LOVE. No other name.

Black and White 2

                If you could see me now, you could tell that I was both here, sitting under the same tree, and NOT here. You could tell by the way I was staring into space, just like it was something MORE than space. If you would look at exactly where I was looking at, you would see only grass, lush greenery, oh, you know, the humble setting of a province. But I didn’t see the things a normal person would see at this point, instead I saw the last five years—the best years, if I may add—of my life, replaying before my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Saturday, I went to the place where I met Kaytin’s sister. It was the first time I went here on a weekend, and it’s been a month since my encounter with Xieca. I guess I wanted to plan how I was gonna spend my vacation, and I thought that spot would be suitable for plotting my BEST SUMMER EVER. When I got there, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one with that kind of thinking.

                Some bond papers were scattered around her, some were resting on her lap, and she had a pencil in hand. I randomly picked one piece, making her detect my presence and start protesting, “Hey! Give that back!” She stood up and snatched the paper out of my hand, sending all the papers flying off her lap, thus the area surrounding her appeared to be full of random white patches. I had read only the first three words of what she wrote before she took the paper back, ‘Get well soon.’

                “Who’s sick?” I ask.

                She was too busy picking up papers to pay attention to me, or so she pretended to be. “Why don’t you just give him some fruits? That would be more of help to his speedy recovery, right?” I tease.

                “You will never understand.” she told me.

                “How can I not understand the predicament of a 7-year old kid with a sick friend?” I tease again. I think the words came out a little too harsh and more belittling than I intended.

                “I’m EIGHT! And--and that’s just not the case.” I could tell that my words hurt her.

                “Uh-oh, I’m sorry. Xie—Xieca, right? That was mean of me. Don’t… cry.” I suddenly stated.

                “I wouldn’t cry in front of you in a million years.” she said in a firm voice.

                I beamed because I often told that to my brother, too. He now lives in the city, he has to since he’s studying college, anyway, we never were really close to each other. He’s seven years older than me. And he uses all of his seven years of superiority to ‘torture’ me. Well, that’s the thing with firstborns, but my brother wasn’t wholly BAD. He could be my defender sometimes. Then I remembered that the first time we met, Xieca was crying, but I let it go. Maybe I could be Xieca’s brother/defender, too.

~~~~~~~~

                Every meeting I had with her was weird in a way. But that didn’t stop the meetings from happening… every Saturday for the past five years, almost without fail. Of course, the ‘fails’ were when it was raining cats and dogs all day, or when there were family matters to be attended to.

                I remember how I felt so lucky to have her—why, she was my key to getting to know KAYTIN better. I asked her a lot of questions about her sister.

                “Tell me something about your sister.” I said out of the blue, one day.

                “Well, tell me first what you already know about her.”