Since that discovery, Lexie became like a best friend to me, and we sometimes hung out with Andrew together. For some reason, he and I just disliked (maybe even hated) each other but we never mentioned it to Lexie. He was always all over her, pulling her chair back for her, and even offering to carry her bag. I saw the lovesick face he'd get whenever Lexie would smile at him. He was so pathetic! Although in some small way, the part that wasn't filled with unreasonable jealousy, I did pity him because Lexie never seemed to notice his feelings for her.
After a particularly busy season at work, I didn't get to see Lexie for almost a month. She'd been hanging out with Andrew every weekend, and I tried to ignore the feelings that came up just knowing that. Every time I would feel that way, I just worked harder. I never wanted to explore my feelings, afraid of what I would find.
Since we were also co-workers, Karyl and I still ate lunch together every day. One day, she was all ecstatic about this new romantic restaurant John brought her to the other night. The next day she'd start feeling pathetic because John hadn't talked to her yet about getting married.
"Just give it time," I said, in between bites of cheesy macaroni at Contis.
She gave me her (patent-pending) evil glare. "We've been together for four years, and he has never brought it up!"
Well, that did sound troubling. I ignored her glare. "Why don't you bring it up, then? Maybe he's just, you know, waiting for you to say something."
She rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up dramatically. "Because I don't want to sound like the nagging bitch who's trying to trap him into marriage!"
That was Karyl for you, never running out of dramatics. Sometimes, I'd just tell her that if she ever wanted to quit her job, she'd make a great actress. No kidding.
Despite my attempts to calm her down, we had to end our lunch break with separate slices of cake; blueberry for her, chocolate (of course), for me.
That afternoon, I wasn't able to knock the topic off my mind, and I decided to talk to John sometime that week. But the man himself suddenly texted me. Can we talk? Meet me tonight?
I almost turned my chair around to report him to Karyl, thinking he sent me a message intended for another girl. I knew for a fact that his texts to Karyl usually started with "My love" so this wasn't intended for her. But despite my highly suspicious nature brought about by Tom's stupidity, I decided to give him a chance.
What's up and where? I texted back, wondering if he'd suddenly panic and pretend he hadn't sent it.
My phone beeped again. Starbucks two blocks outside your office. Lexie's coming, too.
Well, this was certainly interesting. I was just about to tell Karyl when my phone beeped again.
And for the love of God, Adria, don't tell Karyl!
Even though he couldn't see me, he certainly knew me well enough that this was something I would have blabbed to Karyl immediately. At five, I managed to escape Karyl's questioning look, when I said she should just go home ahead of me because I wasn't finished with work yet. To make it believable, I immediately pulled up one of the drafts I saved earlier. I actually finished it and already sent it to our boss, but I wanted to make it look like I really couldn't go home yet. She tried to make me change my mind, saying John had a work function he couldn't get out of and she didn't want to go home alone.
I swiveled around in my chair and faced her. "This is due tonight, K, you know that. Why don't you just continue that nude painting of John you've been planning on giving to him for your anniversary?" I tried very hard not to grimace. I once walked in on her doing said painting, but thank God John wasn't there. She winked at me and said she could paint it from memory. I mimed vomiting and she just chucked her paintbrush at me.
Karyl pouted at me. "I can't paint him while I'm still miffed and worried about our future, bes." She said this as if I should have thought of that myself.
I rolled my eyes. "You drama queen. Fine." I reached for my bag and rummaged around it, looking for the envelope with the voucher to Manila's newest and premier spa that our features editor Blake handed to me earlier that afternoon. He said he already had plans with his boyfriend tonight and it looked like I needed it. Unfortunately, my version of Karyl's evil glare didn't even make him blink. "Here. Knock yourself out."
She squealed and jumped on my lap to hug me. My chair buckled but unlike the other times she did this, it didn't even tip over. Huh. Looked like my secret jogging days were paying off. "You're the best! Thank you, thank you!"
I had a niggling suspicion. She didn't even open the envelope and she was already thanking me? "Wait. You knew about this!"
She didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. "Of course! I saw Blake hand it to you earlier, and I asked him about it. "Ta-ta!" With a flutter of her fingers, she was out the door.
I shook my head at her retreating back and waited a full thirty minutes for her to leave before I headed to where John and Lexie were waiting.
"Sorry I'm late," I said as I sat down. Lexie immediately bussed me on the cheek, then handed me my favorite Starbucks food—a ham and cheese croissant, and a mocha Frappuccino—saying they were from John. Her plate was already wiped clean. I knew without asking that she'd had a bagel slathered with cream cheese. Her cup was already devoid of green tea.
John looked at me and then at Lexie. I already knew what he was going to say, but I wanted to hear him say it. Judging by Lexie's bemused expression, she knew it, too. But I had to give credit to John, he didn't balk despite his constipated and nervous look.
"Yes, I'm going to propose to Karyl. And I need your help to pull off this surprise."
Lexie and I squealed in excitement for about five minutes, which John, long used to Karyl, patiently endured.
Lexie and I turned to him and spoke at the same time. "Did you talk to her parents already?"
John puffed up his chest and looked proud of himself, like a cock who just won the fight. "Of course!"
"You totally peed in your pants," I teased.
Without batting an eyelash, he said, "No. They'd never let Karyl marry someone who still wets his pants." He grinned. "But I peed for five minutes straight right after they left."
It was some time before Lexie and I could stop laughing.
"So, what's the plan?" I asked.
— OoOoOoO —
So that was how I found myself in Boracay on Valentine's Weekend, with Karyl and Lexie. I asked Karyl to hang out with me and Lexie, since it was another Single's Awareness Day for both of us. I had to guilt Karyl into coming, and after several days of persistent whining and insisting, with John telling her that he had an out-of-town conference that he couldn't miss, she finally caved. Heartbroken though, that she thought she wouldn't get to spend Valentine's Day with him.
If Karyl weren't my best friend and I didn't love her, I would have berated her. Instead, I said all the appropriate responses and even went on a drinking spree with her the night before, drunkenly declaring all manner of insults upon men, while she whined about the lack of balls of certain boyfriends.
Needless to say, we were both fast asleep in the plane even before it lifted off the runway, having had only three hours to shake off our tipsiness. We were jolted awake when the plane suddenly dropped down to land on the teeny airport. I don't know how anyone's pants could stay dry after that. Lexie was as cool as could be, sleeping beside Karyl by the window, with her black sunglasses covering her puffy eyes.
John was actually in Boracay already. He flew in the night before to make sure his camping arrangements with the hotel were already smoothed out. The hotel he chose was a beachfront property and they were used to setting up marriage proposals, with enough space for privacy in case they were in the mood for anything after just getting engaged. I knew for a fact that Karyl and John had been going at it the past two years and had some pregnancy scares, so I couldn't tell John to wait until their wedding night. That and the fact that Karyl admitted to me that she kept pawing at John until he finally gave in.
We were staying at the same hotel as John. We'd been texting all day just so we wouldn't accidentally meet him in the lobby. To make it up to Karyl (I secretly think it's just because he's the best boyfriend I had ever met), he offered to pay for our room. Miffed, Karyl turned up her nose at him and agreed. Of course, Lexie and I didn't say no. Boracay for a weekend and we got to stay in one of the best resorts for free? Score!
Before the trip, we made a pact to do all the touristy things we could in Boracay, such as parasailing, island hopping, riding a 4x4, and shopping for new beach dresses and shell jewelry. Lexie and I had our hair braided, while Karyl insisted on letting her curly mane fly free. Each of us got a henna tattoo. Karyl's was on her ankle, her own design, drawn on paper for the artist to follow. Lexie insisted that hers, to be placed on the back of her shoulder, should be a burst of perfectly-shaped stars. I opted for a black cat, quiet but deadly-looking, smack in the middle of my spine.
