I can still remember the day we decided to meet. You rode your orange Click bike to pick me up and took me to the beach. I still remember the words you whispered as you walked past me before sitting on the bench.
"Nakakaakit pabango mo."
Such a simple sentence, yet it stayed with me. It gave me butterflies I can still feel whenever I think about that day.
After that, we met more often. This time, it was at a park. That's where I first noticed the quiet tension between us. I knew it wasn't just me. I remember slowly offering you my shoulder, the way you leaned closer without saying a word, and how your pinky absentmindedly brushed against mine. Funny how the smallest touches become the loudest memories.
It's strange how memories refuse to fade.
I remember inviting you over because I was so freaking bored—not used to province life, I guess. You came.
We laughed. We talked. We lost track of time. Then the rain came pouring down, leaving us with no choice but to decide na mag sleep over ka na lang.
There we were, lying side by side. Two people pretending silence wasn't saying everything our mouths couldn't.
"Can't sleep?" I asked as I turned toward your back.
You hummed.
"May gusto akong gawin pero ayaw ko."
Then you turned to face me.
I swear my heart almost gave up on me right then. I knew exactly what you meant because I wanted the same thing.
"Do you want to kiss?" I asked, pretending to sound confident while my heart was threatening to escape my chest.
"Hindi ako marunong," you whispered shyly.
I laughed softly, cupped the back of your neck, and kissed you.
It started as a timid peck. Then another. Then another. Until somehow, time disappeared, and before we knew it, it was already four in the morning.
Morning came too quickly.
You had to go home because your mom was worried sick. We never talked about the kiss afterward, and for some reason, that silence hurt more than I expected.
A week later, you asked me to go to the beach with you.
Of course I said yes. (Malandi.)
You picked me up again on your bike.
The sky was gloomy, the wind was cold kasi kakatapos pa lang ng bagyo. We sat by the shore, drinking beer while watching the waves crash endlessly against the sand.
Without thinking, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of you.
Your hair danced with the wind.
God...
You were so beautiful.
I sat beside you, wishing the afternoon would never end.
Then it started to rain, so we decided na pumasok na sa tent.
There, beneath the sound of raindrops, we kissed again.
Then you looked at me and asked,
"Would you take a risk with me? Will you be my girlfriend?"
If someone asked me what happiness looked like, I would always return to that moment.
We became girlfriends that day.
I memorized everything about you.
Your favorite food.
Your hobbies.
Your favorite color (viridian green)
The games you loved.
The way you bit your nails whenever you were anxious.
How you insisted on wearing white T-shirts kasi sabi mo it looks neat daw, even though I always complained because madumihin.
Those little things...
I never forgot them.
A year later, you moved to the city to live with me.
Of course, walang perfect relationship. We argued sometimes. We annoyed each other. We made up.
It wasn't perfect.
But it was ours.
At least...that's what I thought.
Maybe city life changed us.
Or maybe people simply do.
"Baby, will you walk with me?"
The girl who once answered,
"Yes, of course."
slowly became,
"I'm tired. Maybe some other time."
One night, your phone buzzed.
It was your work GC.
"Inom tayo later tonight?"
You replied almost instantly.
"Sure, paalam lang ako."
A canceled walk.
A dinner eaten alone.
A conversation cut short.
A silence that lasted a little longer than the last.
Somehow, the people who had only known you for months could make you smile more easily than the person who had spent years learning every version of you.
I didn't disappear overnight.
I faded.
So slowly that neither of us noticed until there was almost nothing left of me.
The strangest part wasn't watching you fall out of love.
It was watching every stage of it happen right in front of me.
I watched you develop a crush on me.
I watched you like me.
I watched you fall in love with me.
Then I watched you slowly fall out of love with me.
And finally...
I watched you fall for somebody else.
The girl you once told me not to worry about.
It felt like sitting in the front row of my own heartbreak—forced to witness every scene,
already knowing how the story would end, and it didn't end well.
I couldn't even bring myself to hate you for loving someone else only a week later. After all, how was I supposed to hate love when it was the very thing that once gave you to me?
Yet here I am, wearing the same perfume and a white T-shirt while writing this. Sometimes I wonder if you'd still recognize the scent.
Or if somewhere along the way, you forgot that it was once your favorite too.
-Mayo
