How Can I Love the Heartbreak

THREE: Every Step Brings Us Closer

THREE

'Every Step Brings us Closer'

Their relationship had come in stages.

First they hated each other, then they were friends, then they were lovers, then they moved in together, and then he proposed to her.

He would never forget that night as long as he lived. It had been a lowkey event, he hadn't wanted to spoil it with an audience. So he had driven her down south to Tagaytay, and under the vast skies and millions of stars, he had asked her to become his wife.

He had been nervous, sweating in fucking buckets as he drove them, and if Carmela had been confused at his behavior, she didn't say although her eyes that constantly found him said enough.

"Hon, are you okay?" she'd asked him for the umpteenth time as he drove down the familiar roads. He'd nodded numbly but she doesn't seem content. She reaches up to touch his face. "'Di ka naman mainit. Would you rather I drive?"

"No, darling, kaya ko naman," he says, then, but his voice had sounded foreign to his ears. "Don't worry too much." His chiding comes with an adoring smile.

It had felt like a million years but eventually they'd found their spot, and without grandeur or pomp, he asks the question. He'd been holding her in his arms, her back to his chest and they stood, looking at the view before them, and he had shown her the ring.

The light had hit the rock, making it glitter, and he could have sworn he heard her gasp, but he's not sure as the loud thumping of his heart drowned out the sound.

"Will you live out the rest of our days with me, as my better half?" he had asked her. He turned her around so that she was facing him before he dropped to his knees. "Will you be my wife?"

He was assaulted with her kisses before he could register it as she flew into his arms, her thousand yeses coming along with every smack of her lips to his skin. It had been hazy after that, but he does remember being so happy that he thought he would burst.

He had caught her lips in his and kissed her thoroughly, overjoyed, and not sure how to put it in words. They wouldn't suffice anyway.

"I'm sorry I got lipstick on your shirt," she had told him apologetically later on when they stood there in silence, holding on to each other, every beat of her heart echoing his.

He had grinned like the besotted fool that he was. "I don't care. You can get lipstick anywhere you want on me, love, and I won't mind," he had told her, winking at her, allowing no room for mistakes with his intentions.

He'd gotten a smack on his arm then, but that couldn't have dampened his spirits.

His dream woman just agreed to be his wife.

.::.

"There's lipstick on your shirt," she points out to him rather plainly, numbly, as if she's speaking casually about the weather and not about the possibility of infidelity.

The pink shade is sticking out from the plain white shirt like a sore thumb, as if it's goading her. She feels like the world is crumbling around her and she's stuck on her chair, watching everything fall apart. There's something inside her that breaks every time he makes a step, with those eyes looking at her with apology in them, and God, why wouldn't he just come out with it?