I enjoyed the look of shock on Karyl and Lexie's faces when I emerged from the bathroom in a fiery red two-piece bathing suit. It was my first time to wear something so skimpy. I must say, all that jogging definitely paid off. I noted with satisfaction that I looked as good as Karyl in her neon pink bandeau and matching string bottom, and Lexie in her black halter bikini top and side-tie bottom. Karyl asked me to take several photos of her lying on the sand, looking sultry, so she could send them to John and let him know what he was missing. From the look on Karyl's face whenever John texted back, I was sure his responses were full of regret, enough to pacify her.
That night, we stayed out pretty late partying with the other Single Awareness Day revelers, all hoping to actually avoid spending the night alone, even if the men had to drink copious amounts of alcohol, and the women needed to drink even more to make their chosen men look all the more appealing.
The plan was for me to insist on walking under the moonlight all the way to the grotto of the Virgin Mary before ten o'clock, the very same time that Karyl first kissed John four years ago. In front of a statue of Mama Mary, no less. When John first detailed his plan to me and Lexie, the two of us actually got teary-eyed. My best friend was getting married!
Since we had a lot to drink the night before, I convinced Karyl not to drink as much that night by saying we wouldn't look good bloated in our swimsuits. We did drink some cocktails but stayed sober enough to keep an eye on Lexie, who was partying so hard on her first time in Boracay. She confessed she never had the money, and the girl friends, to take a trip to Bora right after college. With that glint in her eye that warned us not to pity her, we just cheered loudly and promised her she could party as much as she wanted.
I watched as both men and women kept approaching Lexie, who was a little inebriated already. She had shaken off her perfectionism that night and was dancing up a storm on the sand, with several guys surrounding her. Since Karyl was in a pretty foul mood again after seeing the many what-happens-in-Bora-stays-in-Bora pairings, I had to stay sober to keep Lexie from going wild and to make sure that no one touched her...well, without her permission. I didn't have enough alcohol in my system to be tempted by the lonely men with the ripped abs, or that one with the boyish charm who insisted on buying me a shot of tequila. Curiously, his sparkling eyes didn't do much for me, but I did agree to that shot.
"So who is he?" Karyl asked out of the blue.
I'd been watching the throng around Lexie, and Karyl's question made me drop my glass of rum coke on the sand. "Shit." I busied myself with picking up my glass, trying to avoid answering.
Karyl playfully swatted my shoulder when I sat back up. "Come on, I know you have a secret. Every day, I can't contact you for an hour or so, you're always out somewhere, and then you suddenly reveal a smoking hot bod. And whenever I see you lately you're always full of joy, and actually glowing, like you're so happy from the inside." She rolled her eyes. "C'mon, V, who's the lucky dude?" She laughed out loud. "Or should I just always call you Adria, and never V again?"
I pursed my lips in annoyance. Karyl called me V sometimes, in reference to my virginity. "There's no one! I'd just been working out," I admitted.
Karyl looked at me incredulously. "You've resisted all my invitations to jog and take yoga for the past four years and then you're suddenly working out?!"
I winced. Her voice was loud. Thankfully, the music blaring from the speakers was drowning her out. "Weeelll I wanted to look sexy." I must have glanced at Lexie because Karyl suddenly gave me a knowing look.
"You couldn't help but compare yourself to her after that moron cheated on you," she correctly surmised. She tapped her finger on her chin. "So you started to be more like her... Aha!" She looked at my bikini, flagrantly on display that night, just like everyone else's at the beach. "I've been noticing something different about you. You've been dressing up like Lexie!"
I sighed. "Fine, yes, I asked her to help me out with shopping and dressing up better."
She just winked at me and went back to nursing her drink. But I felt like her questions just removed blinders from my eyes. Everything she said was true. That I'd been feeling very bubbly lately, especially when I was with Lexie. At work, I would sometimes snap out of a reverie and realize I'd been smiling like a dork, and it was always because I would remember some amusing moments from the times Lexie and I hung out. Whenever I was around her, I would forget all my problems, like everything was all right with the world. Or at least, that I could do anything, get through anything. And when she smiled at me, my heart would thump just a little bit louder.
I ordered a shot of tequila and downed it as I that I had fallen in love with Lexie.