The Road Trip

Chapter 14: Doubts and Trust

We got back into the house an hour later. I didn't know what it was that made me feel so bad. There was this knowing feeling that he was going to ask me about what happened earlier but he was really trying his best not to.

This was the kind of situation that i didn't want to see but then it happened. I went to the unfinished barn and sat on the stool near the working table. I stared at the interior of the barn which only had nothing but a table and a stool.

I felt like I couldn't do anything. What's going to happen when he leaves next week? He's just going to leave like nothing happened. I'm going to be left alone once he leaves for Canada. No one is going to protect me like he did. No one is going to stand up for me when Arnold decides to tell it straight to my face that no one will love me.

"You know talking can do you good," he said as he walked in the barn. "What's on your mind?"

He walked around and crouched in front of me. I just sighed and shook my head and pretended to wear a smile. It was tough to confront someone that you learned to care about in just the span of a week and a half. I can't believe that time was against us. Against me. It was hard to think about losing him. I wouldn't be able to cope with that easily.

"Us...this. This thing that's going on between us."I can't even look at him straight in the eye.

"What about us?"

"I'm afraid that you're just going to be a memory for me. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to feel scared anymore."

He came nearer to me and knelt before me. Taking my smaller hands in his, he tipped my chin so that our gazes could meet.

"I may be in Canada but I'll try my best to be with you in every possible way that I can. If it means that I need to move my business here, then I will. I'll do anything -"

He was promising me things now that seemed to far to accomplish. I just wanted him here. I wanted to find a reason to not doubt him. But here I was doubting if he was really going to stay.

"Let's not try to make empty promises, Trav."

"I am not making empty promises here, Jackie. I like you and that's the bottom line." He stood up now to prove his point. He walked towards the glass windows. "I don't want you to fight this. Whatever it is that we're having now, it's real. At least from my end is real... unless you're just playing with me."

I stood up now trying to meet him. I was not playing him. I liked him with all of my heart and in the last two years, he was the only one who managed to wake my senses up. He was the only one who made me feel things that I thought I would never be able to feel.

"Everything I feel about you is real. Please don't ever doubt that." I was already standing behind him and mustered all the courage that I had to lock my arms around his waist. Resting my head on his lean back, I felt him tense and instantly relax.

"I'm just scared. Help me not to be scared anymore."

He turned around as I loosened my grip on him. His smile rested on the lips that brought the feelings back into my system.

"Promise me that you're not going to leave me hurting, Trav. That's all I ask."

"I will do that and more. Stop worrying about Arnold. He's in the past. Have faith in me and in us. We can get through this. Distance is just a number that we can always try to change. I'll make adjustments to whatever it is that needs to be done for us to be together always."

MInsan nga naman talaga, nakakalaglag panga itong si Maple Syrup boy.

We hugged each other for a fraction of a time that didn't seem to matter. It was hard to believe that in just a week and a half, we were able to form a bond that I wouldn't be able to put a label on. But then I am happy and more than ecstatic to be the person that I have become with Travis now. Whirlwind relationship isn't really what I thought it would be. It's turning around somehow.

Then I suddenly remembered the prize that Mamita had given us. The three-day stay at the the hotel and thought about what we could do about it.

"I suddenly remembered the prize that you won last week. The stay at the hotel."

"Yeah... do you want to go there?"

"Do you?"

"Anywhere with you is perfect, babe."

That set everything in stone. This is the guy that I feel is going to change my life in just three weeks and to make everything else final, I need to spend some alone time with him.