3 Years

It has been 3 years since we stopped talking to each other.
And yesterday was the first time that I saw you, again, after the 3 longest years of my life.

We met in a coffee house where I worked. I served you your usual frappe. You sat in one same spot, one same chair at one same corner in that coffee house. You used to scroll over your iphone, looking like you've been mourning for a loved one's loss.

One morning, I shouted your name too loudly that I disturbed your moment with your iphone.
You stood from your seat and took your order from the counter and that was the very first time that I saw you smile.

Days passed and you visited consistently in our coffee house. There were only some changes with your looks, your aura, and your smiles after weeks of going there.
You no longer looked down your iphone. You went there, doing nothing but sipping your cold coffee and stealing glances at me, I must have known because you've done it too frequently and too obviously.

You started to ask me out. I immediately agreed with you in that. I thought I was just curious about your sudden shift of emotions but then time told me that deep down inside, I was also interested about you.

We've been an official couple after 4 months of just going out.

After a month of being officially together, we've been in that intimate moment of making out. I knew it would soon lead to something more but I tried to stop it. I thought you'd take me seriously if I waited for months before I finally give myself in for you. I told you how I wanted to take things slow, how I wanted to give ourselves just a little more time to get to know each other more.

You slept in my apartment for some nights. It got more frequent until you actually moved in to my place. I was happy about that. We woke up in each other's arms. I made breakfast and coffee for you. We cuddled on the couch before preparing for work. You always visit me in the coffee house during your office breaktimes but not as my boyfriend because staff were not allowed to accept visitors and relatives if they weren't going to order. You went there for a frappe and for a few more glances at me. We walked to my apartment together. Sometimes we would grab a bite some place where food was good but most times we ate some place where food was better, in our kitchen. I cooked food for us as you prepared the movies that we would watch. We talked about our plans and future and how many children we wanted to have. I wanted a dozen. You wanted one. You wanted a baby girl who would look like her mother, who would look like me. We went to sleep after these conversations.

In 11 months of being truly, madly, deeply in love, you rolled over to my side one night. You whispered to my ears that we could practice making baby Lia. I told you how I was not ready yet to have a baby because I have plans of going back to college although I stopped for almost 2 years. You assured me that we would just practice. You promised me that you would in no way get me pregnant until I'm ready, until we're married. I loved you so badly that I finally let you in. We did that and that was the best night of my life.

Tomorrow morning I woke up and you weren't beside me. I thought about what I heard last night when I was too tired and too sleepy to even listen to the converstation you were having over your iphone. Maybe it had something to do with you, going out too early for work, finishing some plans that the building that you'd build for some condo company. It was a project too extravagant that you promised me we'd move in that condominium once it was finished. Maybe it was too extravagant that it also required too much effort and time from you these past few weeks. I made myself believe in those possible reasons why on the first morning after our first night of making love, you were not laying beside me, your arms not wrapped around me. I made myself believe in those reasons until you didn't show up to me for a week. You didn't answer my calls nor reply to my messages. I tried to find you at your office but you seemed to disappear so swiftly like a bubble. They said you gave up the project.

I cried myself to sleep asking why you left me without even telling me a single valid reason. I questioned my capabilities. Did I lack anything specific that you needed? I tried to figure out what I did wrong to deserve a pain like this. Then I realized that maybe it was giving too much of myself to you when you didn't gave me a glimpse of your own life.

You knew I was an orphan. You knew I was left by the guy I loved for 5 years. You knew I've been abandoned for so many times by my friends and all the people that I loved yet you left me too just like them. You knew all my back stories and you knew all about me. I was so distracted of giving you my all and my best that I forgot to ask for what I deserve to receive.

I knew so little about you. Everytime I asked about your family, your exes, your whole life, you either shrugged me off or changed our topic. I respected you for that. Maybe you went over some traumatic or unlikely experience and you didn't want to talk about them. I thought that maybe if I gave you a little more time, you'd show me who you really were. I waited for you. But you left even before I got to the point of telling you that I deserve more than what you were giving me.

Yesterday was the first time that I saw you, again, after the 3 longest years of my life.

I met you in a bookstore. We were in the same section of that bookstore. You were holding some kind of an ABC poster. You recognized me before I could escape from that place. You felt awkward, I bet. You forced a smile though tears started to stream from your eyes. Maybe because you saw me crying already.

Questions started to fill my mind but before I could even ask you one, you started to apologize.

You said your ex, the reason why you've been sitting so sad in our coffee house, the girl who left you for some other guy, called you the night after we made love. The night when I was too exhausted to listen to the conversation you were having. You told me how she convinced you that she was pregnant for a month already back then and that you were the father. I got confused. Did that mean that we dated for 11 months and you managed to have sex with your ex during the times that we were together? You admitted that fact. It killed me inside.

You said that you ran away because you didn't know exactly what to do in that time of crisis. You didn't want a child growing up without a father, more so if that child was your child. So you ran away from me. You told me how much you loved me, the reason why you didn't have the guts to tell me about the shit you've done to me. You told me you didn't want me to get hurt. You think I wasn't hurt when you left me without a single goodbye?

Pain had a hold of my chest and I would have bursted into pieces but I saw something that made me so numb I wanted to die.

A woman was approaching you. She carried a 2 year-old baby girl. She must have been the ex whom you got pregnant. She called you "love". She asked you what the fuss was all about. She looked at me and maybe she asked you this because she saw her husband with a girl who was in tears.

I didn't want you to ruin your relationship with her so I immediately told her that I was crying because I lost something. I then started to wipe my tears away.

The two of you looked at me in curiosity. Good thing Cecil, my friend who was a customer service representative in that bookstore appeared, carrying my 2 year-old baby girl. She told us how playful my baby had been and that I should get my baby now from her before her manager started to get pissed at her. I grabbed my baby into my arms and Cecil excused herself.

"I was crying because I thought I lost my baby. I was just asking for some help to find her."

Your wife came closer to me, telling me it was great that the bookstore lady brought her back to me.

Your wife also told me how beautiful my baby was. She asked me what my baby's name was.

"Baby Lia," I told your wife in the softest whisper of my breath.

I looked at you and I saw grief in your eyes.
You didn't want a child growing up without a father, more so if that child was your child, you said.

I'm sorry I raised our baby on my own. I could have told you. But there was no way I could find you.