all that we were losing (1)

I could feel it in the air as soon as I stepped out of my apartment. The skies were heavier, like a darkness was looming. I went about the rest of my day trying to ignore it but as soon as the first raindrops fell, I knew I was out and about yet again without an umbrella.

I found shelter in a small café. It didn’t look too crowded and most of the people inside were, like me, looking for shelter from the rain. A waitress shows me to my seat but as I was about to sit, I see a black messenger bag on the table.

“Miss, I think someone’s sitting here.”

“That’s okay,” the stranger says from behind me. “I don’t mind sharing.” I freeze. I know that voice, too well in fact. It’s one that I’ve tried to forget for the last five years. He continues talking, saying he was supposed to meet a friend here but then he cancelled because it was raining. “It’d be such a shame to hog this table when there’s a perfectly good seat right there.”

I am still frozen in place. I don’t say anything. My lips try to move but the most I can let out is a pregnant exhale.

“Anthony, pare.” I can almost imagine him with an outstretched hand, that handshake he does for clients. My back turned to him, I figured maybe it wasn’t too late to Google “How to disappear when your ex who left you for someone else five years ago suddenly appears and offers you a seat at his table.” At this point, I had two choices: I could cower away like the blubbering idiot I feel like, or I could face this awkward situation head on and just confront this ghost from my past.

“I know,” I tell him. “It’s me.” I smirk, raise my shoulders in a shrug. His eyebrows raised, he is as surprised as I was. “You sure you still want to share?”

He stops to think about it then he returns my non-committal shrug. “Of course, why wouldn’t I? Plus it’s not like either of us can go anywhere.” His lips point towards the window where in full view, the rain has cast a gray filter on the entire street. He laughs, and if I didn’t know every fiber of this man’s being I would have been convinced. He sits down, his black coffee spilling just a little as he set the cup down.

“Thanks,” I say. “It’s been a while.”

“It has. Maybe 3-4 years?”

“5, but you know…”

“2020 doesn’t count,” we say at the same time. I smile, and get up to order, leaving my bag on the chair to save my seat. It’s strange how after all this time, this man who once lived in my heart and in my home, can still complete my sentences. 

---

“Look, we don’t have to talk or anything,” I offer. “I’m perfectly happy just to  sit here in silence. I’m just waiting for the rain to stop. I swear I don’t mind.”

“I would! I haven’t seen you in years and you want to sit here in silence?” He scoffs so convincingly that anyone watching us would have thought that we were childhood best friends reconnecting.

“Okay,” I say, resigned. My ex, the eternal extrovert, would of course find a way to talk through this awkwardness. He says we don’t have to sit here in silence but neither of us knew where to start.

“So…” we say at the same time.

“Go ahead,” I tell him, a polite laugh in the undertone.

“No, you go.” He smiles, that goofy adolescent smile that made me fall for him and for a second, I am disarmed.

“I was just gonna say you look good.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“Your hair looks nice that way. Makes you look younger.”

“Thanks, I made it myself.” I laugh, and I think it’s real this time. What a preposterous thing to say.

“So, how have you been?” he asks. “How’s your family?”

“They’re good. We lost lolo to COVID but everyone’s mostly fine.”

“I’m sorry. I remember you were close.”

“Yeah, we were. But that was a while ago.”

“When did he pass?”

“Like early 2020? Before the vaccines or anything.”

“That sucks.” He takes a sip of his coffee and looks outside the window. I had forgotten how brown his eyes were. From this angle, they almost looked hazel. His aura hasn’t changed but there are lines around his eyes that weren’t there the last time I saw him. He starts fidgeting with a ring, a discreet silver band on his left hand.

“Is that…” 

“A wedding ring? Kind of.”

“You’re married?”

“It’s a promise ring,” he begins. “You know we can’t get married here so it’s a promise that when the courts allow it, I’ll –”

“I know what a promise ring is,” I say, interrupting him. We sit there in silence, both of us seeking shelter from the rain outside the café and inside our hearts.

---

I finish my coffee, so quickly my head felt a little light. The rain wasn’t letting up, that was for sure. I could hear thunder in the distance. But that was nothing compared to the storm brewing in my chest.

  

“You know, it wasn’t all bad.” I say, breaking the silence.

“What wasn’t all bad?”

“Us? I mean, yeah we had some rough times. And the way things ended, I… I don’t think I’ve fully recovered but… it wasn’t all bad.”

“That’s good to hear, I guess? I have very fond memories of you, too.”

