With Hands to Touch and A Night to Last

PROLOGUE

I consistently reveled in the thought that night times was just an entire vast room we ought to confine ourselves in at a specific time. A time presided over not by our hands, but more precisely through divine providence.

And tonight, as I stared into the dark skies, the bulb in our room was strikingly bright, full, and on.

It made me recall the days when I was fated to sit by the windows on the plane, and there I saw how we're still flying under the compartments of dawn, passing through the pitch-black, purple, and blues as we inched closer to the peeking sunrise on the other side of the horizon. Those were the moments when I never got to be reminded of my losses.

I wanted to stand in the middle of it all. Take a step on the blatant lines of those boundaries of the other room. To stand in between sunrise and dawn, late noon and night, as if standing with my right foot in a well-lit room while the other was soaked in the darkness of the unlit one.

I wanted to touch where it ended. Where it divided and where it began. Katulad na lamang sa himpapawid kung saan mo matatanaw ang pagkakahati ng mundo. Ako na nanatili pa sa ilalim ng halong dilim at bughaw na unti-unting gumagapang sa pagsilip ng araw.

But if I desired for solitude and repose, I can just sit still in this room, enwreathed with the scent of night's death, rinsing the rotten bones of outrage, regret, and the bite of guilt after my argument with Papa.

Then as the dawn crept to fade, slowly conquered by the rising columns to build the daylight room, I shut my windows from the chamber I myself has forged. Sleep, the other room I can control this time offering a reward of dreams, or the penalty of nightmares. Depends on what I did before I slipped into the comforts of round dark walls.

Except that... I ain't sleeping tonight. No, not in this kind of room. Instead, I was leading the dance of my nightmares as I was fully aware of my past behaviors. Fully aware that, at last, the ill-humored Tristesse Adara has finally met her doom.

I loathed him first. Resented, perused with repulsion... envied. Then the remainder of those days all slipped into a passing blur...

"What took you so long? Ano'ng sinabi niya?!" I hissed.

Naiinip ang bungad ko kay Markos pagkatapos nitong iluwa ang sarili mula sa palumpong na hindi kalayuan mula sa pinagtataguan ko.

He took his time getting rid of the withered leaves clinging to his shoulders from crawling in the bushes. Kung bakit ba kasi riyan siya dumaan kung puwede naman na deretsong sa harap ko na. O siguro iniiwasan din ang mapagmasid na mga matang maaaring hahagip sa kanya lalo na sa ginaganap na party sa harap namin.

Markos sighed and finally faced me with an all-ready response. "Ayaw niya akong kausapin. He must have known my intention the moment I barged in. I mean, you know him. You can't trick the man like that."

I knew. But I was about to lose my mind considering the severed patience I've been trying so hard to keep intact. Pero tila akong nagdidikit ng mga pinong basag na baso na hindi na kailanman maibabalik nang buo, katulad na lang ng pasensiyang pinaghihirapan ko. Patience has never been my style, and for me to strain my guts just to keep an intangible virtue like that? It must have meant something. That should have meant something! Hindi ako papayag na mauuwi lang sa wala ang kahit anong pinaghirapan kong buoin!

I lost count of the times I saw him speak to someone, different people, inside the school premises. As a man who's never fond of any verbal exchange, funny how he has conversed with almost everyone. But me. And take note, ngayon lang iyan pagkatapos ng huling engkuwentro namin. He's always been reserved and despised small talk unless you're a friend or a family.