebration of a mutual friend. It was a scene of revelry and merry-making that ended in utter shock, when he and his new flavor of the month, French-kissed right in front of you. That was perhaps the longest five seconds of your life. But you took the high road of decency. That was the very first death he inflicted upon you. It was an unlawful aggression, so to speak. You deserved the right to defend your honor and make a scene in front of everyone. In your head, you were already throwing beer bottles at the two of them, ramming their heads against a wall. But you decided to plead the fifth (amendment). You remained quiet and pristine.
Notwithstanding that attitude of forbearance, he accused you of not being gracious under pressure. How wrong he was of you and how wrong you were of him. No, you don’t miss him. You miss the person he pretended to be.
A month passed and you found him running back to you and asking for forgiveness for that ‘dual allegiance’. And so the two of you decide to meet in your favorite nook. That café near school which serves flavored beer for less than fifty bucks and where Buddha was a permanent fixture.
You order the cheapest beverage around, brewed coffee – short in a tall, half decaf with frozen nonfat milk and two splendas. I guess that’s how you always were. Meticulous and wanting everything to be within your grasp and control. How badly you wanted him to be that cup of Joe – to be easily manipulated into loving you, abandoning his reason, abnegating all the pain from his past.
As you stir your coffee, you rehearse the very lines you were meant to utter to break his pride and to open his heart.
“I miss you. I miss us.”
“I was happy without you. But I was happiest whenever I was with you.”
“Ours will always be a never-ending story. For our chemistry will always be our poetry.”
Because we cannot help ourselves from thinking. So we draw and write fairy tales in our heads, and convince ourselves that he’s the one. But no, life is not a fairytale and we are not part of the Disney franchise.
He arrived with a casual grin and a nonchalant pose. His eyes that once reflected kindness now bore of detachment and apathy.
“It’s cold in here. Oh, it must be your heart,” you wanted to tell him but decided to keep it to yourself.
But decorum failed you that day. Long-held resentment began to flow through bitter words you thought you never had. “You know what your problem is? You never tell me anything, which hurt to the point that I can no longer bear.”
He snapped, “And I guess your problem is you say too much to the point that you make sure your words sting and leave a mark.”
“You know what’s worse than a jerk, David? It’s someone who pretends to be a good guy but who’s truly not. That is what you are. I don’t want anything to do with you, you spineless prick.”
And just like that, the proud face he always wore tore open and revealed that of a little boy, alone and afraid. He broke.
“You’re right, Talitha. I’m worse than a jerk. And I’m not a good person.”
“You made me realize something. Maybe that’s what keeps me depressed since my college days. I want to think I’m a good person. That I’m ok but the truth is, I’m not. I want to think I’m brave but I’m a coward. I want to think I’ m friendly but I’m an asshole. I’m just for show. Magaling lang akong makisama pero plastic ako.”
“The truth is, I hate myself. I cried so hard back when I was in high school. And I’m doing it again. I hate myself so much. I hate myself. And I never told anyone about this. I want everybody to love me because I don’t love myself.”
“I’m so full of inconsistencies. That’s probably why I was intimidated with you before because I was afraid you might see that flaw in me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to win you back. But I hope that you keep everything you’ve discovered about me to yourself. “
And before you could utter a word he said, “Sorry. You just hit a spot that I have long forgotten. And you shouldn’t be sorry. Somehow, I knew that it would end like this.”
And just like that, he left without even looking back. You suddenly found yourself puzzled, not sure if he deserved those words that triggered that long-forgotten pain of his. Perhaps, pain is a universal disorder.
II
One of the disadvantages (or advantages, depending on how one sees it) of being part of a small school is how quickly rumors spread like wildfire. You got hold of news that David was seen leaving a motel with one of your best friends in law school. A feeling of betrayal seeped through your veins. Out of passion and obfuscation, you texted obscenities and cursed the very day he was born.
Somebody should give him an award for Best Actor. For everything between the two of you was a lie. A sham. A fraud. Estafa.
Because your very wound spans back from that first contract: the meeting of the minds between body and soul, your flesh with his. But all things considered, you were to him voidable, dispensable. He trampled on your heart, instead of resuscitating it. The very soul you thought would be your lifeboat ended up drowning you.
In our story, we always see ourselves as the good guy, the protagonist, the victim, the damsel in distress, the underdog. We are neither antagonist nor the tormentor. Because we always find reasons to justify our pain in order to validate our actions. We will always convince ourselves that we deserve a taste of vindication and that our enemies are ripe for the killing (not literally of course. OR literally for the criminal minds).
We defensively whisper in our heads, “It’s my biography, I’ll write the pages of my life the way I see it.”
He texted back, “I don’t want to talk to you. I am not accountable for anything. Not to you. Not to anyone. We should just do the thing that makes us happy.”
You became angrier at yourself than with him. You punished yourself with booze and nicotine. You punished yourself by drowning. You hate yourself for not seeing it earlier on. For not seeing him for who he really is. But how can you have found out the real him if he does not even know his true self?
You found yourself driving in the city at dusk without any destination. Soul-searching and asking yourself if life is still worth living despite the maddening pain. Sleep became elusive and so you decided to go to your favorite café.