“Maybe that’s all we get, you know what I mean? Maybe we just get these moments of happy, sad… and to try to make sense of it would be to believe that none of this is random. That there’s some order to things and… I don’t know if I believe that anymore.”

“You think this was random? Of all the dates, times, and places, we found ourselves stuck in this same café in the middle of a storm without umbrellas. And after years of not seeing each other. That can’t be random.”

“So what is it then?”

  

“Whether or not it’s clear to you, no doubt that the universe is unfolding as it should.”

“Okay, come through Desiderata.”

“No, seriously. None of this is random. I’d like to think that at this date and time, God or some other deity decided that we should meet again. Let’s not waste this chance.”

“Okay,” I say, disbelief leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. “What would God or some other deity want us to talk about?”

He sits there, lost in thought, like he was trying to figure out a crossword puzzle in his head.

“Was I good to you?” he asks me, a sadness in his eyes and voice.

“Oo naman,” I say. “Like I said, it wasn’t all bad.”

“No, but was I good to you.”

“You were good to me but you weren’t good for me, if that makes sense.”

“Tell me more.”

“When I was with you, I felt love for the first time. I had been in relationships before but never with the breadth and depth of love that I had with you. And I guess that’s strange?”

“Why is that strange?”

“Because there are moments where… I wonder if that was love. Because…”

“Because of how it ended?”

“Yeah… yeah.”

“I think it was love. And if it counts, I’m sorry.”

“It’s ancient history, you don’t have to---”

“No, I do. I have to. You didn’t deserve that ending. I’d say I was young but I really wasn’t.” he chuckles, mostly to put me at ease but I think he was letting out a heaviness in his chest. “Yeah, I should have known better.”

---

I order another cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake. The weather report said the rain should let up soon but from our view of the window, it didn’t seem like it was going anywhere. The barista asks if I want one fork or two and I hesitate for a second before I tell her. Two – one for me and another for my unresolved issues.

“You know how I knew that there was someone else?” I ask him as I set my tray down. He looks up, a little taken aback by my question.

“You know there was no overlap.” He begins to fidget with his ring again.

“Yeah, for sure.” I slide the plate towards him. 

“Seriously. I think we both knew we were over before I met him.” Like a dance we rehearsed a million times before, he takes the spare fork and shares the cheesecake with me. “We had problems and maybe we swept them under the rug too many times that one day, it just became this large lump in the middle of the living room and we couldn’t ignore them anymore.”

“I knew we had problems. I didn’t know we were over. I did know there was someone else.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How?”

“It was when you stopped drawing me.” I wanted to sound cool and casual but there was a lump stuck in my throat. “You know I still have all the books you gave me. You don’t know what that does to a person – to know that your face is permanently drawn into a book.”

“You were the one kid in a hoodie even when it was sunny out.”

“Yes, it was a background role but I was in every book. I was in every book until one day, I wasn’t.” I have some more of the cheesecake, the sweetness and tart tumbling around my mouth. “You remember that day you left your laptop in our apartment and your prints were due? You asked me to send the files to your publisher. What you didn’t know is that I took a peek. I looked at all your drawings. I scanned through every page and I wasn’t there. I couldn’t find myself anymore. And that’s how I knew.”

“Knew that there was someone else? Or knew that I didn’t love you anymore.”

“Yeah. And yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was in every book until one day, I wasn’t. I was in your heart every day, until one day, I wasn’t.”

“I… I’m sorry.”

“I still have all the books you gave me, you know? And I have bought every one since. I guess I was doing it out of habit? Or somehow, despite everything, I’m still your biggest fan.”

“I don’t even know what to say except… I’m sorry?”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing. It’s all water under the bridge. But I guess I wanted you to know that even before you left, I knew. I knew you’d stopped loving me because you stopped drawing me.” I looked out the window and noticed that the rain had stopped. People everywhere were putting away their umbrellas. Pretty soon, the streets will be dry and it’ll be like it didn’t even rain at all.

“You say you bought every book?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“And did you read them?”

“Oh God, no.” I laugh. “They’re in a box in my attic.”

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Come. Just follow me.” He stabs his fork into the last piece of cake, scarfs it down as he puts his things away. He grabs a glass of water to wash it all down. He was in a hurry to get out of here and without thinking about it, I started following his pace. I shove my phone, wallet, and book into my bag and we make a beeline to the exit.

To be continued.

♫: Carly Rae Jepsen | Roses (2016)