They say that nothing tastes more bitter than regret.
They were wrong.
Regret does not just leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. It robs you senseless, tormenting you day and night with a plethora of what ifs and what could have beens. And...
Richard Faulkerson Jr. made his way through the bustling city traffic, skillfully maneuvering the rush hour crowd. He knew this route very well for it was the same one he took a few weekends a month whenever he made his way home - that is their old family house south of the city.
Home, isn't it such a funny notion. At first, obviously you'd think of a place, and then life happens and you find out how it's never just a place. How it can change in time. And how easily it can be taken away from you. Or how sometimes, you are the one doing the taking but it's never just up to you how and when you can take it back. So you drift - homeless, aimless, lost. And sometimes, you drift for so long you forget you're lost in the first place and just keep moving along, one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you find yourself in a place that is filled with scattered echoes of home, but they are just that, mere echoes. So you move on - no, you move along.
He made a short stop to let an old lady cross the street before turning a corner. He was on his way to meet a budding pastry chef that his friend had introduced to him. The young chef wanted to open his own restaurant, and if there was something he was sure that he had done right in his life, it was his very successful restaurant chain, Concha's. He had started with nothing but the drive to succeed in a market saturated by fast food giants, and now, his once little place in the south grew into a very successful franchise.
But these days, with his restaurants being run by people he trained himself, he is able to focus on other things and leave the operations in their capable hands. One of the things he was passionate about is helping young restaurant entrepreneurs begin building their business. He, together with his partner, Cara Montelibano, run a small consultant agency focused on start ups.
"Bagong shortcut ba to? Ang bilis ng byahe naten, I thought we'll be late dahil inabot tayo ng rush hour."
"No, this has been here for a long time," RJ said as he turned into a more residential area.
"Well, I guess since I've never been here for so long -" Cara trailed off when she realized that RJ was no longer paying attention to her. As usual. Instead, he was staring at something. A sari-sari store? wait, is that -
No, it can't be, that was years ago.
But she kept to herself, and judging from the thick tense air that has suddenly surrounded them, she knew he saw it too.
She tried to brush the thought to the back of mind and started to focus on the task ahead, looking through their client's profile.
RJ stole a glance at her, and once he saw that she was busy with something else, he went and dove into his own thoughts.
He drove past that unassuming sari sari store rather slowly, since they were at a residential area. It was slow enough for him to notice the posters, stuck one after another, on the wall of the store. He knew that poster well, it was all over the metro when it first came out. Even with just their hands, forming that once popular heart gesture, he was able to recognize it.
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