MIXTAPE

I’ve been in love with a girl I know since highschool. I knew she was the one when I took her to prom on our senior’s night and she kissed me and told me that she’s never going to love any other man as much as she loves me. It was then that she owned me.

But the thing is we were not together. We were not a couple. Because her life was already organized even before she met me. She had plans. And she was willing to sacrifice everything in order to reach it, and sadly, including me. She said that she needed to achieve her dreams first before she can fully commit herself to me. It was unfair of her to have such small confidence and trust in us for thinking that she wouldn’t be able to reach them with me. But then again I understood her point. She needed focus, and emotional things are just going to be on her way.

So I let her go. She didn’t tell me to wait but before she boarded the plane, I saw it in her eyes: the hope that someday, when she’s ready to come back, I would still have her. That was the exact moment where I ran to her and kiss her with all the love I have, but when I let her go I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t need to. Because I’ve already decided that I’m willing to wait for her, even if it would take me forever.

Five years has passed and I was surprisingly contented with the status of our relationship.  We communicate once a day. It’s a must. She was the one who insisted that even if we can’t talk to each other, we would send even just one text, or e-mail, about anything, so that our communication would be consistent. I liked that arrangement. It meant that she doesn’t want to lose me.

I’m working at a publishing company as a copywriter. She’s on a financial firm. She’s good with money. Being financially stable was her dream, because she grew up having less. I wasn’t the same. I was born in a middle class family so I didn’t really experience how it felt to run out of money. My family is a bunch of lawyers, or on marketing firms, except for me. I’ve always been the artist in our family. And my job as a copywriter was just enough to suit my lifestyle. But photography is my passion. It has always been. My co-workers and friends and their friends hire me as an official photographer on their weddings, birthdays, and just practically any event. I always say yes, not because I needed the money, but because I’m always excited to be the one who captures moments that would turn into memories which would stay with them forever.

And it was on one of those events where I met you. It was the wedding of my friend John’s sister. It was while you were walking to the altar when I noticed you for the first time. You were the maid of honour. I knew I was supposed to be looking at the bride. After all she was the star of the day. But during that moment, I almost filled the entire memory card of my DSLR with your face, and it would all be you walking down the aisle.

I continued watching you subtly later on the reception. You were unescorted and it made me wonder why. So I asked John to introduce us. I told you my name, and you told me yours. I remember thinking that it suited you perfectly, and it really did.

We then started talking, and boy did we click so well. There weren’t any awkward silences in between. You talked about your job. You’re actually a published novelist hiding under a pseudo name, because you don’t want to be famous. You told me that your day job as an events planner was something you’ve always dreamed of. And when it was my turn to talk, I told you about my day job as a copywriter. I told you about her. It’s not something I hide. I’m quite proud about the fact that I’m already emotionally taken, and it was surprising that for the first time, someone didn’t judge my decision to wait for her. You even supported it and said that it was brave of me, and loyal, and that you wished there are more men like me.

I knew you were not trying to impress me. I knew you were not trying to be anything. You were just…you; honest, witty, talkative, smart, happy, with an infectious smile… beautiful. So effortlessly, ethereally, beautiful.

When I told you about my passion for photography, you were so interested that we ended up talking about it for most of the night, in between eating cakes, gulping down bottles of champagnes, and dancing. While I go around and capture pictures of everyone, you stayed by my side and watched me. And the way your eyes light up with awe as you looked at the photos made everything even more worth it.

“They’re beautiful,” you whispered to the photos, but to me you said, “You’re amazing.” And when I looked at you staring up at me, I saw something in your big expressive brown eyes; something that I haven’t seen in a long time:

Longing.

You were missing something, and it was clear that you found in me what you missed. You’re eyes said that you wanted to stay, and whatever it meant to you that time, I wanted it too. I wanted it so bad.

That night, we ended up lying on my bed, naked. Our souls were bared to each other. We discovered that we’re both made up of dusts from the universe. That like the constellation of stars, we were bright, vast, and that there were parts of us that had remained unknown. And so we explored. We connected in more ways than we could ever imagine. Our bodies were perfect together. Our minds think alike. We listened to each other’s heart and deciphered the meaning behind each beat.

I kissed the freckles that were gathered on your cheeks. They looked like stars, so I wished on them. I wished that that night would never end. I wished on them hard.

            I kissed the scars on your neck and back. You said that they were the result of having small pox the year before. You hated them. You said you didn’t want me to see them. But I reassured you that it was okay, and so you let me. You trusted me.

            As I was making love with you, as I worshipped your body, I could sense that under that confident smile lies an insecure person. And so I asked you to tell me what you are most insecure of, and you gestured to your whole being. I remember feeling so mad. I wanted to break something. I wanted to blame each person who made you feel that way. But because I know that I cannot, and that we only have one night, I made love to each and every single part of your body instead. I left nothing. I made sure that when it was over, you would know how utterly perfect you are.

            And then you started kissing away the worried frown between my brows, giving me back each healing kisses I gave you. You kissed away the wrinkles that were forming at the corners of my eyes. You made love to the laugh lines at each corner of my mouth and trailed long lingering kisses down my jaw, onto my neck, and to my chest; marking yourself there forever.

