I still do not know how it all started – this trip for two to Heartbreak Valley that you and I seemed to be in quest together. Maybe it's the little things – the little things we ignored which then piled up until they were too late to undo.
"Is your coffee too sweet?" you unnecessarily asked.
I inwardly sighed. "It isn't."
The truth was, I didn't want to talk. I was afraid that you'd suddenly grow a conscience in the course of our conversation and start being honest with me.
"Pasensya ka na because they've run out of Blonde Espresso Americano..." you said with a feeble smile.
You have a lot to apologize for and this coffee is not even one of them... I wanted to say but just opted to smile. "So, how's work...?" I said before taking a sip from a drink that you were repentant for.
"Okay lang..." you said as you watched me put the glass down.
For some peculiar reason, my eyes started to glisten with tears. "Okay..." I said with a smile that did not even slip even when my heart was breaking.
It was the monotonous answers that alerted me that something was amiss – that your inattentiveness and seemingly endless disinterest in our conversations wasn't just due to you being tired, that the increasingly frequent times you were late to our dates weren't just because of you being overworked like what you had been claiming; that this vastness between us that I had tried for five long months to endure, deny, and dread wasn't just inside my head.
"Kumusta sina Tita?" I asked trying to shift our conversation to something less heart-wrecking; in this case, your family which had become mine, too, for the past three years.
"Okay lang..." you replied using those two words, together with oo and wala, that had become your standard reply.
Do you have anything that you want to tell me? I asked you in my head because my mind apparently is less fragile than my heart; it's in my head that all arguments and battles were fought and won.
May iba ka ba, Eli? That was the question that I had been dying to ask and which I filed and locked in the deep recesses of my mind.
Because my reality was so different. Face-to-face like this, my heart takes over and my mind takes a backseat. And we both know that my heart is such a coward – it turns me into a scared child who's so terrified of people leaving her instead of the warrior I would have preferred; a warrior who would have readily opened the door and kicked people out when their presence in my life would start to cause me despair.
"Did you get the project?" I forced myself to sound cheerful.
You nodded in reply.
"Congratulations!" I enthusiastically said but it came out fake and flat and silence reigned between us again.
What happened to us, Eli? I wanted to ask as you stared at your milk tea. I could sense that you were hesitating but I knew you enough to realize that today was going to be the day that you'd get it done. Today was when you'd finally break my heart.
I began to wonder when it started to go wrong – when exactly did I become too dull for you? What was the exact instance that made you realize that loving me was no longer exciting? How did I become the crusade you stood by, fought for, then later on regretted?
"So, kumusta ang trabaho mo?" you suddenly asked looking up and it absolutely wrecked me to see the resolve in your eyes.
"Okay lang din," I quietly said.
