You will find the right man for you. If it’s not him then he could be someone worthy who could share your love for indie music and match your fashion. Someone you could introduce to your friends as a man who is not already in love with someone else. Someone who could only love you. Someone who will choose you in the end.
Photography by Ronelyn Faith Vailoces
(It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. My life has been a myriad of stories engraved in the people’s minds in this old town. I have not been consistent with my writing these days, probably because of my underlying depression that I need to battle every day.
I made a promise to myself after the darkest days of my life. And that promise is to write consistently. I need to learn the value of being consistent and motivated. For now, let this be gone from my chest.)
Dear girl,
I used to believe that the love like ours was a heaven’s cut of perfection. But of course, just like a real love story, it wasn’t.
The first time I met you, my gut gave me that funny nudge. It wasn’t because I find your hair a bad cut or your eyeglasses were too big for your face. But because I saw how you looked at him.
Among ten people or so that night when we shared barbecue and lighthearted conversations, you never took your eyes away from him. That was when I knew that you will be the person who will come between us.
And of course, it happened. Your seemingly parade of school-related text messages to my boyfriend escalated to good nights and unplanned hang-outs. Then followed by roadtrips because you needed him to listen to your plethora of brokenhearted tales. Until of course, I knew that the moment you fell for him was when he took you to the beach wherein he poured his tears on you because of us.
Then midnight quarrels already bombarded our shaky relationship, and he kept on turning to you because by this time, you’ve already earn the title as being a “best friend” even if you’ve just known each other for a year.
People were not blind, and the gossips became stories retold by people along the hallways. His best friend, in turn, confessed to me at a cafe that no one actually goes to a lot. I could not understand at first until I had to cry that night.
I fell in love with him, and it wasn’t a surprise if you also did. But was it an excuse for you to break my heart? How could you? I’ve never hated a girl this much, but I did. Until now, my rage burns by the mere mention of your name. But I learned to channel it to other forms such as through writing my metaphorically blood-stained thoughts on paper.
A roller coaster of breaking up and getting back together plagued my life, stepping on what’s left of my withered soul. Finally, you got your short-lived romance when I thought me and him completely burned our heart’s bridges to each other.
I don’t know how he came to realize to leave you at such time wherein he was starting a story with you. Did my lips came to his mind when you were kissing him? Was the title of the song we used to sing screamed at his mind when you were changing the radio at his car? Was he tracing my name at the beach sand when you were not looking at him as you were busy collecting shells?
Did he love you? Or he thought he could?
The night when he was sitting by my porch was when I realized that his heart could not forget me or us. My head was in the right place, but my heart wasn’t. And there we were, the following day, we were sharing coffee and competed who could eat the last french fry.at Mcdonald’s. As if we were perfect. As if you were just a shadow that was stolen by the night.
We had to go through with you, not out. Maybe that’s why he took a chance with you, to see if his heart could beat the same way he did towards me to you. But of course, could your favorite movie change its story?
I know your hopes were swallowed by an inevitable cloud of loss. In the end, a man made his choice. Although, we are not sure how this would end up or how are we at this time, I am sure that we had to go through you because it would shape our hearts in better forms on how to see love not just as a impressionistic painting of lilies and sunsets but an abstract painting of fire and storms.
You will find the right man for you. If it’s not him then he could be someone worthy who could share your love for indie music and match your fashion. Someone you could introduce to your friends as a man who is not already in love with someone else. Someone who could only love you. Someone who will choose you in the end.
I was a girl who walked through a bed of nails in getting myself on track. My friends crowded like books waiting to be read, but it was my story this time that they were reading. My heart drowned into the deepest oceans, but then I emerged with a better heart. I wasn’t afraid to be alone anymore. Without him for some time, I fell in love with the art of words again, with the kindness of listening ears, and with the grace of God.
There are times, I would not lie, that my 3am self would wake me up and then plagued me with nuisance of questions: Was I ever enough? Why did he leave me? Was she more beautiful? More everything? I could not answer anything.
All I know was that, love is never predictable. It is messy and sometimes destructing. But the best love will always be a love for yourself because when your heart is whole even if you are alone then you don’t need another person to keep the pieces together.
You are not more beautiful. You are not more exciting. You are not more lovable.
Because you are different. And I am not more beautiful, more exciting, or more lovable.
We love him, and that’s the only thing we share. It’s just that we are different stories.
I don’t want to see you again, and I know that you don’t want to see me too. We were not meant to become friends. We were not even acquaintances. But I hope that your story in my life will already end.
It’s time for you to write your own now with someone else, and I hope you will not go back to reading the same one with us anymore because you deserve a love based on trust and not lies.
With all sincerity,
His first girlfriend
Miel 