This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on September 30, 1999.
This is a story told a hundred times in many different ways. A story of romance and a lost love that never even took place even in the beginning. I am known as a typical young adult, carefree and free-spirited. Although armor-clad with friendly smiles and humorous antics, I too have a soft spot and am a sucker for that thing they call love. It all started with a breakup. I fell in love with a fellow student back in my freshman year in the Ateneo College.
My dilemma was that she was my best female friend in our group of neophytes in the college jungle. It was my first time to really court a girl seriously. Being 19 and never having had a real girlfriend was something out of the ordinary. I figured that it was time to get busy with courting and abandon the bliss for procrastination. ”GKG” was a very close friend of mine. She made me laugh as much as I made her giggle (since girls don’t really holler in humor). In a short span of time we became good friends and close buddies. There came a point where I would tell her all my mischievous escapades in and out of school that amused her very much. She eventually had a boyfriend and everybody seemed to have acquired the urge to join the bandwagon of being a couple. I too had someone to call my own partner to be seen with in and out of the campus.
Nonetheless, I still got to see GKG once in a while, if not every day. Her celebrated relationship with this other character became troublesome and everyone was affected since then. It was then when I knew that I felt something for her. It was more than just being there when she was lonely. I wanted to be with her, period. I started to give her flowers and I would just turn red whenever I confronted her. The old pal that she used to enjoy being with became this obnoxious guy with a nervous tick. GKG had an idea, but not enough to prosecute me as an official suitor. She became dubious of my unusual behavior and at the same time uncertain until the day I wrote her a letter as I fled to Davao for the weekend.
I never really knew how she reacted to my confession on paper but I had a feeling it was the only thing left to do. After coming back from Davao, I went straight to a party where GKG was also invited. After seeing her, we came near each other but not a word was spoken. We just exchanged glances and both our faces turned red. It was half-past midnight, she went to her car and headed home. Later that night I received a message on my beeper. It was from her saying that she wasn’t feeling well and she had the flu. My evening went from totally melancholic to not so, as she had the heart to tell me why I was almost ignored that night. My heart pounded but I still decided to finish what I had started. I called her up the day after and asked her if she wanted to go out for the weekend. She agreed only if her friends came along.
So we had a foursome date in Malate and it was there that the tables were turned. Our small group had the luxury of drinking out in Malate and Makati that Saturday night and everybody became a bit tipsy. On the way out, I came closer to GKG and tried to snuggle up to her while we were walking. Slowly out of reflex, I inched my fingers to her hand. I couldn’t believe it but soon I was actually holding her hand while walking! All our friends saw that we were intertwined and jeered at my supposed triumph. I looked straight into her eyes and said those three words that men dare not say–and then she kissed me.
She actually kissed me and my world just belonged to her from that moment on. I just wish that night never ended. It’s a real mystery why people fall in love and how they fall out of love. That was our last night together. I had one momentous night with the person I decided to love and I have fallen for the first time. Life’s just not fair and not so easy to fathom. What went on in her mind is the greatest mystery yet to be solved. What goes on in young women’s minds is probably what confounds us young men most. It’s always a question of why. After GKG, I presumed that nothing worse could happen. Her behavior was the most peculiar of all and history may never repeat itself. Ironically, it happened again. The routine of falling in love and being left confused like being left for dead in the gutter has caused me such mental and emotional fatigue. It’s always a story of the love I lost but never really had, a story of disdain like anybody else’s. “Foolish heart, heed my calling/ Stop before you start falling/ Foolish heart, you’ve been wrong before/ Please don’t be wrong anymore.”
