I sipped my strawberry
smoothie then stopped when I felt his eyes on me. I shifted in my seat
and focused my
eyes on my phone lying on the glass table wishing
someone would call me to break the
silence.
It was in this open-air café where we first met.
The café’s promotion streamer said it was located at the very heart of
the city of gold. I
thought it was faith that brought us here. A little
after we met, my heart was struck with golden love. Funny, I never
thought of King Midas’ cold selfish golden touch and did not associate
gold with even if the two sound very much alike.
It wasn’t my fault I fell for the maleness he
exuded then as much as he did now. But I’m not going to be blinded
again by the cloudy dreaminess threatening to tear down the fortress I
built around me. He practically owned my heart but never my pride.
Hours before we met on his, our last date, I
planned all the biting words I’d throw at him, just to feel that I, too
has power over him. Yet, words become hollow when flesh touch in a
split second. And with an accidental meeting of flesh when he seated
beside me, I had amnesia over the thousand or so well-drafted words I’m
so painstakingly practiced the past few days even if the possibility of
him taking me out on a last date is point zero one percent to a
thousand.
Out of love, or still in love, I’m going to end
this. He just used me anyway. He made me believe that satisfaction over
sweetmeats could mean total love when he actually wanted the whole
course of a big dinner. It doesn’t matter if I thought it was I he
cared for when it was actually my friend he hungered for all the while.
The slight bite of salt in my cheese macaroni is
enough when paired with my all time favorite strawberry smoothie. I can
manage to be alone. Bittersweet is still sweet.
The palpable silence drove me mad and the
occasional drove of running jeepneys and motorelas did not help much
for there was an impalpable silence between our hearts.
I stood up, picked up my rattan bag he liked and
complimented on that very first meeting and left without a word. Better
not let him see the tears stinging in my eyes, I thought.