You sat outside the café and stared at the stars. The sight of it prompted you to write in your journal:
“The weather is gloomy. A reflection of my heart as the cloud perspires its sullen thoughts in drizzles and fog. How it carefully mirrors my pain. The departed monsoon is finally returning. To redeem or to withhold, I do not know. How I wish I could drain myself of fluid expectations of drowning.”
You stare at every single thing on display around you. The children playing in the fountain; your favorite acacia tree with its artful branches complementing the melancholy of the night; the coffee you slowly sipped; the couple sitting on the other table drinking strawberry beer and how their laughter and joy seemed to mock your hidden pain. And then it hit you. Every single motion, movement and action – every single thing reminded you of the days spent with him.
The children playing reminded you of how he used to tell stories about his childhood ever so fondly. And how amused you were of the provincial adventures he had as a kid, which you wished you had growing up in an urbane neighborhood.
The coffee reminded you of the many nights you spent in this very café on study dates and/ or casual dates, discussing nothing and everything. From the mundane to the deeper intricacies of life. The happy couple reminded you of the good times you shared and your first date in Tagaytay, over bottles of beer. You remembered how the alcohol you gulped seemed to warm your body during that almost impossibly cool weather during those –Ber months. But more than anything, his words and the wavelength you shared brought warmth to your cold soul.
Heartbreak is a pathetically funny thing. It can lead to either over-protection or promiscuity. The pain-seared individual begins to erect walls to avoid heartache. He fears intimacy and commitment. That or a life of promiscuity built on having casual fun with people without much regard to the repercussions. A life committed to pleasure.
You have become bipolar in your ways, becoming overly-protective and yet promiscuous. You never fully understood what you wanted.
As you were getting lost in your thoughts and memories, a familiar voice called out your name out of nowhere.
“Talitha!”
You notice a woman from afar in a pink floral dress with a teethy smile on her face.
As she was approaching, you realize that it’s your good friend, Estella. The two of you do the obligatory beso and small talk. Then she interjects, “Girl, what’s wrong? I notice that your aura is not well. Are you ok?”
As if on cue, your eyes, which for the longest time rallied not to proceed with the necessary waterworks resigned to fate and let the tears fall like dying petals. You told her everything. “I’m glad you’re here. I have kept this to myself for weeks and I have become such a wreck. Good thing you’re here. You’ve always been level-headed when it comes to these things.”
She assumed a pensive form, put her hand in yours, and gently spoke the words you’ve needed to hear but always rejected, “It’s not your fault. These things happen. We all feel the need to be validated. To feel loved. And even I am not immune to this. Sometimes, I just want to be with a man, even for the flimsiest reason of going out for movie and dinner.
“I remember what you texted to me a few days ago. That you finally decided to abnegate your will and let the Divine do its work in this area of your life. Perhaps, this is an answer to your prayer. I know you’ve been dreading this for the longest time. You were afraid of surrendering your will to Him for this very reason. That He will answer your prayer but not in the way you wanted.”
And then it dawned on you. It is not love if the man is driving you further and further away from the truth. He has written the very essence of your groaning. He has brought out the worst in you.
She added, “You need to forgive him. And more than anything, you need to forgive yourself. It is not your fault that you were abused. It is not your fault that you were treated as damaged goods. And there is nothing you can change to make a man love you even more or even less. It is not the way you dress, the way you wear your makeup, the way you speak. You do not need a boob job to get the man you want. Because the right man will love you to the core of your very being. He will peel every layer ever so gently until you are ready to reveal the real you hidden in that mask of shame, insecurity and abandonment. He will love you unconditionally.”
“All women deserve a happy ending. If not, a decent farewell. But the reality is, we live in a dying and decaying world full of imperfect people. Talitha, you made this person your whole world that you forgot the truth that no man can ever fill that void within you. Negative One plus Negative One does not result to Two. An imperfect being can never satisfy or complete another imperfect soul.”
“But what should I do? The pain is overwhelmingly real. I feel more broken than ever. “
“Run to God, Talitha. I’ve told you my story before, right? I had to die to myself first before I can truly live.”
“Mark this experience as a blessing in disguise. The end of a chapter and look forward to the unfolding of a new season in your life. And remember, life is not managed by our emotions. It is not dictated by the lies we exhale from our covetousness.”
“Thank you so much, Estella. You are an angel.”
“I’m always here for you. And let the pain be your muse. “ Estella said, as she looked at her watch.
“Dear, as much as I want to stay, I have to head to Cibo for a family dinner. If you need anything, just text me ok?”
You nodded and smiled. Her compassion never failed to uplift you.
After finishing your cup of Joe, you took that earthy brown tissue paper bearing the café’s name. There you wrote the final journal entry to the David Madness:
“To David,
Here’s to us. And even though we did not reach the finish line, we were bound to cross each other’s paths and be each other’s beacon of light. You have been the reliever of my torch whenever I stumbled or failed to run a steady line.
I have removed every inch of bitterness and anger hanging on my sleeve.
I have loved you through and through, with every fiber of my being. Or so I thought. I realized that you were just a challenge. A pill for my pride which ached for material consummation. The covetousness was disguised as unconditional love and the want was covered as need.
To my muse and our caffeinated epiphanies, and the countless nights we spent counting stars and drinking coffee as if it were our very savior.
Old wounds.
New wounds.
One soul.
Multiple deaths.
The day you told me to die, was the day I finally woke up.”
You stood up and tore the tissue into small pieces. Tossed it in the fountain where the children were playing and left.
