To The Guy Who Left Me But Loved Me Anyway

I remember how afraid I was when I entered the university. I never thought that I could get through it, but I did.

It was in sophomore year, that at last we're not the youngest people in the university. Freshmen would call us "ate" and "kuya" and so we thought we're there, we're old enough, we know what we're doing.

We were on the same class. We became friends, not by will, but by fate, okay—by will. We get to choose our friends, right? I enrolled that PE class which was the same as you because I was afraid of the heavy flying balls. Who knew we became close friends after that? And then the circle got bigger and bigger, until that circle made us even closer together. So close that if I were another stranger watching us from afar, I would conclude that we were together like another lifetime ago.

We laughed a lot. We liked to laugh a lot. I tried to eat what you eat, and you enthusiastically tried to eat what I eat. We got bored in between classes, so we shared headphones on the corner of the classroom and listened to whatever's hot on Spotify. We watched lame old movies on the weekends together. That snake and ladder game's still stuck in the attic where we used to play it. We enjoyed each other's company that we didn't take notice about the people around us beginning to be distant from us.

We began to feel alone. But being with you seemed like there's nothing more in the world that I could ever need. It felt as if you were the one I was born for—the one that I could live for for the rest of my life.

I remember that terrifying moment when I was about to be hit by a car... you said that I gave you a tremendous heart attack. It was as if you were the one getting hit that I myself was speechless that very instant. We crossed the street, you held my hand. And you held my hand since then.

I liked it every time you held my hand. It's as if you're telling me that I was always secured, that I don't need to worry. I liked it more when I felt your embrace—each moment I believed that I could never let you go. And I loved the way you kissed my forehead, while whispering the words, "I wish today never ended. I was happy the whole time with you." And then that last hug whenever we parted ways was my favorite part, because you had to run as fast as you could before papa could see us.

I wish you could've met my parents then.

We never needed a label, because we were happy being together and that's all that mattered. Whenever I was with you, nothing else really mattered. I never felt conscious about how I looked, because I knew your eyes were only fixed on mine. I never felt insecure with the other girls in school, because you never failed to make me feel beautiful each time. I was never brought down by criticisms because you were there; you gave me strength to believe what's true, to throw away what's not, and to listen to the voice within, not the voice from them.

Those silly little things like plucking my eyebrows, braiding my hair, doing a mani-pedi on a Saturday afternoon—you did them all very naturally. I doubted once that you were gay, honestly. But good thing your brother told me that you learned them all in Youtube. Hail the developer of that site!

You became my best friend, my brother, my boyfriend, my mentor and my home. At times I felt embarrassed that you have to see the blood stain on my pants whenever I'm on my period, and buying me extra pads for the next hours of adventure at school. But you stayed with me when my "puson" was about to burst. You even did the laundry for me—including those embarrassing polka dots garments. You never complained when I threw tantrums on you. You never yelled or ended a conversation with an answer of "fine." You compromised, you settled things calmly, you said you love me, and the issue about disarranging the photos was closed.

You taught me to love genuinely, unconditionally, without limits, without boundaries. More than that, you taught me the meaning of life. It's more than just surviving—it's living. And living with you was all that I have thought of. Living without you was so out of the equation.

I wish I said more apologies when we argued over little things. I wish I had more effort in making you feel how sorry I was for my flaws and mistakes. I wish I never had to make you choose between what you wanted the most and what I wanted temporarily. I felt bad and guilty that you had to make a difficult decision just for my childish desires. And I'm so sorry that I never said a million apologies.

I wish I had more courage to show the world how lucky I was to have you, to hold you, to love you. Letting me love you and loving me more than anything in the world was the greatest gift I had ever received, and that I bet no gift will ever be better than that even though how many people will come to my life.

I wish I had the chance to watch you fulfill your childhood dreams—to play the guitar and piano to your heart's content, to perform before a huge crowd, to be known before all men alive that you are not just great, but excellent. I wish we had the chance to write a song together, a song of us that tells all the feelings and longings of our hearts. I wish I had written a thousand words before you left—maybe those words could hold you back and never would you have gone.

I wish I had more time to try those things that you wanted to do. It would have been the greatest adventure of us. Sure I wasn't afraid when I was with you; you gave me that support, that motivation and that inspiration. You gave me that love—that love so great that no earthquake could destruct, no tidal wave could wash away; not even death can break us apart.

By that I only wish that you never had to go. I wish we had spent more time together, celebrated more occasions together, ate more ice cream together, explored more things together. I wish we graduated together—it would have been a biggest goal that we had scored. I wish we had gone to that Japanese restaurant because you never tasted sushi yet. I wish we had taken more pictures together, because our scrapbook's only filled for the first 28 pages, and there's a hundred more that would remain blank for the rest of my life. I wish I said yes to that bungee jumping adventure—I wonder how it felt like holding you and falling at the same time. I wish we had tried ditching class and spent an afternoon in the arcade, playing basketball, that one when you put a token so you can play and you're out of breath first before you can score. But all we did was study the whole time.

There isn't a minute of any of my waking days without your name underneath my breath. I eat my breakfast, take a bath, do the things that I usually do even before I met you, but they seem to be not the same at all. Any single movement I make seemed to be a blank, barren force because I don't have anything that motivates me anymore; that at the end of the day, I couldn't be with you anymore. I'm scared to do new things all to myself, all by myself—I never been scared like this my whole life, because you weren't there anymore to give me courage and strength to do things beyond my limits. I tried to fight my fear, my anxiety, by believing that you'd come back someday; I'd even rehearse the words that would come out from my mouth the moment that we see each other again. I have been keeping on visualizing what I'd do and say to you, what I'd ask of you, if somehow you'd come back.

I wish you never had to go, because being without you seems to be the unending journey in a deep trench that I could never recover from. I wish I was the one who needed to go, because you would've enlightened a lot more lives if you were still here. I wish you never had to go because I'm insanely missing you.

But I know you're perfectly happy—the happiness that cannot be compared to our togetherness—now that you're with God, now that you're watching us from up above, now that you're my guardian angel. I wish to see you soon, that one sweet day, where we'll be together after a span of forever.