Chapter 1
I know no end to desiring you, the letter began.
Was this for real? If it weren’t for the beautiful way it is written, Alex would’ve dismissed it as baduy. Quickly, she folded the piece of paper and looked around to see if anyone was watching.
She was walking down the corridor of the faculty center, on her way out for the cigarette break, when a small yellow envelope taped to the department bulletin board caught her eye. It had her named on it. She figured it was a message from either Vanecks or Moose. She opened it, read the first line, folded it up, opened it again and read the entire letter. Somewhere in the middle of the letter, she felt her knees weaken and she had to lean against the wall. It was just too much. She wanted to throw the paper away as though to hide its content from herself. Unbelievable, she thought.
I know no end to desiring you. But why should I seek to end it? I carry a picture of you in my head like some precious object. I was happy for days. So why should I seek to end this when what makes me happy rests solely on you?
She took a deep breath and remained rooted where she stood.
Was this for real?
A love letter?
For her?
A love letter. For her. Whoa.
She felt herself redden. She looked around. She couldn’t think straight. A practical joke? Maybe it was a practical joke. Right.
She looked at the named again. It was her name for sure but she couldn’t believe what she just read. She couldn’t believe that, apart from her mother, there was someone whose happiness rested solely on her. Imperfect Alex whose ex-boyfriend rejected for some hot chick he hadn’t met, some horny chick whom he just met online?!?
Alex remembered Dencio her ex and hoped that the letter was from him, an admission of his mistake, a wish to be taken back into her life, even if in all likelihood it wasn’t. she remembered how intensely the two of them had been in love, and shook her head fiercely. No, she told herself, stop it with Dencio na.
She folded the paper, stuffed it in the yellow envelope and was about to put it inside her tote bag when she saw His Royal Jerkness (HRJ) walking towards her, looking at her, and without thinking (which she did a lot of). Alex threw the letter into the nearest trash can, a stupid knee-jerk reaction considering that later she would spend some humiliating three minutes scouring the trash for it. What a frustrating matutina she was!
HRJ Mart Eugenio always managed to elicit such feelings of anxiety in her. Sure he was top jerk but in the past Alex had always managed to dismiss jerks. Why should this man be any different?
HRJ Mart was one of the few language professors at the college. He was a graduate of the university but had moved to California with his family where he pursued a master’s degree in, what Alex considered, was some nerdy useless course – language, of all things – at Berkeley. Ano ba yun? She thought when they first met two months ago – in a god-awful blind date.
The date was a favor to her mom who was friends with Mart’s aunt and only relative in Manila. Mart’s aunt was confined to a wheelchair and was an active member of the same church as Alex’s mother. He had just arrived from US after a decade of absence, and according to his aunt,
“All he does is stay inside his room to study, naku! Di ba, you have a daughter who’s a copywriter? Maybe they’ll hit it off.”
“Ma, that’s like telling me I should I go out with him because we’re both tall,” Alex complained then.
