CandyMag.Com

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I let things be since that day in February. And now it’s May, and I feel as if I’m going to burst. I tried to fix the misunderstanding about AJ’s flowers, handing it to Nicole the next school day, explaining that the envelope was opened because my sister thought it was hers. Nicole, being the kind, unassuming person she is, bought the story hook, line, and sinker. It took me 30 seconds to deliver my perfectly practiced lie. If it took a cesond more, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have fooled and told her the truth.

So that was over in a flash. But what dragged on, and what I became so painfully aware of in the last month and a half, was the fact that Carlo and I weren’t talking. It wasn’t as if we just stopped, or I didn’t try to talk to him. It was just that I didn’t know what to say, and it seemed like he felt he had nothing to say to me, too. In school, too many times within the week after his visit, I was thisclose to going up to him to chitchat–but then that seemed so
trivial. And on the way home during those days, it was all I could do to keep from knocking on his door and threshing things out with him. But then that seemed so serious. I was scared that if I forced him to talk to me, I’d just sit there, frozen, without any answers, not knowing what to ask.

But as I found out, weeks and weeks of not talking to your best friend can do a number on you. It can make things rather clear–maybe not crystal–but less muddled enough to reflect your true feelings. I missed him terribly; I missed him so much. By the time summer rolled around and school was out of the way, the distance between us became unbearable. I was nervous about talking to him, but the butterflies in my stomach were easier to take than the emptiness I felt when he walked out. So two weeks into summer, I mustered the courage to knock on his door. But he had left. For Davao. With his cousins. He wasn’t to be back till the end of May.

I spent vacation listless, catching myself eyeing the telephone, wondering when the call would come; staring off into space in the direction of the gate, half-expecting he’d saunter in, plop down on the seat beside me, throw his ball up in the air and catch it, while I ramble on about how Maroon 5 is an amazing band and what cute thing my brother did that day. And then he’d shake his head and smile, saying I was so terribly excitable.

“Look, I’ve been doing some thinking…” his voice broke into my reverie, and I sat up startled.  My back was to him and as I turned, there he was, looking very much like the boy I’ve always known… but different. Or else, I felt differently about him.

“I… it’s… we’ve…” he tried to start but trailed off. Sitting across from me, he leaned forward, closer, hands clasped together. He looked at me as if taking the sight of me in, looked away, then stared me straight in the eye.

“I realize I might’ve ruined everything–coming on to you like that, and I’m really sorry.” He took my hand in his own, and it was electric. “I want us to remain friends, and I don’t want this to come between us.” He drew a deep breath, “So forget I said anything. I didn’t mean it. Not as much as I mean to stay good friend with you.”

A knot was forming in my throat, and it felt as if my heart was sinking. But I forced a smile, playfully slapped his hand away, and teased, “I thought you’d never come,” my voice thin.

A smile crept at the corner of his mouth. “Well, you didn’t exactly ask me to stay.”

And it’s true. I know, I didn’t. But I still wished he’d lingered on that day.