In memories of us

Prologue

There's a silence in the room that feels heavier than usual. The kind of silence that sits on your chest, weighing you down, filling up the spaces between thoughts. 

I never liked silence it always seemed to give way to the kind of thoughts you don't want to entertain. But today, there's no escaping it.

The clock on the wall ticks endlessly, but time doesn't feel like it's moving. The seconds blur, one after the other, and I'm left here, staring out at the city from the window of my apartment. 

Bakit nga ba naabot namin ang ganito ni Drew? 

The love we had was something people envied. Magaan lang noon. He was my person, my safe space, and at one point, I was his too. But it's like we didn't see how the weight of the world slowly crept into our little bubble.

I wish it didn't hurt this much.

I take a deep breath, trying to piece together the fragmented emotions I've been carrying. Parang antagal na pero parang kahapon lang din. Kahapon lang noong naging "kami." But somewhere along the way, the laughter started to fade, and everything became a series of tired sighs. Nagbago na siya. Nagbago na ako.

Naka-upo ako ngayon sa sofa na madalas naming tambayan ni Drew. Madalas kaming mag-usap dito after a long day. Dito rin kami naghahanap ng mga movies na pareho naming gustong panoorin kahit lagi naman kaming natutulog before matapos ang pelikula. It was comfortable, comforting even. But now, all it does is remind me of everything that's gone.

I keep asking myself

Paano ba 'to nangyari? Paano ko hinayaang humantong kami sa ganito?

But the answers never come.

I think about love a lot these days what it was, what it is, and how it changes over time. Sa simula, lahat madali. Everything is fresh and exciting, and you feel like nothing in the world could ever come between you. We were like that once, Drew and I. Laging masaya, laging puno ng sigla. Kahit gaano pa kabigat ang mga araw, nagagawa naming pagaanin 'yung mundo para sa isa't isa. 

And maybe that's why it hurts so much now.

He taught me what it meant to truly love someone. Hindi siya 'yung tipong grand gestures o romantic surprises, but he had his ways of making me feel like I was the center of his universe. Minsan magugulat na lang ako, he'd bring home my favorite coffee, or he'd randomly tell me how proud he was of me. 

Those little things... ang babaw, pero ang sarap sa pakiramdam. It wasn't about the effort, it was about the fact that he noticed. That he cared enough to know what made me happy, no matter how small.

I find myself tracing the outline of the ring he gave me a promise ring. It wasn't much, but it symbolized something. The promise we made to each other na kahit anong mangyari, we would try. 

But promises like that are easy to make when you're young and in love. It's harder when life gets in the way.

"Love should be easy," he once told me. "If it's too hard, maybe it's not right anymore."

I remember when he first said that to me. We were sitting on the rooftop of his family's house, watching the stars. That's when we were both so sure of everything. Looking back, maybe that was the first sign his belief that love should always be easy. I've never thought of love as something that's always easy. 

Sa isip ko, love is about sticking through the hard parts, fighting for it even when you're tired, especially when you're tired.

But how do you fight for something when one of you doesn't want to fight anymore?

Siguro 'yun ang pinakamahirap tanggapin the fact that I still wanted to fight. Kahit pagod na rin ako. Kahit pakiramdam ko wala nang natitira para sa akin. 

There's this saying I once heard, you can't pour from an empty cup. 

And that's what we became empty cups, both of us. But I still held on. Not because I didn't know better, but because I couldn't imagine a world where Drew wasn't mine.

I wonder, though did he feel the same way at some point? Did he also want to stay, or was I always the one clinging to something that was slowly slipping away?

Hindi ko mapigilang bumuntong-hininga. The weight of everything feels suffocating sometimes, but at the same time, it's strangely comforting. 

The pain reminds me of how much I loved him, how much I still love him.

Pero nakakapagod din pala ang magmahal nang sobra-sobra. 

Sometimes, I think that's what ruined us. We gave too much of ourselves to each other, hanggang sa wala nang natira para sa sarili namin. It's ironic, isn't it? Love is supposed to be about giving, but we gave so much that we lost who we were outside of "us."

Maybe that's why Drew started to drift away. He couldn't recognize himself anymore.

Ako rin naman, in some ways, hindi ko na rin kilala ang sarili ko. But I still believed in us. I believed that if we could just hold on a little longer, we'd find our way back to each other. I'd convince myself that we just needed time, space, a break something to recharge.

But that's the thing about time it doesn't heal all wounds. Sometimes, it just gives you more time to realize how broken things really are.

Was it really love that ruined us? 

Or was it something else? The expectations? The pressure? The fear that maybe, we weren't as perfect for each other as we thought?

Loving Drew made me genuinely happy once. It filled me in ways I didn't know I could be filled. There was a time when his laugh was all I needed to make my day better. He had this way of looking at me, like I was the most important person in the world, and in those moments, I believed it too.

Pero ngayon, lahat ng alaala na 'yun, parang malayo na. Like they belong to someone else's story, not mine.

I keep wondering if there's a way back from here if there's a version of us that still works, where we're not tired, where we don't drain each other. Where we're not constantly trying to fix what feels like it's beyond repair.

Pero sabi nga nila, hindi lahat ng sugat kaya mong pagalingin. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is acknowledge that it's there, that it hurts, and that maybe it's okay to walk away.

But I'm not ready to walk away. Not yet. Because despite everything, despite how much it's hurt, I still believe in love. I still believe in us, or at least, in the idea of us. And maybe that's my biggest flaw

I don't know when to let go.

I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the back of the couch. The silence continues, the weight of it pressing down on me. Drew's absence is everywhere in this apartment, even when he's physically here. It's like his spirit has already left, but I'm still here, waiting for him to come back.

Maybe that's the most painful part of it all realizing that the person you love most is still right in front of you, but they're already gone.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, as if trying to release some of the heaviness inside me. It doesn't work, of course. 

It never does. But I'll keep trying. 

For now, that's all I can do.