College Series #2: Finding My Sanity

27

LUCIUS

"Mi Amore, I want to take a picture here."

I smiled and nodded before I carried Fabio with me. I excitedly smiled on the camera while a stranger was taking a picture of us.

I pulled Martina near me. My smile got wider when she hugged Fabio and I.

I chose the right Mom for our son. I chose the right woman to marry.

"Futengina!" Fabio shouted when his toys fell. He was playing alone in our room.

"Fabio, where did you learn that?!" I asked my two years old son.

Martina and I adopted him in the orphan when I was nearly seventeen. My Dad told me to do it since we were living in Italy. I needed to be ready and be independent.

All those happiness, all those memories I cherished the most, all the thoughts that I wished to come true just vanished. It vanished when she left.

For months, I tried to find Martina everywhere. I loved her. I planned everything with her.

But when I remembered the last thing I told her, I felt guilty. I felt really sorry. I should've not said that. Sana inuna ko na lang sila kaysa sa akin.

"Martina, you don't understand!" I couldn't help but to shout inside our room. I was feeling so frustrated. "I also want to live like the others. I want to experience to be a teen, I want to travel alone, I-I want to do a lot of things I can't do now!"

"Then you're free to do everything you want starting tomorrow!"

I thought we were going to be okay kaya niya 'yon sinabi. But I had no idea na aalisan niya na kami.

She left me. She left Fabio.

Starting that day, Fabio lost his interest to be with me anymore. Madalas, nalulungkot siya. He kept thinking about Martina, his Mom.

Hindi ako nagtagal sa Italy, I couldn't live there. Bumalik ako sa Pilipinas and brought Fabio with me. I decided to start my college journey here.

"I prefer to live with Grandpa po." Nakayukong saad ng anak ko. It hurts to hear it.

I expected and even planned something for Fabio and I once we start living together in a condominium. But even once, he didn't try to live with me.

He hates me. He believed that I was the reason why Martina left.

First year college, I met Brianna.

She was the second woman I truly love. I gave her almost everything. I was eighteen when I met her, she was nineteen.

I felt so happy to feel this again. I'm in love.

But even once, she didn't think about getting in a relationship with me.

"Dude, may partner ka na ba?" A guy went near me after one class. "Ba't ba lagi kang malungkot?"

I didn't answer. Ayaw ko ng kausap.

He left when he didn't get anything from me, kahit isang reaksyon lang.