"You want to break up with me."
It wasn't a question.
Aya wasn't an idiot. All the signs were there. And attuned to Adrian as she was, the signs were pretty hard to miss. But even if she was deaf and blind, she would've found it odd that her boyfriend of almost six years had not only been unresponsive to her kiss, he had also pushed her away. An odd reaction, especially since they'd been apart for nine months. When she had asked him what was wrong, he looked away.
Her sisters were right—this surprise visit was a bad idea. But since she hadn't been able to meet Adrian when he'd arrived at the airport last night, this had seemed like the next best thing.
And it had been going so well. Gus, Adrian's younger brother, had let her in, just as he always had. He had winked and said his Kuya was going to enjoy his first day back. Tito Francis, Adrian's father, had smiled when Aya had kissed his cheek in greeting. Tita Nanette, Adrian's mom, had hugged her before shooing her upstairs to wake Adrian up for breakfast.
Apparently they didn't know anything was up either.
Adrian swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked wary and unsure. "Aya, I'm sorry but . . ."
"Please," she cut him off, "don't give me the whole it's-not- you-it's-me crap." Aya had used it often enough in the past to know that the line was pure bullshit.
Adrian gritted his teeth. Aya had always been strong-willed. It was one of the things he loved about her. But in hindsight, he realized that her inflexibility had always annoyed him. But perhaps, it was his fault too. He'd been too scared she'd break up with him that he had always let her get her way.
"Aya, I'm sorry. This—us—it's just not working out." At her glare, he sighed and looked away. "I-I met someone, alright?"
"You . . . cheated on me?"
He raised his hands, as if to placate her. "No, Aya. I didn't cheat on you. At least, not technically."
He closed his eyes, and for the nth time wondered if he was making a big mistake. He was actually breaking up with Malaya Contreras. The Malaya Contreras, whom every red-blooded male had admired and adored since college. Having her pick him out of all her admirers made him feel like he had won the lottery. Though simply dressed in a shirt and jeans as she was now, Aya looked like she had belonged on the cover of a magazine.
But he owed it to her . . . no, he owed it to himself to be honest. "It's just that if I loved you like I should, I wouldn't be having all these feelings for another person. And it's just not fair to you. You deserve someone . . ."
Aya held up a hand to stop him. "I know what I deserve. And it isn't you. We're done, Adrian." Hand on the doorknob, she turned back, her voice saccharine sweet. "Oh, by the way, I brought you breakfast." And with that, she hurled a paper bag containing a pricey cappuccino and a bagel at his crotch.
He yelped as the coffee spilled everywhere.
"Welcome home and Merry Christmas." She smiled sweetly before she slammed his bedroom door. Ignoring the concerned voices of his family, she rushed out of their house.
It was only when she was ensconced in the security of her car that she finally allowed her tears to fall.
+ + +
"I'm guessing the whole surprise thing didn't work out."
Aya looked over to where her older sister, Mayumi, was doing a reverse warrior pose on their living room floor. She sighed. As much as she wanted to, there would be no escaping this interrogation.
"Aren't you supposed to be meditating, Ate Yumi?"
"I am. I'm fabulous at multi-tasking. Hold that thought." Yumi breathed deeply as she slid into the next pose.
Aya grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She had just sat at the counter when the bathroom door opened.
"Oh. My. God. Are you okay?" Her eyes wide with alarm, Kit stepped toward her.
Aya stared at her younger sister. "What do you mean?"
"What happened, Ate?"
"How do you even know something happened?"
Yumi clicked her tongue as she shifted into a low lunge. "Ano ba? It's obvious. No satisfied afterglow. No post-hookup energy spilling out."
"And, most telling, you cut your hair." Kit tilted her head. "It looks good. Suits you, actually."
"Thanks." Aya self-consciously ran a hand through her hair. The Korean stylist had only cut off a couple of inches and her hair still hung well below her shoulders. But instead of the straight, no-nonsense cut Aya usually wore in a ponytail, her hair was now layered and colored. The stylist had even cut asymmetrical bangs to frame her face.
