A DREAM OF LOVE- completed

CHAPTER 6: ADOLESCENCE

CHAPTER 6: ADOLESCENCE

Days, weeks, months and even years had gone by and Andhy still been avoiding me. One time I was hanging out with Lana at Kisha’s place playing card games, talking, laughing and eating at the veranda. Moment’s later Kisha’s older sister Shani joins with us. Since everybody knows that I have a crush on Andhy, like the whole town knows. Shani grab the deck of cards on the table and shuffles it. She looked at us and said that she knows card readings and ask if we wanted to try. Lana, Kisha and I agreed with excitement. They choose me to be the first one to try. Shani shuffles the cards a bit more and place it on the table.  She asks me to choose one Queen out of four that would represent me and one King that would represent the person I love. I chose the Queen of Hearts for myself and the King of Hearts for Andhy. Shani cuts the whole deck into half and put the two cards I chose and shuffles it again. When Shani was done with the routine she opens the card one by one and when the cards I picked showed up she stop and start reading the meaning of it.

The first card came out was the King of Hearts then beside it was the Queen of Spade and under the King of Hearts was the Queen of Hearts. The reading goes something like this. Andhy has also had his eyes on me. In short he likes me or he did love me also. Hearing those words gave me hope and made me alive again. To continue, there was a but at the end of the sentence.  He likes or loves me but he also like or love somebody else who came along first. Shani added that a time would come in Andhy’s life that he would choose between me and the girl he first falls in love with. Lana, Kisha and I broke the silence and asking each other that who would be the girl. Because I knew, we all knew that Andhy doesn’t have a girlfriend yet. But there were a rumor that he was courting someone at his school. So we came to a conclusion that maybe that was the girl on the cards, the Queen of Spade. My heart goes to drain again but I was glad to know that Andhy likes me too even if it was just a card reading game or something.

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Listening to the music was my favorite pass time especially the mellow music. It made me relax and very soothing to mind and body. I love to dedicate songs to Andhy and one song was “First Love” sung by Kristy McNichols and Christopher Atkins and the other song was ofcourse “The King and Queen of Hearts.” Whenever the radio played these songs I close my eyes and imagine that I was dancing with Andhy in a garden with beautiful flowers around us and a small pond lying at the center of it. When the song ends I slowly open my eyes with a smile on my face.

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            There was a moment that I was devastated of what I saw. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t even smile. Seeing Andhy with the girl whom was the one he had been courting. They were in the middle of the dance floor dancing under the music “The King and Queen of Hearts.” I was really, really hurt that I didn’t know what to do. A big question puffs in my head, why did I come to this prom? In the first place this isn’t my prom anyway.

            Lana’s mother is an English teacher and Andhy was one of her students. Lana asks me to accompany her to go watch the school prom. The only reason I came along was Andhy was going to be there because it was their prom and I will have the opportunity to see him all dressed up and hanging out with his friends. When Lana and I got to the school campus I start looking for Andhy. There were so many people walking around, talking and everything. Then Lana drags me at her mom’s classroom. Luckily, up there at the second floor I think, we can see the whole dance floor, the sound system, the food and the people. Moments later the prom ceremony starts. It was fun at first seeing everybody enjoying themselves. Then Lana saw Andhy and immediately told me and there I saw him dancing with the girl. She was beautiful and graceful not like me who has a less feminine hormones and can be one of the boys kind a thing. I start comparing myself to her and gave me more pain in my heart. I know it was wrong to compare but I can’t help it. I was jealous.

Since that prom night I knew that Andhy would never ever have a second look at me. Seeing him happy being with that girl I knew that he likes her so much. I never did gave up hope on us but I gone back to the feelings I had before for him, the feelings that just seeing him from a distance can make my day complete, the kinds of feelings that doesn’t ask for more.

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One Saturday afternoon I ask Lana to hang out at my place to listen to my new cassette tape that I just bought recently. I told her that one of the songs in the album was dedicated to Andhy. It was the song “Bakit ba ganyan?”  We listens to the whole album and she picked one and told me that the song “Laging Sinasabi” would be the perfect one for Andhy.

            When we rewind the song “Laging Sinasabi” and played it again we heard a vehicle pulled over at Andhy’s front gate. We rush to the window and surprised to see Andhy and his friends got out from it. They stayed at their veranda and they were playing the guitar. Lana rewinds the tape again and pushed the play button and turns the volume on. I watched her and when our eyes met there was a big question mark on my head. What was she doing? When I read her mind and knew what was she was trying to do I closed the curtain and we start singing the song out loud, loud enough to hear the whole neighborhood. Crazy but it was fun.