Before Descended Afternoons

06

Everyone hates me.

That's what my brain always tells me when I get to meet someone new and they give me a kind of face that isn't included in my "people's kind of faces that prove they don't hate me" list. The thing about me is that when I simply get a feeling of glimpsing hostility from anyone or when I don't get something that I want that is in the hands of another someone, I tend to quickly react and think that they hate me.

Because why didn't you grant me what I'm seeking when you could? Why would you do that? What's wrong? What did I do wrong? Did I make you mad? Did I do something you didn't like? Or am I just someone you don't like? What made you not like me? What made you hate me? Is it something with how I look? Do I look annoying? Or do I look annoyed—that at some point you had an impression of me that I have a bad attitude? Was it with how I act? With how I move? Am I ugly? Am I... dirty? Disgusting?

Why do you hate me?

And the list of the possible multiple reasons will go on—until I began pulling my hair out and scratching my skin, which will cause me rashes while my mind crashes with my fragile ego of wanting to be liked because I've been hated enough by people I liked, including my father and my old friends.

It was gut wrenching until you came to a point where you started thinking that maybe they knew something about you. That they knew what you're hiding behind your closet, or what you're keeping underneath your bed, or what's locked inside the dollhouse of your little sister, which you put there because no one would suspect something that is pink and colorful and pretty and bright.

Everything is bearable, until your mind began planting seeds of apprehension and fright in your own mind, until a panic attack sprouts out of you and you cannot breathe anymore while you get flooded with thousands of thoughts of the carcass of each of your archaics that is hidden inside your tomb.

I could be okay. But maybe I just couldn't help it. And I'm losing my mind over it. And I've tried so much making myself believe that not everything's about me.

"Aino, marunong ka bang sumakay sa kabayo?"

It's seven a.m.. I just finished getting ready. We are about to go and visit their mango and pineapple plantation. Malapit na raw 'yung sinasabi nilang river d'on kaya dadaan na rin kami. Auntie followed us in the farm and arrived just this morning, too. She brought me more clothes and stuff since it seemed like it might take us another whole day here kaya ngayon, may dala ulit ako na pair in case mag-langoy. I'm excited.

"Hindi po ba pwede sa kalabaw na lang?" Tanong ko, nakatingin sa dumaan na kalabaw na may hinihilang parang cart.

They laughed. "Pwede naman! Mas ma-e-enjoy mo lang siguro kung sa kabayo. Mas mabilis rin."

The thing is I don't know how to do horseback riding. I looked at the man standing a few meters away from me, holding a horse's leash while petting it.

I can't believe he's the Van they're talking about. Van? What kind of name was that? Is he a car?

Napaiwas ako ng tingin nang akma itong lilingon sa gawi ko.

"I'm just... gonna walk." It's fine if I just walk, though they warned me it would be far.

"Van, isabay mo na sayo yung pamangkin ni Jude." The man in his 50s suddenly suggested. Now I remember where I've seen him. I heared he's uncle's friend and owns 1/4 of the farm. Siya pala 'yung nakita ko dati na pumunta sa bahay na may kasamang kabayo, with this Van guy.

"Naku, wag na! Nakakahiya sa pamangkin mo, pare. Sa helper na lang." Auntie exclaimed, not agreeing. I knew she doesn't want me to get near him. She'd been warning me about him and that I shouldn't talk to him. She just doesn't like him because of what she's hearing about that guy, that he's allegedly a part of a gang who kills people in alleys and throws their body in the river in the downtown.