Could Have Been Us ✓

CHBU 01

I'm already here, will wait for you.

It was one Saturday night when you asked me to meet you at our favorite coffee shop along Ortigas. Felt nothing new about your invite, so I eagerly agreed to accept it.

For the two years of our friendship, we used to love each other's company while detesting someone else's. So there was no way for me to turn you down nor to reschedule our date to a more viable time, though I knew I'd run off the clock to prepare a proposal for our company's valuable client. But we both knew you're more valuable, so you got me in one text.

I was just about to enter the glass door as the guard pulled it open for me when I saw you wearing the nude close-fitting long sleeves and backless dress that I gave you as a present for your twenty-third birthday.

As usual, you managed to pull it off, like how you do when you wear a simple pair of shirts and jeans.

What are we celebrating today? It's not our friendship anniversary, neither her birthday nor mine, I thought to myself as I guided my feet in your direction.

All the men seated on the tables next to you couldn't help to throw their amorous glances at you frequently. Some were with their girlfriends yet didn't care as long as they could catch a glimpse of your head-turning countenance. You were born with a naturally overflowing charisma and beauty, no wonder why you caught their eyes and hearts with little to no struggle.

"Ano'ng meron, mamsh?" I asked when I reached our table. "Ba't may pa kape tayo tonight?" I laughingly asked, but you appeared like you weren't in the mood for some witticisms. You didn't even lift your head to look at me.

You looked perturbed at the same time, scared. Like a mannerism when you did, you are to do, or when something happened to you that would probably inflame me, you were frequently biting your lower lip while removing thin layers from it.

"Quit that," I said, but you let my words fall on deaf ears. "Sam, you're making your lips bleed. Stop it." I pulled your hand on the table; that was when our eyes met.

You quickly withdrew your hands off my grasp. I was more than stunned by your uncalled-for display of aloofness. It wasn't so you. Wasn't the Sam that I knew for two years, three months, two weeks, and six days. Yes, we count our days of friendship. That was how insane we both are.

"What's the matter with you, Sam?" I asked. The small distance between my brows vanished. "What happened to you this time? How are you? Did your father hurt you again? Don't tell me he did, and your mother did nothing again but to watch?" I was not too fond of the sight you were dishing me. Seeing you in pain was a view I'd loathe even in my second life.

I noticed how your face turned dark at the mention of your father. The man in every daughter's life who would never let anyone touch even the tip of their little girls' hair, but in your case, it was the contrary. You were his punching bag every time he came home with another losing streak in a casino. Like you deserved such kind of treatment because you were just a product of your parents' one-night stand like it was your fault that they were wedded even without them wanting like they should have aborted you instead. Like you were to be blamed for the agonized life they have when you were just an innocent victim of their lust.

"He didn't," you replied, with your head tilted down and shoulders dropped in defeat.

"Then what is it? That kind of sight of you is an eyesore."

You slowly raised your head to look at me. "Messiah...." You called. The way you mumbled for my name sounded like a plea. A sound that I never once heard before from you, for you were always in glee when you mouth my name. "I'm so sorry...." you went on. I didn't understand. I couldn't either think of the maybes of your apologies for you did me no wrong, other than your complete unacceptable protest when I asked you to move in with me so your father's big hands would no longer hurt yous.

"What for?" I leaned closer to you. The waiter about to usher himself towards you took a step backward when I gave him a dismissive gesture. Our orders could wait, but not my curiosity.

"I...I have...something...something to...to tell...you..." You kept on stammering. It made me more impatient to know what you wanted to tell me. "But...please...don't...don't get mad..."

"I'll get mad if you don't tell me now, 'cause I'm starting to get impatient, Samuelle." I leaned my back forcefully on my seat as I began tapping my fingers on the table to pressure you to make a talk.

"This...may sound crazy...but I...I can't help it, Messiah...alam ko naman na...na hindi dapat....na...na mali...na--"

"Na ano?" I asked impatiently. "Go straight to the point, hindi naman uso ang hiya sa 'ting dalawa, 'di ba?"

You slowly bowed your head again and began biting your lower lip for the nth time. I wouldn't say I liked the act you were trying to pull off, for you kept me guessing, which you knew, I hated the most.

But what you said afterward made me take a rugged grip on my knees and feel a slow yet one strong blow on my chest.

"I'm...in love with you...Messiah..."

We both knew you couldn't and you shouldn't because we wouldn't happen. We couldn't happen because we would never happen. I'm gay. And of all people, you knew every strand of my gayness. You knew my escapade. You knew everything.

So why? Why me who only sees you as a sister and nothing more than that? Why me, who wouldn't reciprocate the love you're more than willing to offer? Why m,e who'd only make you feel like you're venturing a war without any weapon on hand? Why m,e who'd only treat the sobriety of your love as a spoof and nothing but a laughing stock?

I wanted to ask you those, but my mouth went masked by something unknown like I was at a loss for words when I wasn't. I couldn't even lay a glance at you.

Heat came running to my chest. I was breaking, breaking with the idea of losing us, of losing you. But that was the only idea and the only resort we could arrive at--with you, falling in love with me. That was the least I could d, for me not to hurt you. Because breaking you is the farthest thing from my list, though I have a bunch of plans in life that involves you. I included you in everything. In everything that it pains me that I left you and did not choose to go back to you and your life ever again.