In Motion

Chapter 17: Sad Eyes by Josh Rouse (2005)

Two things that made me happy (or what counted for it in those days): eating CASAA kakanin and zoning out with my iPod. Driving home straight from Friday classes felt like a lame thing to do. So I took my sweet ass time eating biko and spaced out. 

Then someone had the idiotic idea of pulling my earbud off.

"Hey!" I protested, whipping my head around.

It was Andi, carrying a bottle of C2. She sat in front of me and glanced at my plate. She scrunched her face at me, as if saying "You poor, poor boy."

"Quick bite before driving home," I explained. Sheesh, even I could hear how defensive I sounded.

"You're alone again," she pointed, not bothering to hide the pity in her voice. "On a Friday."

"I re-affed in my org," I said, giving her a fake, wide smile. Andi tilted her head and sighed. 

The truth: Three weeks of the sem had passed and I still wasn't okay. It sucked because Decembers in Diliman made me chipper. Profs were in high spirits. Lantern Parade was around the corner, which meant Christmas break right after. The campus was cool enough for my favorite pullovers.

I rubbed my cloth-covered arms, aware of Andi's scrutiny. Any second now...

"Talk to him!" she commanded.

There we go.

"And say what?" I asked, getting flustered at her and Gab's nagging. It was like, the third time that they bugged me separately about Martin. 

I was being honest with that part, though. I knew that Martin and I left things hanging. But there was no more ground to cover. He was leaving. I was trying to move on. He might as well be dead with that radio silent Y!M account of his. He did text me a "Hey, Kyle" once, but pride and pain won. Dude broke my heart into a tiny million pieces then booked a flight to the land of kangaroos. A "Hey, Kyle" at 1 AM didn't quite cut it.

Andi waved a hand to my face, bringing me back to noisy CASAA. 

"You're so transparent," Andi sneered, examining my face. "Talk to him!" she said again, with gritted teeth.

Andi was starting to be a pain in the ass. A reasonable one, but still irritating. I popped the last bite in my mouth and glared at her. "Soon," I said as I chewed my biko. I swallowed and stood up. "Come on, I'll drive you to Econ."

That Saturday afternoon was playing out like it always did. I was holed up inside my room, in my boxers, doing homework like a nerd. 

Andi was adjudicating a high school debate tournament, but not without sending me a text at 7 AM: "Don't be chickenshit." Gab was helping out my mom with a medical mission in Bulacan, because he liked playing a Ramos son sometimes. (But no, seriously, Gab was into those things for med school.)

That left me finishing an outline for my HR homework because there was nothing better to do. I opened Y!M on impulse and saw that everyone else was offline. Who in their right mind would be online on a Saturday afternoon. 

But there he was, for the first time in what felt like forever. 

I hovered over his profile photo because I was a lamebrain masochist. Okay, that was useless; I had a physical copy tucked in my wallet. 

But it was his status message that caught me off guard: "But oh, it's too bad. 'Cause he's stolen all your happiness and good times."  I pasted it on the search bar and Google showed me the lyrics of Sad Eyes by Josh Rouse.