            We whispered everything and nothing into the darkness that filled the room. We danced between the warm sheets of my bed; our bodies colliding in tune with the music that our mouths were making. The sweet moans, the hungry groans, the hurried gasps—each sound that had escaped from our lips was like a song. I was drowning into you and I didn’t want to get up.

But we knew that what we were doing that night wasn’t right, but how can something so beautiful and amazing be so wrong? I didn’t want it to end. You didn’t, too. I was prepared to stay, to gamble, to risk all the years that I had with her just so I could have another day with you. It bothered the hell out of me since I wasn’t even in love with you, because it was not possible. I was in love with her. But then if I were to choose that night, I would choose you over her. To hell with all the consequences.

And so as we laid still, covered under my blanket, with the first rays of sun hitting our bodies, I told you that I want more of you; that I want more of us. But you shook your head and said that nothing right will ever come out from something that was started the wrong way. That no matter what we do, we have people whose hearts we carry within us and it’s our responsibility to take care of them. “You carry her heart,” you said, “and I… I carry his.”

I just stared at you in utter surprise. And then I asked, I had to ask, “Do you love him?”

“Yes, as much as you love her.”

Your revelation felt like a bomb. You dropped it on me without any warning. I didn’t know that you were committed to someone else. You didn’t tell me. No one ever cared to tell me. I just went right into the pit with no knowledge of what was waiting for me at the bottom. But even then, even if my heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces, I still wanted you. But I could feel you already withdrawing yourself from me, and so I tried to hold on by wrapping my arms around you, wishing to everything that you would take your words back, to stay with me and leave him.

However, I thought about her, on what she would feel if she ever found out. Devastated, she will be. She had put so much effort into her dreams, trying to reach it as early as she can just so she can come back to me, and what did I do? I betrayed her. I broke her trust. I violated her loyalty. I murdered her heart. When not once she ever cheated on me, because I would know. Because if the situation were reversed, she would tell me.

And then I thought of how, perhaps, you were feeling the way that I do, that’s why you wouldn’t allow yourself to want more than what we have shared. That’s when I gave up. You love him, as much as I love her. I kissed you one last time before I pulled my arms away from you. I brushed the tears that had fallen from your face but I didn’t tell you anything. I didn’t need to. My silence said it all.

We got dressed in awful silence. We couldn’t even look at each other’s eyes. And as I stood there, I could only watch in helpless surrender as you were getting ready to leave. I offered to take you home because it’s the least that I could do. I didn’t want to just let you leave my apartment like an unmitigated ass; like nothing ever happened. But you looked at me and just smiled weakly, shaking your head no. That single word meant so much more than just you rejecting my offer of a ride home, and it almost broke me down.

For the next minutes I watched you brush your hair, put on some make-up and then when you were ready, you tried to flash me a happy smile. But they didn’t reach your eyes, so I didn’t bother joining your pretence. You sighed and retrieved something from your small bag and handed it to me. It was a CD. I asked what it was for. You said that the day before the wedding, you felt restless. It was like something was going to happen; you just weren’t sure what. So you made a mixtape. And before I could ask you what the connection was, you covered my mouth with your hand and shook your head. You kissed me for the last time then said goodbye, and the coward that I am I just stood there and watched you leave my life forever.

I didn’t get out of my apartment that day, or the next. I just stayed and listened to the mixtape you gave me. I waited for something big to happen while I was listening to the songs. I waited for some kind of an unexpected discovery, something that would make me understand you even more; something magical and vast and strange, like our meeting.

But what happened wasn’t something big. Instead it was more like a slow revelation. It revealed to me in small realizations the answer to all the questions I had in my mind: Why we can never be? Why we can’t just throw our responsibilities and feelings away and just give in to the strong connection we have for each other? Why we can’t be impulsive, aggressive and just do whatever our hearts was telling us to do?

I found answers, but they were not about you. That’s just it. It’s like a dead end; you are a dead end. What happened between us made me realize that no matter how many times you question the way of the universe, no matter how loud you would shout to the sky and wish on a falling star, no one will ever answer you back and tell you what you want to hear. Life will continue to disappoint us, hurt us, and scar us in the most bittersweet and ironic of ways, but it also has the power to turn something small and unexpected into something that has the power to change your life. It’s just up to you to decide whether it’s for the better or not.

It made me realize then that no matter how much you want to make a thing into something more, if it is not meant to be, the whole world will conspire against it. But if it is meant to happen, not even the universe could stop it.

Still, you ask yourself. Can that one night be really enough to last you a lifetime? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

People say that you could only love one person in your life. If someone told me that a year ago, I would have agreed with them. But I’ve read once that you can actually love two people at the same time, but the other one is called your soulmate. You just have to decide which of the two you will choose.

I didn’t know the difference between the two back then because I was contented with having the love of my life. And as far as I knew she was also my soulmate. Life proved me wrong.

Because in a wedding, set in the most random and ordinary of days, as I was doing something that I have loved since I could remember, I met a girl named Camille. I met you. And the way we connected wasn’t only spectacular. It was out of this world. In my more fanciful of days, I would call it miraculous. But just like how miracles are, they mostly only happen once. The most important thing to do is to cherish them. Remember them. Take care of them. Remind yourself how blessed you are that you got to experience something so wonderful; that in a planet inhabited by billions of people, you got the chance to meet that one other person who is exactly like you. That in a one and a billion chance ratio, you met your soulmate, and then realize that not everyone is as lucky as you.

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