This rainy weather has pushed me to share a story I have kept and valued since the time I met a guy I dearly called BRAD in Southern Leyte State University-Tomas Oppus Campus.
It was 2015 when we knew each other’s name and was in May 2016 when we had our first friendly talk, mainly about the then National Elections. It was a rare conversation, full of hesitance. I must admit that there was that unusual and stirring feeling inside me, it was bustling, a little kicky but shy. Everything I felt one-sided became even when we started texting each other as I completely interpreted that it was not only I who felt that way. I gave multiple and special meanings to all his messages I received in my 3310 Myphone since that was the device I only had to connect with him. No messenger in facebook at all. I gave meaning to even a punctuation mark he sent me like a period or a comma or a symbol ‘K3U’ that when transcribed in computers gave me a heart emoticon. These gave me a thin line of hope that there was something special and purposeful between the two of us. And folks, I validated that special feeling when time permitted the waves to kiss the shore, when I exactly realized that there was nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refused to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it was sent away. It was hasty but firm and fulfilling. We both resisted it but damn we were both delicate and breakable.
It's true when Blaise Pascal said, "Love has reasons in which reasons cannot fathom." I could hardly understand the things that happened between us--things that shouldn't be happening in the first place.
Yeah, I understood it was undefined. I mean, there was no label that wired or bound us like a confirmation that we too , both were lovers.
Undefined love story was as much as about hesitancy as it was about exuberance and one of us had captured this sweet turmoil, maybe it was me or him.
It bloomed between us into an undefined relationship that was fraught with confusion and yearning. Naturally we couldn’t tell anybody. I, as fragile as a glass, was affected and stuck between friendship and romance, seeking for a sanctuary between lust and emotion. Maybe we had those unspoken rules of angst-driven interactions.
It continued that way. We found comforts together. Everytime we spent a night in the beach, we enjoyed how the waves were crashing in the cheeks of the shore where we didn’t even realized that our hands were locked together and where both of us found warmth in each loving arms. With that routine, of course I was afraid of the time when he would just leave me crying on that shore where I would be all alone with my thoughts of regret that I shouldn't just have invested feelings for him.
Alas! The probability of getting the worst card in that tiring game came. It was too painful for me to realize that I couldn’t hold him anymore with his decisions not to converse or to be with me. I set him free for he had still goals and priorities over me. Maybe I was an option but not his priority. I loved him more so I let him go. I cried. I sobbed, still longing for that happiness to sprout again, but who was I to stop. I remembered I didn’t had any right to control him. He was not my boyfriend and not even my lover in the first place. Sad. So melancholic and that nostalgic feeling to be with him was depressing.
Not a year later after my graduation in college, we chanced to talk, I mean not just a talk but more than beyond rekindling of the past. Human language did not fail terribly after all. I read his eyes and I knew it was the same language I first read two years ago. Days and months passed and we both made memories worth keeping. What’s important for us was the same feeling we had, the bond that connected us. There was nothing as sweet as what we had. And so we consumed our time together that way. We forgave each other through the short inhales in between long kisses we had and through the fears of fraught, unending yearning.
We loved even when we knew it would not work out. We became crazy in a way that no outsider could understand.
We never missed a rain without getting wet. We usually stayed awake at night and I slept during office hours. We ate ice cream when it’s freezing cold. We roamed around without destinations. We danced even when there was no music. We both understood each other.
FF: We separated ways as we busied ourselves in finding green pastures for our selves and for our own family. We both swam in oblivion where both of us decided not to contact with each other’s cellular numbers and messenger accounts. That was our perfect time to find space in contemplating things between us. But still, my head screamed for his name, my heart yearned for his love and my soul wanted to explore and know everything about him.
I couldn’t totally fathom why I hated that every passing day without him by my side made me fall for fim deeply and madly. It was not just about beating up ourselves for old grievances and finding ourselves wrapped in each other’s arms but was also about loving and taking comforts in knowing that aching was okay and pains were normal because those made us the same.
He worked in Manila and I in Leyte. But September 1, 2019 rocked my world again. It was that time when he went home and happened to visit me in my hometown. Call me “marupok,” it’s okay, I admitted that YES I WAS. It’s strange that how sometimes the smallest of things brought back the plethora of memories I had been holding up inside. It touched a cord in such a way that one thing followed another and another and another. The same feeling held me back again. Here Junva again, dealing with unsured and unsealed relationship. His visit lasted only for two days and a night. I took some quick deep breaths. Happiness sprouted out in my heart and within those moments I pictured out a whole lifetime with him. However again, nothing followed. No chats. Ghosted.
Until the time I posted an update in my fb timeline (“ I have to admit that I feel empty sometimes”) with my latest cute picture I considered, he miraculously messaged me with the endearment we used to call each other, “BRAD. ”
I replied and I was shocked with the conversations that followed. He had something to tell and a favor to ask. He confessed everything that it was love he felt between us--- That he still truly loved me the way I did to him. He said that everything we had was all because of love. He asked if it was okay to officially consider me as his boyfriend and his only Brad he started to love 4 years ago. I felt like I finally understood that the investment I invested four years ago wasn’t a big scam. At the least, the emptiness in me was filled in. He filled in that blank space inside me..
Brad, I knew love would lead us back and everything would lead back to you! A part of me will always be a part of you. I love you and miss you. "Maghuwat ra ko nimo diri’s Hilongos uie." I'll wait you here in Hilongos. We will both find and thank the programmer of messenger app as we made that portal our zone of love, only exclusive for the both of us.. Huie, Salamat sa tanan2x.. Sa tanang effort. Brad, palangga, I am excited again to write about us in every page of our journals, to compose poems about us (ngek), to cry on Valentine’s Day, to get wet every time it rains, to tell people our story, to ignore the ones who say it doesn’t make any sense, to journey with you through thick and thin. I love you!
TO THE READERS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE IN READING THIS WHOLE ARTICLE... WAIT FOR THE CONTINUATION...
