Blank Spaces

02

So, here's what's up – Archer's now in who-knows-where, in who-knows-what university, studying for his masters degree; and I'm...just here.

In the same island, just a few cities away from our old place.

Maybe it's this fact alone that I really hated the most about our falling apart.

Our world just got bigger. It was not a four-way: north, east, south, and west-divided city anymore.

The downtown street does not lead to the university we used to go to, our houses were not a 10-minute drive away from each other, and our life...was not just about us anymore.

I had to make decisions, the same way he did.

I did not have a say in his, neither did he with mine. We weren't the odd kids we used to be, the ones making up for the love they owe themselves.

We became adults who had to live.

We became adults who had to leave.

I hate him for leaving; but I would lie when I say I did not see it coming.

All these years, I heard about it lots of times. I just did not have it in me to believe that it was really going to happen. I never really believed that he could leave me.

I guess one can say that I was that confident that he wouldn't be able to turn his back on me. I guess it was me, and my selfish greed, of wanting him to give everything up to choose me.

I forgot, for a moment, that if there was something we had in common– it's that before we happened, we promised to love ourselves more than each other.

I hated him for leaving, I still do – but two years into this break up, a part of me finally have reached that point where I'm finally beginning to see this for what it is.

He chose himself.

As heartbreaking as the act of leaving was, telling myself that he did so in the name of sticking to what he really want, keeps me sane. I do not ever want to find out that he did it for reasons other than that.

I am only willing to hope he sleeps well at night for that reason alone.

Second year in law school.

I'm not exaggerating when I say the mere sight of the photocopied syllabus almost made me puke. I hated everything about studying. Two years into this hellhole and I'm still lost as to how I even came up with the decision to go here.

I guess more than hating Archer, I hated myself more.

"Any luck with tolerable professors this sem?" asks Harem, who just made his way to the empty seat in front of me.

I looked at him in awe. "Aga mo, ah? Akala ko ba next week ka pa papasok?"

"She's busy."

That explains it.

I flipped my papers to the next page to check on my schedule, as per Harem's inquiry.

I grinned. "I got Rawon's class."

"Swerte."

The joy only lasted for a second when I saw my last subject. "No way –"

Harem immediately got the papers from my hand out of curiosity.

"Fu –" a cuss almost slipped out of his mouth and he ended up laughing.

"Bat ka Trayfalgar?" the idiot's turning red from laughing hard.

I was just dead staring at him. He really has a way of turning every misfortune into something funny. Unti-unti na rin akong natatawa habang tinitingnan siya.