To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 7 - Last Flight [#31]

"Oh Raffy," Rica whispered. She stood on her toes and kissed Rafael on the lips, long and hard. Rafael kissed back and he held her closer to him, cupping one side of her face, while holding her shoulder with the other. They parted when they seemed to be out of breath, and Rica managed to compose herself before him. She's excited and she never felt this so excited before. Not this kind of excitement.

Rica walked inside the open-air ruins of the old church. The place was dimly lit. A single light bulb in front of a one-story structure illuminated the area. She sat on the stone enclosure serving as a bench after she took her handkerchief out and placed it on the cold stone bench. Rafael followed and sat beside her. He held her hands, feeling them soft but firm at the edges, the hands of a medical doctor, sure of herself with her brain but a woman with all a woman's heart could ever feel.

"I love you, Rica, you've got that unique aura all over you. Has anyone ever told you that?" Rafael felt inclined once more to say the words. The first time he said it, he felt nervous, the words barely escaping from his lips. This time he said it softly but tersely, imbued it with feelings for Rica to hear clearly. It's full of confidence, if there's any doubt during the first time he said it, that doubt had disappeared, all gone for he's sure he's willing to spend the rest of his life with the woman beside him. He had gone through great length to find true love but, as they said, first love is eternal.

Rica leaned on Rafael's shoulders. She had never done this before. Any woman feeling romantic on this night would do this, she thought. "I love you, Rafael," she said softly, barely enough for Rafael to hear the words. From a woman to a man, it's more than enough. No need for more.

"I heard many men telling me how they admired me, how I looked to them," Rica said. "But the way you look at me, especially tonight, I can't quite figure out. But I do remember. I still remember the poems you said. It's one thing I really loved when I was young, and I still do. Love of literature and the arts. I find time to read and look at paintings and sculptures. They give a new and fresh perspective on things every time you read books or stare at paintings. In other words, you've got a new take on how you look at the world, at people."

"Well, not for me," Rafael said.

Rica looked at him incredulously. "You don't mean it, do you?" she asked. "As if you don't love poetry, and books, and the arts. Of all people, Rafael, how could you say that? Come on."

"Not for me every time I look at you," Rafael replied. "Every time I look at you, you're that same girl I knew of during high school, like what I said a while ago. Your face has grown and become mature, but what you are to me has not. You're my ideal and I want to look at you that way. Always. I think it is strong and lasting. No life's vicissitudes could tear it down. You always have the ideal to return to, if you go astray. There's always something with which you could measure anything against."

"That's a long litany for an ideal like me," Rica said, after listening intently to the man beside him. The night was getting cold. February was a cold month characterized by frontal weather systems that stretched all the way from Japan to the country. The long tail of the cold front stayed longer than necessary. Rica pushed herself closer to Rafael. He gently put his arms around the woman, keeping both of them warm and comfortable.

"I think you're living the fantasy," Rica said matter-of-factly. "Wake up, Raffy. I'm here to wake you up. I need not tell you to love me as what I am, not what you think I am. Love me whole not just a part of me. Someday I might become so different from what I am right now. What would you do then? Are you going to leave me when you'll find out the truth that I'm no longer your ideal? I don't want to become a benchmark, if that's what you mean. That's not what I expect for the both of us in the future. You should be able to adapt to changes and prepare to change if you want to survive a relationship."

"Wow," and Rafael was silent. How could he refute a statement like that from Rica, a doctor, a lover of romance and of the arts, yet a realist when it comes to relationships. It's like the mind trumps the heart anytime.

"Do you really feel we're meant for each other, Rafael?" Rica asked. "Or, did you say this to every woman you've fancied over the years? To every girlfriend you've sweet-talked into loving you?" She's firm but her voice betrayed an uncertainty better left unexpressed. Quickly she sat upright, took away Rafael's arms gently from her shoulders. She looked at him squarely in the eye. "Tell me, Raffy, give me one reason why I should not leave you tonight." She's had a change of heart, or rather a change of mind, typical of any woman. But she's not just any woman, she thought.

Yes, girl. You are the Maria Erica Suarez.

"What?" Rafael's face suddenly turned pale. A while ago it's filled with sweet expressions of love, now his countenance bore a grim forecast of what's going to happen in the next moments. "Rica, please sit down," he pleaded to the woman standing in front of him. He tried to sit Rica down. "I thought you love me, you said it a while ago. Or, did you say it on the spur of the moment? Perhaps brought about by the notion of romantic love on this night?

"I think it is you who have this notion of romantic love between the two of us. You can't get over this idea of yours about the ideal woman. It's long past gone. I'm not your ideal woman anymore. I have grown up, I had graduated from Silay Institute and had left the City. The time you're in love with is the past, not now nor the future. Wake up, Mr. Cruz and move on." She kept her stance, looking above, at the stars. She wished she's among the stars, one that looked so near but could never be reached, could never be bothered by anybody, much less by men in search of the ideal...