Matters of the Heart

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

I can still hear my heart pounding so fast through my chest. It was really him and I still can't believe that our rooms are just about 10 meters apart. Sitting by the window every night has become a daily routine in my everyday life and knowing he just lives next door, I think I would reconsider that.

But staring blankly at the whole damn magnificent and beautiful sky has always been my favorite setting since I was a kid. Dad has always told me that skies aren't just skies— that there are something more to that. I have always adored how dad noticed and even loved the simplest things, even though other people treat those things like they're nothing. I loved him for that. But the thought that he left us for another woman made me question his love for me, for us.

"Tris, dinner's ready. Ikaw na lang ang hinihintay namin ng mga kuya mo." I heard mom say after she knocked at the door two times and I just said I'm coming even though I'm not ready to go downstairs at all. I remembered all those sleepless nights as I heard mom cry through her sleep, how my two brothers hide all their emotions, knowing they were the ones whom dad always play basketball and chess with, and how our family went slowly falling apart. And I'm glad it didn't. We didn't fall apart because the four of us still have each other, the reason why we tell each other everything. We have our backs leaning on one another, proving to everyone that we can still be one, that we can still be a family without a father. I closed my eyes as I placed my hand right through my chest. Everything would be okay. I think.

"So, how'd your day go?" Kuya Mike asked me as soon as he saw me at the stairs. He looked so tired from work, making himself the breadwinner of our family although malaki pa rin ang kita namin sa mga business namin.

"My day wasn't that great as planned." I groaned as I sat down to my usual spot in the dining table. "Actually, it wasn't even great at all." I said as I started telling, more like narrating what happened to school earlier. From how I expected it to be as exciting as how flowers bloom to how I end up being disappointed knowing we need to stay inside our classrooms for the rest of the day then that accident in the garden, how I end up sitting in Rasheed's passenger seat (which makes mom freak out a bit, talking about how she and his mother became friends and just other things that sort of annoyed us) and also how I found out they just live next door which makes me mad but they just laughed at me knowing I was just annoyed. And being annoyed makes me do the things I shouldn't have to. I sighed at that thought.

"Ooh, looks like someone's having trouble finding out who her true love is." Miguel teased me and he high-fived with Mike while they laughed. Ha-ha so funny I can hardly breathe.

"What? So you're saying I like that demon out there?" I asked them unbelievingly and the both of them just nodded while they smirked. Really? So they thought I hate him because I like him? Who in the world does that kind of actual thing? I can't even say his name even though the thought of him came rushing through my mind like it's just nothing, wait. Oh my, no no no. I think of him because I can't get over how truly madly deeply cruel and selfish he is. Yes, that's right.

"Hush Tris. Don't call someone a demon." Even if he really is one? I would like to ask mom that thing but knowing her, it would only end up into a sermon that would last weeks.

"Right. Sorry." I said, biting my lip as I drank the glass of water.

As I swallowed the liquid, it was then when I realized that the simplest things dad has always told me to treasure was like water. If you take a look at a glass of water, if you observe it with your senses, it wouldn't even matter given its qualities— tasteless, odorless, clear and transparent; nothing. But then, it gives you a sudden urge to hold the glass, making its way to touch your soft and edible lips. Then that thirsty feeling you have felt before had gone like magic. Magic. And you start to realize water isn't just what it really seems like, that water isn't just tasteless, it isn't just odorless nor clear nor transparent. Water also gives away thirst, which makes you calm amid the stormy feeling you have felt deep inside, which also gives you that sense of magic you have never felt by just looking at it.

The thing is: you have to look deeper. That those little things aren't just those little things. They give you life, in things you never expect them to.

As I stood from the dining table and went upstairs, I was beyond ready to call it a day. While I twisted the knob of my white wooden door, I was surprised to feel the waggling tail of Finn— my pet dog. God, I haven't seen him for days! May allergy kasi si kuya Miguel sa mga aso so mom kept him inside the cage for weeks but I know hindi niya ako matitiis. Everyone knows how much I love Finn, how his soft whitish-brown fur tickles me especially right through my earlobes.

I carried Finn, who was licking my whole face like he hadn't seen me for years as I went inside my room. I turned on the lamp that lighted my whole room with pastel-orange lights which made my room looked like it was inside a pumpkin, where there were shadows everywhere making most of my black and white things and furniture looked like plastic as if they weren't real, as if they were being placed in a shade of those orange lights. I sat on my bed looking at how Finn excitedly ran towards every corner of my room as he sniffers my zebra-colored furred carpet, the edges of my study table and cabinets, and everything that went against his way.

Humiga ako while I looked at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers I remembered dad putting up. I remember him saying that whenever the sky's dark or when the dark and stormy clouds cover the whole sky, just look at the ceiling and close your eyes, then imagine a dreamland.

I hated myself for I remember him in everything I see. There were thousands of memories with him that I couldn't just forget in a blink of an eye. During those times, I thought all those big smiles on our happy faces as he pushed my swing back and forth at the playgrounds, as we eat dirty ice creams messing our shirts, as we watch sunsets on our favorite spot at the tops of the mountain, as he carries me with a piggy-back ride strolling at malls and parks, and as he kissed my forehead making me fall slowly into deep sleep at once. I thought all those things would last a lifetime. That even though I would be twenty-five or thirty or forty, we would still be doing those.

But no.

Those are just the things that I will miss the most. Those things are the reasons why I would try to move on. Because after all, missing someone is also a part of moving on. Missing someone is when you imagine them being with you when the truth is, they really aren't. You know, moving on doesn't always mean forgetting someone in your life. It doesn't always mean erasing all those good and bad memories you have had experienced with him or her. Maybe, people move on not because those things stand in their way from better opportunities or success. Maybe, people move on because it would make them stronger. And I, being his daughter until I leave this world, will try to move on for I know it would make me stronger, and it would strengthen mom, Miguel, Mike and I to have a brighter and better life... without him.

I thought as I closed my eyes.