Dirtier
"How about you, Kesley... Are you planning to make him your boyfriend?" Daciana whispered sleepily habang nakahiga na kaming tatlo sa kama.
Napatingin si Aki sa akin. Kahit dim, nakikita ko ang kuryoso sa titig niya habang nakakulob kaming tatlo at nakahiga ang mga ulo sa aming kamay bilang unan.
"I have no intention on deeper relationships," sabi ko.
"But you seem to be falling for him! Hindi ko alam kung takot ka bang masaktan, o nasanay ka lang talagang mag-isa," Daciana murmured as she slightly opened her eyes.
Medyo sampal iyon sa akin. I'm used to being alone, but at the same time, I'm afraid that it might hurt me in the process of trying to love someone.
"Maybe because I am hard to love?" biro ko at bahagyang natawa.
Umangat ang kilay ni Aki. "Being alone doesn't imply you are hard to love. It only proves that you are enough and you enjoy your own company. That's contentment."
My smile vanished. Daciana lifted her head a bit to glance at Aki, as she grinned at her. Kahit dim, talagang nakikita ko ang aliw sa titig ni Daciana.
"And I just can't picture myself being committed," dagdag ko.
"Because you are afraid of being hurt?" si Daciana. "Akala rin naman kasi ng mga boys, ganoon ka daling magpatawad! It's probably the reason why they're not afraid to commit mistakes because they know we are too obsessed with them to forgive them! Kahit makamove-on ka, it's like the pain won't leave you alone that we keep on remembering it every time they disappoint us."
Tumango si Aki. Nanatili akong tahimik lalo na't wala naman akong karanasan sa lalake.
"You can't heal a scar that cuts deep. It might only take a single mistake, but it takes a lifetime to recover from it," si Aki.
Sabay kaming napatingin kay Aki. Maybe because, for the longest time that I've known her, we rarely talk, it's my first time hearing the other side of her.
"Those who were broken thought they had already fixed it, but the truth is, they just learned how to carry it and live with it," patuloy niya at nagkibit.
"Wow, Aki... Is that base on your experience?" Daciana chuckled in amusement.
Aki smirked, but her expression remained serious.
"But there are people who easily forgive in spite of being broken," I pointed out.
Aki and Daciana looked at me again as they both nodded.
"We grasp the things that felt warm even if it burns us on the long process of embracing them. Because we are more invested in the little things it could give us than the whole. Those little things that shelter us and make us happy than the things that could break us. It was those little things that mattered the most that we are willing to stay," ani Aki.
It slowly struck me. Aki smiled at me.
"Find that small thing in you that you appreciate instead of looking at the whole you that has been scarred. Grasp it. Every little thing is enough to move forward," she said while locking eyes with me.
That... little thing...
The words reach a deep, unhealed wound in me that I haven't acknowledged for so long. Hindi ko mapangalanan, ngunit alam ko, may parte akong mga nabalikan sa isip ko dahil sa sinabi niya.
It was like she was talking to my inner self while I was guarded. That she has seen in me that I didn't show her.
"You weren't hard to love. Don't question your worth just because people failed to seek the beauty in you," she reminded me when the silence grew as Daciana drifted to sleep between us.
