A/N: Here you go! Kagabi pa dapat ito pero sobrang antok ko na hahahaha. We're approaching summer break so gradually makakapag-update na ako ng konti. Please do bear with me. I don't know how I would juggle my many activities para makapagsulat pero maraming maraming salamat sa mga nananatiling nagbabasa ng mga gawa ko. You don't know how much that means to me. Kayo na nga lang yata ang hindi nang-iiwan sa akin huhuhu. I love you, mi caras! If there's any way I could give back to you, I would. I really would. Hayssss.
P.S. Add me on facebook if you like to chat me up! It's www.facebook.com/heartruiner
Enjoy, caras! Mwaaaaa!
-HR
***
Ninety Six
Rescue Operation: JCLJ Style
Note: The first italicized part is a flashback and it's written in a third person's narration. It isn't of any substance to the chapter. Just a quick bit.
"Clyde! Clyde!"
It was a nightmare. His own brand of nightmare. It's something that never left him even though he had already left the source of it. He's haunted by her every second of every minute every night. She haunts her.
"Elaejiagh..."
He could taste the sweetness of her name in his tongue. She was once his. And now it was all in the past. Everything is now in the past.
Anim na buwan simula nang lumayo siya sa lahat ng bagay na importante sa kanya, hindi pa rin niya kayang kalimutan ang buhay niya. Alam niyang hindi ganoon kadali. Because when he left her kneeling on the ground, calling after him on that one fateful afternoon, he left his heart with her too.
And now he's empty. Void of any emotions at daylight, restless and in grief come night time.
Elaejiagh was the one who cast away his nightmares of his rotten childhood memories before. What's hillarious is that she is now his nightmares during sleep—or at least when he's trying to sleep—because for the better part of those months, he'd like to wallow in his misery of losing her more than anything else that he lost in the process.
Hindi niya na tanda kung kailan nagsimulang maging laman ng mga panaginip niya ang memorya ng araw na iniwan niya si Elaejiagh pagkalabas nila ng Underground. All that he knows is it's there. It has always been there since then. It keeps him awake. It keeps her face clear in his imagination.
And for that he's thankful.
Sa maliit na espasyo ng bago niyang silid sa bahay ng mabuting kaibigan na nagpatira sa kanya, walang kahit na anong bakas si Elaejiagh doon kung hindi ang larawan nito sa frame na nakalagay sa bedside table at ang kinuha niyang anghel na stuff toy na parte ng regalo niya sa dalaga noong kaarawan nito.
Two small things. But it meant a lot to him. Because it means she's there. It means he's with her. Because those small things were the only things that keeps him in check. It keeps him intact. It keeps his hopes intact.
He keeps reminding himself that hope is the last to die. His hope will never die. Someday... in someway... he will return when the time is right and she will be his.
He's not deserving of Elaejiagh. He knows that. Oh he's bloody aware of that. He knows that he should just stay where the bloody hell he was and stay away from her. Hindi siya karapat-dapat. He has hurt her far too much to salvage any of his worth to her.
