Salt In The Wounds ✓

SITW 04

"Newbie, tara lunch out na. Hindi ka ba sasabay sa 'min?" I heard a voice asked, breaking the chains of my thoughts of you inside my mind as I felt a cold hand tapping me on my bare arm.

It was my new colleague. 

I weakly shook my head and forced a smile. "Hindi pa 'ko gutom. Salamat."

I was actually starving, but the simplest occurrence of bethinking you as to how we used to share our meals before already makes me quiver. I wouldn't want the memories of you to resurface, for I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to give you the time you wanted. 

So as you may not have asked me to give you space to such an extent of having myself transferred to our company's other branch, but I did. Because I know you wouldn't mend at the sight of a lover waiting for a place in your life.

"What if I'd tell you I'd wait? What if I'd tell you, you could mend, and when you're through, you could come back to me?"

"I said I don't want to be unfair—"

"I'll wait. You take all the time you need. Lalayo muna 'ko if that would make you feel better."

It was tougher than I thought it would be, having you out of my sight for twenty-four hours. Unable to phone or hit up your inbox to ask if you had taken your meal or if you skipped it again. Unsure if you had arrived home safe, did you have a hard time taking a cab? Or did you lose much of your patience again waiting for the lacking-for-a-passenger jeepney to depart? And be a patient waiter for your name that would improbably flash on my lit-up phone screen for our daily how-was-your-day talk. 

Hence still, I endured all, for I am in love with you, and I know what I felt and continuously feeling towards you wasn't and isn't anything close to the damning sorts of passing attraction. Had branched out past my usual range of activities to not vary with your own. Had started watching horror films considering your taste hence my partiality for romantic and comedy movies. I tried, though hard, to come out of my shell because you were too loud, too hyper, too extroverted, and I wanted to be in for you to pull me in. Had coffee over breakfast or any time you tag me at a nearby coffee shop though I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine. With all the tensions and jitters everywhere whenever you're around, more so when I'm a hairbreadth away from you—I allowed you still to cast out my introvertedness any more than a social encounter could when almost everyone tries to strike a conversation with me. And every day, when everything around me weighs me down, I am intensely motivated to be with you—that if only I had the power after my name, I would've transitioned our relationship from casual to intimate. 

"Sigurado ka?" my colleague pulled me back to my senses the second time while sitting astride the swivel chair beside me, eyes pinned on me.

"Oo," I thriftily replied, a bit surprised that I wasn't already alone at the office.

I no longer heard any response other than the screeching sound of wheels on the floor coming from the already vacated swivel chair and a light thud coming from the clench closed glassdoor that hit the door track, so I went back to editing the manuscript due in the nighing three days. 

Few minutes after my colleagues' departure, my phone screen lit up, displaying an unlisted number. 

At first, I was hesitant to take it. Then I thought maybe it was you, so I slid my thumb to the left. 

But the soonest the call connected, I heard someone else's voice mouthing my name. I disconnected right away, took my phone and wallet. I decided to grab a quencher at the nearby shop to tranquilize the beating amok of my pulse. 

When I heard the staff at the bar counter call out for the owner of the Caramel Macchiato, I immediately stood on my feet to claim it. 

"May kumuha na po kani-kanina lang. Akala ko rin po kasi sa kanya," the staff told me, lips pursing and curving downward.

"Nevermind." I motioned my hand. "Just make me a new one. I can wait," I added as I turned my back after I received a nod. 

As I walked back to my table, my pulse throbbed in a riot, thrice worse like it did earlier but caused by the same person. 

Saw a face I never expected to see again; occupying the seat across from where I was seated earlier and placed on the table were two cups of our favorite Caramel Macchiato.

My eyes instantly blurred in tears and my legs went rubbery as I wobbly stormed my way out of the shop, shedding tears, writhing in pain.

I couldn't recall how many people at the crowd I had coursed with my apology while I was running carefree. I lost count of the times I nearly lost my balance. I didn't know how many times I heaved long and heavy sighs. But I could vividly remember the handful of painful moments that that particular person gave me. 

And it's weird that at a single sight, suddenly and still, I missed hearing that person's merriments and being, if not only, then at least one of the best causes. I missed our exchange of casual, professional, humorous, and intimate lines. I missed staring at that person in the flesh while pulling a smile so contented and loved. I missed feeling that person's presence that fills in the emptiness of my world. And I so missed that person alone, whom I waited for what felt like a million days to return but didn't. Not until now. Now that I am already waiting for someone else's return. For you. 

You, whom I firmly believed I already love, but so suddenly, I just don't know anymore.