"So, what happened?" Kit rubbed a towel over her wet hair.
"Adrian tried to break up with me."
There was about five seconds of silence before all hell broke loose.
"What!" Yumi fell out of her tree pose. "That good-for- nothing slime ball . . ."
"That moon-faced idiot! What, he thinks he could do better?"
"I'm going to slice off his teeny-tiny penis and feed it to the koi in the park!"
"Or better yet, do some voodoo to make it shrink permanently!" Kit's smile was pure evil.
Despite the situation, Aya smiled. Her sisters might not be the most tactful of people, but they loved her. And boy, were they loyal.
"Don't worry, I broke up with him first." She told them about her coffee-throwing fit and they exploded into gales of laughter. When they calmed down, Yumi and Kit began pulling supplies out of the cabinets and freezer.
Emergency breakup supplies, Aya thought, as her sisters scooped ice cream into bowls and unpacked containers of dried fruit, cookies, and chocolate.
Her sisters went through men like they went through clothes (which, in their case, was relatively fast). In the past few years, Aya had tended to so many post-breakup blues that she made sure there were always emergency breakup supplies on hand.
She just never thought she would need them one day.
"You should have broken up with him ages ago." Yumi said an hour later, as she scraped the bottom of the container.
"I always wondered why you stayed with him so long," Kit licked her spoon. "You know, we never really liked him."
Before Aya could answer, Yumi shook her head. "Oh, Marikit. Obviously, Aya was rebelling."
"I was? Against what?"
"Against us." Yumi pointed her spoon at herself and Kit. "Against our non-commitment issues. You wanted to be able to go the distance."
"That isn't why—"
"Want to know why you got together with him?" Yumi held a hint of challenge.
"Because I loved him!"
"No. It was because of that pregnancy scare I had." Her sister's voice was soft as she remembered that painful time. "That slime ball, Marco, skipped town . . ."
"And we were all freaking out." Kit nodded.
"And the very next week, Aya got together with steady and dependable Adrian---the person most unlikely to leave her in a crisis."
Aya shook her head in denial, but it was as if a bucket of cold water had been emptied over her head. It couldn't be. She had loved Adrian. Hadn't she?
"Do you want him back?" Yumi asked.
"Hell, no!"
Her younger sister thought to play Devil's Advocate. "But if you really truly loved him, you'd want to work things out, right?"
"No effing way! After he cheated . . ."
"But didn't technically cheat, it seems he wanted a clean break."
"But how could he even, after I . . ."
"After you what? After you chose him out of all your suitors? After you gave him your virginity?" Yumi squeezed her sister's hand. "It was always your choice, Aya. Yours."
"I know that, Ate." Aya sighed. "It's just that . . . this wasn't how I expected things to work out."
"And as you've often told us, things don't always work out the way we want them to." From across the counter, Kit's eyes brimmed with understanding.
"You've always liked being the one in control, Aya. That's why you were with Adrian."
Aya laughed bitterly. "If I could control him, I wouldn't be needing emergency breakup ice cream."
Her older sister shook her head. "It's not him you could control. It was your feelings for him. Right now, you're hurt. But I think it's your pride that's bruised, rather than your heart."
"Are you sure you're hosting a lifestyle program? You should shift to showbiz intrigue," Aya joked. But inside, a little part of her wondered, was her sister right?
It was true that she'd thought Adrian was steady and dependable. Her sisters called him boring, but Aya had liked knowing what to expect from him. Ate Yumi and Kit were always checking up on their guys—playboy model types who had hordes of women coming on to them. Aya never had that problem with Adrian. He had adored her. And she . . . well, she had loved him enough to be intimate with him, hadn't she?
But it hadn't been enough.
Kit hefted another half gallon of ice cream onto the counter and asked, "Ready for Round Two?"