The dare had blown up on a Friday afternoon, right when the campus was buzzing with the energy of the coming weekend. For Cordy, the world just slows down.
She spent her weekends in her apartment, acting busy and drowning herself by repeating her plates to perfection bothered by a messy mind, avoiding her friends from knowing that she was played by her four year crush and his friends. Letting the heavy silence of the weekend swallow her whole.
Every time she closes her eyes, she hears Morghana's confrontations echoing in the hallway.
Nice guy act.
VIP tickets for a surfing event.
A distraction while he waits for the air to clear between us.
It was the unfairness of the math that kept her mind in a punishing loop. Logically, she tried to talk herself down. She told herself that she had never asked for a relationship. She had told her friends she just wanted to "breathe the same air" as her crush before graduation.
“Hindi naman naging kami.” her mind whispered, sharp and cruel. “So why does it feel like I’ve been cheated on? Tanginang yan.”
The answer was simple, and it was the source of the most intense pain: the friendship itself was the currency.
"Sabi ko naman hindi ako nag-eexpect ng kahit ano eh. Coz I'm way too out of his league pero... Bakit naman ganon?" She bitterly laughed. "Ginawa ba naman akong one way ticket to Siargao."
To her, those moments with Leehan were the culmination of a four-year wait. To him, they were a chore. The confusion was a physical weight in her chest. She remembered the way he had taped her shoe on the stairs, the way he treats her with her favorite cinnamom rolls and cinnamon latte coffee, the way he listens to her on the bleachers at 4:30 PM.
How much of that was acting? Could a person fake the warmth in their eyes for a seat at a game?
She felt humiliated. She felt like the "lost toddler" that Leehan always calls her.
The weekend was a long, agonizing blur of "what ifs" and "sana hindi ko na lang ginawa." She felt so humiliated by her own confession at the stairwell.
“I can’t leave it like this. My gosh.” she realized, staring at a blank page in her sketchbook.
She hated conflict. Ayaw na ayaw niya ng gulo. The very thought of speaking to him made her heart race with a terrifying anxiety. Pero na-realize niya na if she didn't face him, she would always be the "toddler-looking neighbor" dynamic that he used to get a VIP ticket for his most awaited event.
By that Sunday night, the sadness started to turn into a cold, hard resolve. She just wanted to graduate. She wanted to finish her plates, submit her final project, and leave this university. But she couldn't stop thinking about her accidental confession in the stairwell. Four years. She had handed him the most vulnerable part of herself right as he was handing her a knife.
“Shit talaga. Bahala na." She cursed wiping off the moist in her eyes.
When Monday finally arrived, Cordy stood up. Her hands were cold and her heart felt like lead, pero malinaw na ang isip niya.
Leehan sat on the low wooden bench of the varsity locker room, his head buried in his hands. The scent of liniment and stale sweat usually felt like home, but today, it felt like an interrogation room.
Leehan sat on the low wooden bench, his posture collapsed. He was still in his white dobok trousers, his torso bare and glistening with cold sweat. His chest guard and headgear hadn't been put away, sprawled on the floor like casualties of a fight he had already lost. He stared at his feet, his fingers buried deep in his hair, gripping tight enough to hurt.
