BADIDUNG

Ron Raphael - "End"

"Why don't you just date Czai for real?" naalala kong tanong ni Jelai bago kami tuluyang maghiwalay nung gabi ng prom matapos kaming magduelo ng bago niyang boyfriend na dating bakla.

Akala ko nga papabugbog lang talaga siya eh pero natumba na lang ako sa sahig ng gumanti siya ng suntok. Malakas pala ang baklang yun.

Pero balik sa topic tungkol sa suggestion ni Jelai. Naisip ko ngang lapitan si Czai nung gabing yun pero wala eh, mukha namang masaya na siyang kausap si Mike na dinitch ni Ninian para makasama si Jorge nung gabing yun.

Pakiramdam ko tuloy useless ang pagpunta ko sa prom. Di kami nagkabalikan ni Jelai, at di kami nagkabati ni Czai. Mas masakit yung huli, kasi dati-rati, si Czai ang takbuhan ko pag may problema kami ni Jelai noon.

Parang gaya din ng koneksyon ng dalawang nagdadaldal sa dulo, sina Marxia at Nowlard. Ang alam ko kay Nowlard din tumatakbo si Xia pag frustrated siya kay pareng Jorge. Pero kumpara sa kanila ngayon, mag-isa na lang ako.

As the final few months of the school year progressed, Czairil started getting closer to our other classmates and I was totally left out. And she had a crush on Mike. Both things devastated me.

Up until that point, I was only a friend and ex-fiancee turned nothing to her now, and I was hurt and jealous of her friendship with them. I worried I was being replaced. But strangely, I was even more jealous of the guy that she liked, Mike, than I was of any other friend she currently have.

Like me, Czairil hadn't really dated anyone. She seemed uninterested in the guys who liked her, which I was happy about. That meant she had more time for me. But now Mike was starting to take up all her after-school free time, and I couldn't stand that she was making him a priority over me.

Nakatulong naman na sa States ako nagcollege. I was 2000 miles away from Jelai, and Czairil, and I was distracted by a new city and new people. There was less to remind me of them. Slowly I started thinking about them, especially Jelai who already found her one true love, less and less, as I made new friends.

And then, that fall, I watched a video that changed my life.

I was deep in the trenches of Tumblr when a video from a relatively unknown YouTuber called "How to know if you're in love with your bestfriend?" popped up.

Medyo hesitant man dahil nagpop-up agad sa isip ko si Czairil at ang pinagsamahan namin at ayoko ng mas masira pa kami kesa sa dati ng sira na meron, pero clinick ko pa rin ang video para panoorin.

The video made it seem so normal to have the kinds of feelings I'd had since I was a kid and had always tried to push to the back of my mind. I realized that I'd always thought my childhood friend is the most beautiful girl in town.

Czairil and I, we've been together since pampers days according to my mom and our dads are political allies so we often meet in social gatherings.

Aside from beauty, I admire her for more than just how she looks, acts and treats me nicely each day.

At birthday parties in junior high, I didn't mind when we played spin the bottle and it landed on me and the person on my right would ask us to have nose-to-nose and I would rest my forehead on hers calmly as we touch with our noses and she giggle a bit.

But I never thought about what it meant at the time. I had never really questioned my stand on our friendship, and it wasn't something I could just bring up.

But as I watched this video about what it meant to like your very bestfriend, suddenly, everything began to fit into place, and for the first time, my feelings toward Czairil started to make sense.

I still didn't know much about moving on at the time. When I was at that moment when I had to pick between Jelai and Czairil. Akala ko kailangan kong pumili: si bestfriend o si ex.

The fact that I had feelings for both sides was very frustrating and confusing for me. I didn't know who to talk to, so I reached out to the one person I trusted more than anyone else —Czairil. Napaoverseas call talaga ko ng wala sa oras.

I didn't tell her how I felt — just that I missed her and wanted to hear her voice. She picked up on the second ring, and to my joy, she seemed happy to hear from me.

"I hate fighting with you," I said. "Can we go back to the way things were?"

"Definitely," she agreed, without missing a beat. And I knew then she had missed me as much as I'd missed her.

You know what happened next.