Story of a Girl

I'm Coming Home

“When I’m on your mind will your thoughts of me be kind?” Hoop Dreams

The last rays of sunlight poured over the landscape as Lara and her classmates made their way to the main gate of the university. As they walked across the grassy field, almost instinctively, Lara slowed down her pace and bent down to pluck some stalks of flowering weeds. She looked closely at the reedy stalks and twirled them absentmindedly between her fingers.

“Lara’s in another world again.” A classmate of hers teased.

“What are you doing?” Another classmate asked. “Para kang bata.”

She smiled wistfully. “Just an old habit.” She murmured. “Just trying to relive something.”

Lara was in third year college now, majoring in English. For the three years that Shin has been living in US, they have kept their friendship going by exchanging emails with each other.  At first their other friends like Paige and Lee wrote to him regularly as well. But with the demands of college life and busy schedules, the others were not able to keep the habit up except for Lara who liked telling stories and writing—put into good use in their correspondence. He wrote long emails in return to her rambling ones which made the whole activity very interesting indeed.

Lara wrote about her life in the university—interesting anecdotes about her classes and humorous snippets of her small trials. She also never failed to give him the latest about their other friends and once in a while, she would even encourage him to patch up his friendship with Alex. Shin took this manfully enough. He replied kindly and patiently to all of her questions about Alex. He in turn also regaled Lara about his own life there: his part-time jobs, his classes in school and the new thing he learned. He still teased her a lot too. Somehow, they have managed to rebuild and maintain a friendship which almost expired three years ago because of sheer childish impulsiveness and miscommunication.

“Oh by the way, I’ll be coming home soon.”

Lara stared at the computer monitor incredulously. Is she comprehending things right? What home was Shin referring to, here in the Philippines or there? She began to type frantically, feeling terribly dim and stupid.

“Excuse me for being a schmuck but what do you mean by you’re coming home? As in here in the Philippines?” She asked. She squirmed inwardly as she clicked the ‘send’ button because she had a feeling that Shin would laugh when he read this message and think of her as a really dense chit. She always felt that he was perpetually amused with the complex and eccentric facets of her personality.

His reply arrived two days later. “You’re not a schmuck,” he answered indulgently. Though Lara had a feeling he had laughed at her silliness first before sending this reply. “And yes, I meant there in the Philippines. So I’ll see you soon!”

She sat there in silence for a while, reading and re-reading the brief message to make sure she understood it right. He is coming home!

Well, she should be happy, right? She’ll tell the girls; they would be so excited! They will surely have the best reunion!

But Lara suddenly remembered Alex. Alex...will she be civil and generous enough to allow Shin to join them in their get-togethers when he arrives? Surely she can try. Lara had much faith in Alex. It’s been what? Three years? They have grown up after all, haven’t they? Everyone has. Even the really superficial and dim-witted ones from their class in high school had shown some improvement in terms of maturity.

Lara bit her lower lip in apprehension. She could only hope for the best.

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