The Art of Holding On (Book 3)

Voice005.mp4

//

There are mornings in my life where I consider breathing as... optional. Na-uh. Not all human beings are required to breathe, eh? I have this window near my bed overseas and one could take a look at it during winter season and be sad in no time. I used to stare at it for hours before getting up. The snow falls very, very slowly, like it should follow a certain rhythm that makes you lonely, and I would be right under my blankets trying to make myself feel warm. Those days were awful, you know, because I'd realize that I used to love the snow and wished for four seasons to happen back when I was still in the Philippines. And then there I was, loving it with so much hatred in my heart, because I cannot get up and go to work.

Humans are wickedly programmed like that. They wanted what they can't have and once they have it, they'd realize the disadvantages and downsides of having it near their side. Like the snow I used to love, and the winter season I wished so hard to come during my first year abroad. 

And that's where love enters.

I turn to the man beside me and touch his face lightly, careful not to wake him up. He is beside me, unguarded, angelic, even after all these years. It's actually disheartening to think that I watched him grow up; this man beside me used to be the silly boy in class who only tamed himself because the girl he likes wanted him to be as good as her. And that was us. We were cute, and everyone smiled, even highschool teachers, whenever they see us together. We would fight over the simplest of things, like carrying my bag, because I was that one young feminist who thought she needed no man, and he was this love-sick puppy who only wanted to help his girl. He won, of course, and the next day, I brought a pink bag (I've always had dark-colored bags to match my soul) just to get revenge. I took several photos with him hiding his face during that encounter; a fifteen-year-old boy undergoing puberty just can't bear to carry a pink bag with Hello Kitty figures.

Except when he's in love.

He stirs, and hugs me tighter. He buries his face at the crook of my neck and inhales my scent. I blush, at thirty-four, like I am sixteen again, when he first became bold and did that in his apartment in college.

I ask him:

What do I smell like?

He mumbles.

Like rain.

You can smell rain?

He laughs lightly, and goes back to sleep.

I pinch my own cheek to make sure that he is not a figment of my imagination, and that he just described my scent as rain. If it's that soothing smell of the ground after a strong pour, or that same annoying smell you can't get rid of until it dries, I do not know. I refuse to know. There are a lot of things a human should not know if he or she wants to lives in bliss.

I drift back to sleep, but not before he mumbles again.

You smell like a quiet, summer rain.

//