Strongwill Shorties

Dating the Preacher's Daughter (Part 3)

Rhema and I woke up to a rain shower. It was a few minutes past five and we rushed to get in the car.

The trip home was silent. We arrived at my place before six. Rhema tossed me a quick smile as I closed the car door, but I could only grunt in return. The wave had crashed, the rush of wind subsided; we were back to being a black box.

Looking back, I don't think I could've guessed Rhema would leave that day. I thought she'd only been avoiding me as before. When Monday came, though, and the teacher didn't call her name in class, I was informed that she had moved to Mindanao with her father for their ministry.

Rhema had warned me that she might need to leave as suddenly and strangely as she had appeared as the new student in art class one Thursday in August the other year; but I never expected it to be like this: without a good-bye, without any clearance of where we were standing relationship-wise, without knowing if she loved me back.

I stalked her online, staring at her red Facebook profile picture with a blush pink cross every twenty minutes or so. Are you all right?, What's happening?, Where are you?-I couldn't resist not flooding her. (Her phone was out of reach.) Messenger told me she had come online, but hadn't opened our conversation.

I tried summoning my usual equanimity, assuring myself that she was busy, and it was okay because I was busy myself, preparing for graduation and college. The blow only occurred when the messages I sent her had finally been seen-when she posted a Facebook album titled "Fun in Cabadbaran," which contained pictures of her, cheeks flushed and a little tanned, all smiles with charcoal-skinned children. It was perhaps the worst wound inflicted: knowing she was doing well without me.

At first I was not sad. I was mad. And my anger manifested in my intense wallow of reclusion. I wasn't suicidal or anything, but I avoided people more than I ever had in my life. On graduation day I even went straight home after the ceremony.

"You need to get out more, smartpants," Grandma told me when she entered my room and found me curled up on the bed, still in my formal attire, playing Terraria without a pause for the last ten hours; "to see a world much bigger than a girl named Rhema."

Before bedtime I checked my e-mail out of habit and saw one from Rhema. I tried to ignore it-to sleep it away-but before the first sunray broke through my window, I couldn't resist anymore.

Sir Felix,

I am much delighted to learn that you have been accepted into your dream university to study your dream course, (hence, granting you the chance to pursue your dream job, correct?) Alas! I pray for you always! for you to have a blessed life!

Sincerely yours,

Lady Rhema

It wasn't the closure I was looking for, but it was clearly the good-bye I needed. I didn't respond. Just cried for a while in bed, her sheer absence weighing in on my chest. I still missed her. I still wanted her. But I deleted her pictures from my tab, and swallowed the fact that though we may bump into each other someday, she was never coming back to me.

You'll hate me soon . . . She was right. I would. But only for a fleeting moment. I still love her, and often think of the universe where we are together. I no longer loathe the idea. In fact it turned out to be my cup of hot tea on a rainy day. I wish there was a universe in which we were happily in love with each other. I hope that somewhere out there was a braver Rhema-one who loved Felix enough to stay.