𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘 [MONTGOMERY DE LA CRUZ AU]

THIRTY SIX ૐ THE END OF THE ROAD

OLIVIA HAS HEARD A LOT OF STORIES ABOUT LOVE. She spent afternoons perched on her father's lap, eyes twinkling, pouting, begging her father to tell her the story of how he met her mother, Harriet. Michael caressed her unruly brown curls fondly and merely told her that he had been a stupid, stupid boy and he was lucky enough to have an opportunity win her mother back at the last minute.

'Girls care too soon while boys care too late and only then, they would realize the best thing that was in front of them,' Michael claimed. He had been the typical teenage boy who perceives his formative years as the chapter of his life to let loose and explore; girls with their own versions of beauty he had taken out on several dates— some who weren't lucky enough were only taken to the backseat of his car — both with the same destiny to be led back to their doorsteps with a chaste kiss on the cheek that seals the relationship; house parties and clubs he had gone to in nights which made him feel so alive; brawls at the parking lots with his friends. With his impressive record and grades, he was able to get in to Marshall Business School of University of Southern California. There, he met Harriet O'Bryan during their graduation year. You'd think it was impossible of the idea of two polar opposites together; Michael, who dives head-first at social gatherings and finds satisfaction with the attention, whereas Harriet is more calm and reserved. But somehow, in spite of their contrasts, things went smoothly between the couple until there came a storm that ripped them apart.

Olivia frowns up at her father, her big green eyes shining with a mix of confusion. "But you did get her back, right Daddy? You won her back. That's why we're here where we are now." Michael nods and the little version of her beamed, revealing a missing tooth on the front. "Someday, I want to marry a guy like you, Daddy! I want us to be like you and Mommy."

A brief look of unreadable expression shadowed over his face and for a moment, he sat in sheer distress with realization. "No, don't marry a man like your Daddy," Olivia's grin faltered. "marry a man better than me."

Olivia, being only seven years old, had gone through a long phase of being obsessed with fairytale-like love stories and nagged everyone to come tell their own encounters with love.

Over the past several months, Olivia had discovered that her mom's sister, Eleanor, had married too soon and was soon followed with a scandalous divorce. But regardless of the disaster of her first marriage, she had found love once again and had remarried to a single dad who had 2 daughters. Olivia then realized that though it may not work out the first time, finding love after a failed marriage is not impossible.

Her uncle, her father's younger brother, Atticus, was in luck when it comes to love while his twin brother, Atlas, was a little unfortunate.

When she a was a few years older, an 13-year-old Olivia now stands over the granite kitchen countertop, watching her aunt Elisson in awe. Elisson tells her the story about the boy she met when she was 13; how she fell in love with him throughout her teenage years and hasn't gotten up since.

"What was he like? Tell me more about him!" Olivia demanded in curiousity, leaning forward with interest. Elisse gazed outside, her eyes softening, "Oh, Ollie, he was everything, everything I could ever ask for. He has this wavy brown hair that was always so soft under my fingertips, his laugh was the best thing in the world I couldn't stay mad for long! He lived a few houses away from us over the hill, he was a year older than me and I've always wondered how come he was always late in school every morning, turns out he was too shy to walk past our house. He left doughnut boxes by the porch and at times, he would make his mom deliver it for him. He was the sweetest guy who just didn't know how to show it."

"Well, where is he now?" Olivia watched Elisson who was now smiling sadly to herself. "How long were you guys together?"

"We never made it official, he... held my hand out of the blue while we were on the way home one day and I guess since then, everything changed. He made me feel like the luckiest girl on the world, made me feel loved even." Her aunt chortled at the memory. "But when he went away, he told me he loved me, but not in that way. I don't believe him, though. I guess, in the course of the full eight years we've known each other, something went wrong along the way. Maybe he saw me in a different pair of eyes that eventually gave him no alternative but to take a different path, away from me. Maybe he wanted to try something new, step out of his comfort zone and step in foreign land he haven't been to."