When Bad Girls Fall In Love

Chapter 42 --- Heaven

Friends and therapists had been telling me that I needed to get away. "You need a fresh start," they told me. "You gotta get back out to the world of the living."




Pity words, I had thought, but the idea grew and grew until it became part of an obsession. When I finally made the decision to leave Pinas and just about everything in it, I planned a vacation as the culminating chapter to the worst period of my life in Germany.






Maybe it would be a fresh start. Or maybe I could just let myself feel alive again, if only for a while but that ‘a while’ turned into actually breathing and living as well as loving the German air I came to live for almost two years

 

A reckless, careless chuckle left my lips. I had never felt such freedom before until I stepped on this foreign country. For the first time in my life, I truly had no cares, no demands, no deadlines to meet or fools to please and it was refreshing

 

Even at mid-day the sidewalks were filled with people walking around. With an abundance of shops and local businesses, I could understand the constant flow but was surprised.




Before I got too far away, I checked the cross streets for where the apartment was located then walked off to where the traffic seemed to be flowing.

 







Everything around me took my breath away all over again no matter how long I’ve been living in Frankfurt.

 

I had been used to the smaller and spread-out Makati, but Frankfurt seemed so much different. The buildings were taller and extravagant. I was lost in the sounds of trains passing by and the thick traffic that seemed stuck in every direction, so unlike what I had known.







The people in the streets said hello to me, where as I had always been used to being stone-walled. Back home I had always felt that if I didn't live in a neighborhood, I didn't really fit in.

Here it was something else. Everywhere I looked screamed 'look at me.' And I wanted to look at everything, but more importantly I wanted to experience it.

 At twenty-four I had achieved more than anyone else in my family ever expected.

The word family drifted me back a month ago. It was still fresh on my head the way my Father held my hand tightly before he let go and bid farewell for good.

 

That afternoon, the phone rang and I answered it. I got the shock of my life when I heard Sandra's voice. She explained she'd got my number from my mom because she had bad news and Once the sad news sank in, that bad news brought me flying back to Manila the next day

The news I'd gotten had driven me even further over the edge. I say even further over the edge because I was already going through hell.

 

I have to confess that on the morning I was battered by conflicting emotions -- grief for my Dad, obviously, but also a mix of nervousness and exhilaration at seeing or bumping Patrick again for the first time in several years but luck was with me and I didn’t see him nor his shadow

.I was just passing through to pick up any lingering remnants of what I thought would be my life.

Even the house seemed sad. As I climbed the stairs, I saw the little things that only someone who'd lived here would notice. The wood of the stairs was actually a cheap but sturdy pine that had been stained to match the expensive flooring in the living room.