The Long Goodbye

Stay

Why did you have to leave me
When you said that love will conquer all
Why did you have to leave me
When you said that dreaming
Was as good as reality
---

She sits stoically beside him.

Willing him with all her might to give her a reason why he had to break her heart and why everything that happened between them even had to happen.

She needed an explanation.

Something.

Anything.

Anything but the next words out of his mouth, the ones that make her feel as if she's slowly being torn apart.

"Nung tanggapin ko ang proposal mo dito, that was the biggest mistake of my life."

It was just one sentence.

But it's a reason.

After all, that was really all that she's asking for.

Problem is, it was absolutely not the one she's hoping for.

At 21, she thought that love was supposed to be this life altering, all consuming thing.

The risk it all, put all your cards on the table, bet on your life emotion which will afterwards lead to marital bliss.

But at 25, she learns that it will break you down, destroy you and kick you when you're already on your knees and you could do nothing else but to watch helplessly as the love of your life walks away without a second glance, without looking back at you as he disappears.

---

Simon confesses his love to her once more a week later over dinner.

As typical of Simon, it was out of the blue and spontaneous, it seemed as if it just came out of nowhere.

She looks at him as he kisses her hand and a part of her thinks that maybe this is just what she needs.

But then again there's that part of her that thinks, how can she be in another relationship when Clark has already set roots in all of her heart, she has given him all of her, she has no more left to give?

Maybe in another place.

Maybe in another lifetime.

But not in the here or now, she still needs to find herself somehow.

She apologizes and Simon begs, and he tells her that he loves her and that she needs to move on and that he can make her happy and even without him telling her, somehow she knows he will.

He has always been there.

He's been a friend and a shoulder to cry on and she knows just how much he feels but somehow the pieces between them just doesn't really seem to fit.

It was not until he asks her about the divorce that she realizes why.

That night when she went to bed she was hounded by images of floppy hair and chocolate brown eyes.

She remembers a make believe prom, running along the grapevines of Napa and Simbang Gabi during Christmas.

She thinks of the way they separated.

Of how she cried and despaired and how she found it hard to breathe, it was as if he has taken everything of her with him.

She closes her eyes wishing for nothingness but still she wasn't able to sleep a wink.

---

It took her less than a week to return to her normal pattern. After all, there were clients to see, campaigns to run and work that wouldn't wait for anyone.