JUST ONE SOBER (frankiana)

Chapter 27

Diana's POV

Natulog ago gaya ng sinuggest sakin ni Veah. 4pm na ng naisip kong lumabas at magkape. And an instrumental song is playing in the speakers. It's played in piano.

I gave my all and they all know it
You turned me down and now it's showing
In two months, you replaced us
Like it was easy

Made me think I deserved it
In the thick of healing, yeah

Biglang pumasok si Argel, binati niya ako at lumapit sakin. Pakiramdam ko pinagtitripan lang talaga ako ni Veah.

"Kamusta ka na? I haven't seen you in like ages." Sabi nito sakin.

"Well, uhm I'm fine. Kayo ni Franki, how are you?."

He looked at me confused.

"Franki?."

"Yeah Franki, your fiance."

"Fiance? Haha Diana, I'm married. And her name is not Franki. It's Angela. Are you sure you're okay?." Mukha siyang nag-aalala sa akin.

"S-sorry. M-my mistake. I may be just delusional hehe."

"Masyado mo lang sigurong pinapagod ang sarili mo. Sige ah, I'll just order--"

"Sure sure."

Fck. So, Franki doesn't really exist. I thought Franki was schizophrenic here? Turns out it's me all along?

We'd always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
This dancing was killing me softly
I needed to hate you to love me, yeah

Wednesday. Magkasama kami ni Gazini na papunta ng TED Talk. Sakay ang kotse niya,

"Good thing kasi naisipan mong umuwi. You graduated with Psychology course right?."

Tumango lang ako.

"Perfect kasi about din dun yung pag-uusapan ngayon."

"Talaga?."

"Oo. Isn't it crazy? Haha."

"Totally crazy haha."

To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to lose you to love me, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to lose you to love me

FLASHBACK

"Anak, hindi naman ako tumawag sayo eh. Besides, wala din akong kilala na Franki." Sabi sakin ni Mommy.

Beep beep

"Oh, ayan na ata si Gazini." Sabi pa niya.

I kissed her goodbye.

"Sige ma. See you later nalang."

"Sige anak. Ingat kayo. At about dyan sa Franki, you're just over thinking."

I'm not possibly going crazy, right?

EOFB

Nang makarating kami dun, pumasok kami sa parang isang theatre. Gazini and I sat exactly in the middle.

"Uhm Gaz, CR lang ako saglit."

"Okay. Bilisan mo lang, baka magsimula na to mayamaya."

Nagmadali akong pumunta sa CR. Wala namang tao kaya nakabalik din ako agad.

"Let's welcome our guest speaker for today, the famous author of the best selling book How I Killed An Immortal Myth. Frances Margaret Russell." Once the woman on stage mentioned that particular name, I am just stunned. Franki?

Nagpalakpakan lahat ng tao. Nakatitig parin ako sa kanya. She's wearing this maroon business suit. And her smile, just like the first time I saw it. She's even more beautiful now. Napaluha nalang ako.

You promised the world and I fell for it
I put you first and you adored it
Set fires to my forest
And you let it burn
Sang off-key in my chorus

She sighed deep.

"Being a writer is not an easy job.  There are a lot of criteria that you should be qualified into. Your work has to be, informative, creative and inspiring. And what's crazy about it is because unlike journalism, it's not your obligation to tell people what's real or not. You just have to come up with something that you think could be real. To show people your sense of truth. Picture this."

She pressed the remote for switching PowerPoint slides. It has a picture of an old pirate ship in the middle of the sea under the wonderful view of an eclipse.

"I know a story about a ghost ship with hundreds of people on board to celebrate a love story. It's called Cameron. It appears out of thin air when eclipse occurs. I witnessed it myself. This photo you see on the screen is my painting. No one believes that it's real, so I decided to give them the idea of what it looks like. And they believed. They believed I was a liar. As you all know, a solar eclipse occurs when the moon gets between Earth and the sun, and the moon casts a shadow over Earth. But I believed that this happens because those two objects we see in the same sky are lovers and that time of every year, that's the time that they're allowed to be together. Of course,if you're a kid that's a great thing to imagine. But I'm not a kid when I believed that. I was 23." The audience laughs.

To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to hate you to love me, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to lose you to love me
To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah

"Some of you may think that I'm childlike, creative or maybe crazy. Well, unless if I tell you  that the third choice is the right answer haha. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. According to the people who witnessed my whole crazy journey, I went into a world that is somewhat like the real one. I couldn't find the difference between real and delusion. And at some point of my life, I was convinced that I am head over heels in love with my female best friend. See, in the real world or maybe we can call it my waking life, I am straight. I have a loving boyfriend and we're planning to get married and have kids in the future. But my delusions overlapped with reality. Which made everything really confusing. I didn't know which one is real and the idea of having an undying romantic love for my best friend who just died in the other world shattered me in to pieces. And one afternoon of November, I tried to end my life. My real life."

And now the chapter is closed and done
To love love, yeah
To love love, yeah
To love, yeah
And now it's goodbye, it's goodbye for us

"Good news, I survived. So that means you're not listening to a ghost guesting in a TED Talk haha. As I was saying, the whole attempted suicide thing happened. That made my mom decide to find me a cure. At that's how all my memories in the past vanished. That's how the immortal myths that exists in my brain died. The book I wrote entitled How I Killed An Immortal Myth is about moving on from your past. Spoiler alert. Cover your ears if you haven't read it yet. The character Patrick Dane was brainwashed and convinced that he is a murderer. That he murdered his own wife. He ran away hiding, living as someone else. He created different identities for himself, but the guilt is still there inside him. He tried everything to erase his memory, he hit his head and ingested some pills but none of it worked. Lastly, he decided to kill himself. And yes, he died. But after that, he was proven innocent of the crime he thought he committed. The lesson of the story is to tell people that death is not the cure for every suffering. An immortal myth is something we want to believe in for the rest of our lives that is never real, ever. And the only way to kill that is to find out and accept the truth."