He Was My Cousin

Chapter 34

2nd update tonight. HWMC will only be up to Ch40 + ep. Epilogue will be looooong and by long, I meant not 10k-update but looooong as in mga ~5 parts. Haha. It will be in Pao's POV. :)

Chapter 34
Dito Na Lang

"T-tama si Liz! Have you... have you even thought that it isn't merely about the bouquets, the wedding dress and all that?! Aya, have you even thought that marrying him meant promising a lifetime with him?" dire-diretsong tanong ni Ella sa akin na halos mabulol na siya.

My guards all went up. "O-of course!" I lied.

"Naisip mo man lang ba na 'yung umaga mo magsisimula na mukha niya 'yung makikita mo? How would you spend your breakfast with him daily? Life time commitment 'to Aya."

"Oo naman!" sagot ko kahit hindi naman iyon pumasok sa isip ko ni isang beses nitong nakaraang linggo. "He'll wake me up. We'll have breakfast together! He'll tell me what he wants for dinner! We'll talk about all sorts of things - movies we want to watch over the weekend, beaches we want to go to for the holiday."

Pakiramdam ko ay naninikip na ang dibdib ko ngunit nagpatuloy pa rin ako. Because I didn't want them questioning my decisions.

"He'll drive me to my school! He'll call during lunch to make sure I've eaten. He'll come by my school at five to fetch me. We'll watch movies in the afternoon... and we'll make love before the midnight embraces the sky... We'll sleep holding each other's hands... And the next... and the next day..."

Hindi ko na napigilan ang mga luha kong tumulo sa mga mata ko. Why do they... why...

"You know they are all lies right?" mahinahong tanong ni Lizel sa akin.

I cried. I cried without minding if they were all looking at me as I burst into tears in Ella's bedroom. Dahil alam ko... alam ko. I know what I blurted out right on the sppt were only the things I wished for.

Oo, alam ko... Jiro wouldn't wake me up. I'd probably wake up myself from his alarm. Kakailanganin kong gisingin siya, malamang dahil hindi siya nagising sa alarm dahil malalim ang tulog niya. For he probably went home the night before late because he had to finish his work.

And during breakfast I'd know he wouldn't ask me what movies I'd like to watch because he really didn't like movies. Pakiramdam niya'y walang build-up. Minadali. Bitin. At wala siyang oras upang manood ng series. He wouldn't ask me what beaches I wanted to visit, because he didn't like them, too. He liked the lands. The mountains... hiking.

Instead, he would probably talk about his schedule for the day, the projects lined up to him. He'll discuss different roofing system I never heard of and not even interested at. He'll tell me why he'd prefer a gravity dam than an arch dam. He'll tell me that the column could only handle just that stress.

He'd also tell me to watch out for the cracks in the wall, but not mind them too much because the critical ones were only those that carry the weight. He'd tell me the ventures of their construction firm. He'd tell me jokes I could not related to... because it's about Pascal, Newton and Einstein playing hide and seek.

I'd be there, sitting across him, pretending he was speaking about flowers and brownies and movies and beaches... But then I thought... Would we even have breakfast together when I skip it for the past years and the last breakfast plate I finished at my own will was the breakfast prepared by Paolo on that Sunday morning I decided to leave him six years ago?

By lunch, he'd probably give me a quick call or if lucky, he'd personally bring me viands cooked by his mother. But never cooked by him. In the afternoon, he wouldn't be home yet because he was visiting a site or chasing a deadline for a blueprint.