The Promise We Couldn't Keep

6

TPWCK:
SIX

…………

THE wood was rough on my fingertip as I traced the heart carved on the trunk. Inside the heart were the letters S and F.

Stupid and foolish.

Back when we were still a thing, there were only three places we used to hang out: Rinia’s home on weekends, almost every night at the park where we stargazed and released the caged child in us, and on weekdays under this old tree near the school and far away from each of our house where we’d read a book while music played in the background.

I’d learned as we got more intimate with each other how he led a life no easier than mine. We both grew up to the different sounds of silence. Maybe that was why it was way easier to be with him than any other.

There were silences that were rarer than a diamond among rocks, and it was these silences we both craved the most. It was these silences we gave to each other under this tree, the silences that I missed most about him.

The silent love.

The silent understanding.

The silent comfort.

The silent company.

The silent assurance that there were still plenty of things in the world worth living for.

Here was a breather amid the cruel world we thrived in, and we both enjoyed it. We really did. Losing him and consequently losing these silences were the cruelest things the world ever did to me.

Everyone was probably on their way home by now but here I was, sitting under an old tree, plugging a pair of earphones in my ears, and reading a book I brought with me. One of the worst things about losing someone that had come to mean the world to you was having to restart your life again. It was having to relearn how to live without them and then finding that they were in every corner of your everyday life.

A shadow casted upon me along with the appearance of a pair of school shoes right in front of me, while I was brushing off so e tears from the painful ending of the book. Adam Silvera really knew where it hurt most and kept on striking there with awful accuracy.

A bout of giddiness rushed inside me all of a sudden at the familiarity of the feet, but I squashed the feeling down as quickly as it came before it could compel me to do anything foolish.

I shielded my eyes from the setting sun as I looked up. He stood akin to divine salvation with the rays from behind him, but as my focus zeroed on his face, the expression he wore was far from holy.

“What do you want?”

He continued to stand there staring at me with a sour face. Every student in the school had type-A uniforms tailored to fit for them, even mine, but Fernando’s hugged his built hotness oozed out of him. We were no longer a thing, and I harbored a grudge against him, yet I couldn’t deny his attractiveness.

Unlike the silences we used to share, the silence that loomed between us was awkward and laced with tension. How fast time had changed everything between us.

“Can I know what book you’re reading?”

I stared at him for a good few seconds to see the actual catch of his visit, but he was guarded. I closed the book and studied the cover before staring him dead in the eye.

“I’m not reading it anymore. I just finished,” I told him.

It sounded more than just about the book. He bit his lower lip and pierced me with his gaze which prompted me to raise my own guard. It would’ve been embarrassing if he found out I was still aching to be the one biting those lips. I would probably raise my hand this second had he asked for a volunteer.

“Then may I know what that book is?”

“Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not.”

He whispered the book’s title to himself twice. “What’s it about?”

I brought my knees to my chest. “And why do you care?”

“I just do,” he said.

Rolling my eyes at him, I wrapped my arms around and rested my eyes on my knees. He sighed a few moments later.

“I’m curious, okay? There. I said it. Happy now?”

I wasn’t. There were only a few times I remembered being happy, and those times were always when I was beside him. Or with Rinia. Now that I’d lost them both, happiness was lost to me too.

I turned my face to the side. “It’s about what I want to do with the memories you gave me.”

We were quiet after that. When I rested my chin on my knees, he squatted before me so that we were almost face level. I could see the caution in his eyes; his face was screaming eggshells, but he didn’t back down, and neither did I.

“Hey, Sam,” he said quietly, and quietly it broke me. “I hope we can truce. I hate to see Rinia hurting. She’s still our queen, right?”

“She’ll always be my queen,” I admitted without hesitation.

Rinia did nothing but to treat me right. She and her family treated me like a human. She was my safe space the same way Fernando used to be. Even without a golden crown adorning her head, Rinia was a queen through and through.

“So can we truce? Just until we finish our research.”

“I don’t know. Can you tell me why you never showed up that day?”

I knew he understood what I meant. His silence answered for me. It was painful; I’d never hear his reason for abandoning me when I needed him the most, when he promised me he wouldn’t.

“Can you tell me what happened after you came out?”

Wiping the tear at the corner of my eyes, I gave him a disappointed smile before I stood and dusted off my pants.

“I think we’re done here,” I said and walked away. I didn’t hear him protest. Not a word.

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