Chapter 1: Weird
ANGELIQUE'S POV
"And they live happily ever after."
I closed the book I used to love when I was a kid.
Happily ever after. Is that thing really exists? How I wish it is. But the cruel reality is, it isn't. It just exists in the stories my father used to tell me before I sleep when I was a child.
Dati, paniwalang-paniwala pa ako sa salitang yan. I even dreamed of having that kind of ending in my own story. But then I realized, as you grow up, as you expose yourself in real life, you'll realize that fairytales don't exist. Nor the happy endings that it usually implies in every mind of its reader.
Siguro kung tatanungin ako dati kung totoo ba ang happy endings, I would surely say it does.
Kung hindi lang sana nangyari sa akin ang mga bagay na 'iyon', malamang maniniwala pa rin ako ngayon na meron ngang happy ending. Na mararanasan ko rin ito. Pero hindi eh. Those memories made me face and live what life offers. Bitterness. Hatred. Pain.
Huminga ako ng malalim.
"Hey! What was that sigh for?" tanong sa akin ni Hannah.
Tipid lang akong ngumiti dito.
"What's that thing you're holding?" tukoy niya sa librong hawak ko.
"Nothing." simpleng sagot ko and put that book in my bag. "Let's go? " I asked her instead.
She gets up from her seat and playfully tag her arms with mine as we walk.
"So how was your break?" she innocently asks.
I look at her confusedly.
"I mean your vacation" she corrects..
"Well, it went fine." me.
"How about you?" she asked me once again but instead of answering her question, I asked her back.
"You went in Paris, right? Where is your promise pasalubong to me?"
"Oh yeah? That?" saglit pang tumawa ito. "I left it in our house. I was so excited to go to school kasi. Inagahan ko talagang pumasok para kahit ngayong first day ng senior year natin di ako late. Kaya ayun, naiwan ko."
Napangiti naman ako. Knowing this girl, lagi itong late tuwing first day of school.
"Where were you last vacation?" usisa nito.
"I went in nanay Elsa's place." I answered pertaining to my childhood nanny.
"So you mean, you've been in province?! What did you do there?"
I answered with just a small smile.
"Let me guess, you went there to mend your broken heart. Am I right or am I right?" she asks jokingly, wiggling her brows.
Then I remembered Brenda's question. She's nanay Elsa's child who have been close to me since I was a child.
FLASHBACK
"Anong problema?" she once asked me while I was sitting on their balcony.
"Huh? What problem are you talking about?" I asked back.
Nagulat na lang ako ng bigla nitong kinapa ang ilong nito sabay sabing, "Don't English me please. I'm bleeding."
That made me smile. A real one since I went away.
