Fake It Till We Make It

06

Ian snorted in reply. "Like I'm not gaining anything? Have you seen how my clothes fit better now thanks to all the food your family feeds me?" he said with a laugh. Then, turning serious, he said, "And I still stand by what I said—I have your back. You're not forcing me to do anything that I don't want."

That was Ian—the most intentional person I knew, all decisions are deliberate.

So to my family, I was still in a relationship. One that should end soon, but we'd get there.

Two hours later, the meeting was over, and I followed Pia slowly out of the room. Suddenly, there was a hand on the small of my back. I used to flinch at this, but now I didn't until I remembered where I was.

"Ian," I hissed, peering at him through narrowed eyes over my shoulder.

"Oh, right, sorry." I braced myself for the familiar split-second feeling of absence there as soon as he had removed his hand, and I was ready enough to push it away quickly.

It was the weekend, so the office was quiet, save for the chatter from the program team as we headed out. Pia, Ian, and I were talking about dropping by Urban & Luke's when someone called Ian's name.

"Tito Mike!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?" Ian added after we had scrambled to press our foreheads to Tito Mike's hand for a blessing.

"I was finishing some things." Tito Mike was the coordinator of international missions for our community, and he was in charge of planning and deploying members of the community who expressed their desire to go on mission trips. I'd been planning to sign up for ages, but work always got in the way.

"Speaking of, good to run into you. This is fresh off the printer for you." He handed Ian a thick envelope. "Read it, and let's talk about it next week. Are you free Tuesday night?"

Ian's eyes had grown wide when he accepted the envelope. He nodded without even glancing at his phone to check his schedule. "I'll keep it free."

"Good. I'll see you then. Bye, girls." Tito Mike waved at us and left.

Ian continued to stare at the envelope, still not opening it even after it was just the three of us left standing there. Pia and I exchanged looks, and it wasn't until I had reached out to tap him on the shoulder did he look at us.

"Aren't you going to open that?" Pia pointed to the envelope. I watched him look at it again while I tried to figure out what could be inside that would make him space out just like that. I knew it was related to our service, but it could be a number of things, and I couldn't recall anything that he had told me recently.

His fingers played with the flap, and just when I thought he would finally open it, he slid it into the back pocket of his jeans. "Maybe later. It's too much to read right now," he said, shrugging. "So, are we going to Urban & Luke's?"

* * *

I found out about it a month later, through two e-mails.

The first was from our CEO, Lia, addressed to all managers with the subject line: Org change. Alarm bells started ringing in my head before I even opened it, and true enough, my stomach dropped as soon as I read the e-mail.

My heart was pounding when I picked up the phone to call Ian's extension, but he wasn't answering. He wasn't at his desk either, so I checked the central calendar and found that there was an event that afternoon and he was part of the team. He wasn't answering his mobile either.

I went back to my seat and stared at the screen until the words blurred as I digested the information. Ian filed his resignation last week. He didn't tell me about this, and we were just together yesterday with Phoebe and Ethan. Why didn't he mention it then? Or the other day, for that matter? Or before filing this? Why did he keep me out of this decision?

Because you're just his friend, my intuition piped up. He doesn't have to tell you everything.

I was too bummed to look at the rest of my work e-mail, and I was too jumpy to get back to work, so I switched to my personal account for a while. I planned to read Ate Cel's latest e-mail, one that she sent this morning, about the area conference that was going to happen next weekend. But there was a new e-mail from Kuya Ed, our upper core group leader.

From: Edward Gonzales <edgonz@hfmissions.org>

To: HFM-Singles – South - Leads

Subject: New International Missionaries

Hi everyone,

Let's pray for our brother Ian Balboa, who just got accepted to the International Missions program. He will be assigned to Austria starting in January. Ayen and I have made some initial discussions about our new structure, and we'll talk about it at the next core group meeting on Thursday.

God bless - Ed