Ginger Ale

Chapter 8: Rocky

"The way the mind thinks is one of the things that motivates us into action. Or inaction. Our thoughts, biases, personal constructs, social expectations - they all come together to compel us towards making our choices."

Professor Gemma Lim-Cua paces the room, the sound of her heels click-clacking on the tiled floor. She's wearing a sharp, white A-line dress. The beaded chain of her eyeglasses sways silently as she walks. The gray streak in her hair makes her look commanding, but her face is kind and warm.

"Now, Sigmund Freud was one of the field's most influential and controversial thinkers. I personally don't subscribe to all of his theories, but I bring him up now because he introduced the concept of the defense mechanism.

"Defense mechanisms are all about preserving our own self-image. For example: denial. When dealing with a difficult emotion or experience, our first impulse may be to deny that it is true or that it's happening to us."

My Psych 153 class lets out a collective hum, nodding along.

"If you've ever had to face an awkward or uncomfortable fact about yourself, you may have said, 'No, that can't be true.' You rationalize it, avoid it for however long you can so you don't need to deal with it. And ultimately, you lie to yourself. Self-deception. You live in another reality that may be easier to understand or cope with, protecting yourself from having to reevaluate your beliefs, your identity. Denial can be very powerful, and it affects how we perceive a situation, and thus how we deal with it."

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. Furtively, I check the text message behind my desk.

Antonio Datu
Wednesday / 11:08 am

hey! 🤓
wanna hang out and get dinner after Anthro?

Sure!

yey great!
ok if ramona comes with us? she's been wanting to meet u

I'd love to meet her too! 😊
Let's talk about it in class?

ok!! might be running late tho. damn microbio class 😒
reserve a seat for me?

Of course.

Antonio and I walk into Mad Caps, a quaint restaurant along Katipunan Avenue. Everything inside is styled to the tune of a 50s American diner slash soda shop. The neon signages all across the restaurant glow an electric blue, red, and yellow. Propped on the walls are vintage movie posters, road signs, vinyl records - relics of a bygone era of a far-off place. Even the waiters and waitresses are sporting striped uniforms as they rollerskate across the black-and-white checkered floor, taking orders. I hear Elvis Presley crooning from an actual jukebox at the far side of the room.

We spot Ramona and another girl talking in one of the wide, double-seated diner booths, colored duck-egg blue. They see us and wave, standing up to give Antonio a hug. Surprisingly, the two of them hug me, too.

Antonio and I scoot over and sit across from them.

"Girls, this is Rocky. Rocky, this is Ramona. You've seen her around the dorm. And this is Trisha, Ram's girlfriend."

"It's really nice to meet you two," I say, beaming ear to ear.

"Likewise," Ramona says. "Tony here has talked so much about you."

"All good things, I hope."

"I mean, only the best things. He gushes over you."

"Oh," I laugh softly, my cheeks starting to redden.

I glance at Antonio, who looks a little flustered. He's looking at Ramona with an inscrutable stare, in a secret language reserved only for best friends.