Classification: Prose
Theme: Comfort of a stranger, Infidelity
Synopsis: Lily had always wondered how it felt to feel and so, she fell back on promiscuity, intoxication, and substance abuse. All these she did for ephemeral sensation until she met Yvette, her human epitome of ecstasy.
I was fourteen when I first got my heart broken by a girl. I remembered bawling my eyes out for three days and nights only to get over it the following week. Yet, every now and then, I contrived to conjure back that feeling and bathed with it again for the sake of catharsis (as scribbled in my unsent messages). Ironically during those phases, I felt nothing.
I told myself, ah, maybe it was not painful enough.
That sickening realization hit my mind like a clap of thunder. If not yet explicitly stated, I was addicted to pain. Or the rush that came after quaffing down my first glass of alcohol in ninth grade, trying to piece together the pang of a break-up in my throat. Or the thrill of sleeping with strangers while looking for temporary warmth. I listened boundless times to different songs that could fleetingly offer me the paradoxical consolation of grievance – Daughter’s and CYN’s to name a few – because that’s what they did in movies, right? They sabotaged themselves after the separation to purge whatever’s left of them that still wistfully hoped for affection or just a one-night stand.
All I purged was tawny barfs.
And so, I resorted to cutting my hair. To some, it symbolized new beginnings or moving on. Though it did quite the contrary for me. Ah, yes, the guilt that settled in my chest after throwing the scissor on the floor along with the clippings. Looking at the bathroom mirror with my smudged mascara and disheveled hair, I cried. And laughed afterward. And cried again. Only had I felt the heaviness of void, of emptiness. I realized I was not lonely with my ex-girlfriend leaving – I was lonely because I couldn’t feel anything when I was supposed to feel something.
Behind that sadness lay the overwhelming dread I kept concealing since I was seven. I was too conscious of my feelings that never in my life had I stopped and sat with them. Emotions, for me, are elusive like the birds in the park when you try to catch them. And even when I finally caught one, it slipped through my arms before I could even feel its embrace.
Just like Yvette.
My, my. I thought this New Year’s Eve was about leaving all my bad habits. I even desisted from whiskeys and cigarettes (so far, I was a week clean now) so as not to replenish my vices. It could be the holiday breeze that was sweeping the air of nostalgia and memories back to my room – the room where we spent our intimate nights together. Almost subconsciously, I picked up the pillow in my bed still blighted by that woman’s scent; a light fragrant of lavender and vanilla. And with just a sniff, I felt her presence here again.
As I stepped out of the shower, I walked into her lolling in bed, looking outside, with her bareback on me. The ceiling-to-floor glass windows in my flat offered a nice view of the cityscape. My feet, as if they had a life of their own, hauled off towards her, and perhaps hearing the bed creaked, she turned towards me and smiled.
I wished I could preserve that smile forever.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I smiled back, this time, kissing the top of her head.
Then she looked back at the city view again. During that night, the city felt more alive and bustling than it did during the day; no longer did it feel any soulless. Perhaps because in darkness, it didn’t need to conceal its buildings ornamented with bone-dry dust and flickering lights.
That night, I asked her why she always looked outside as if it was her routine after we finished. She told me it was her way to console and perhaps bar herself from being filled with seething resentment. I thought the guilt she was pertaining to was brought by our shared infidelity.
“No,” she smiled as she rested her chin on her hand, ”I was looking for my kid.”
Yvette, with her thin-framed spectacles and demure way of dressing, seemed like the archetype of a typical innocent woman straight out from coming-of-age movies. Or a pastor’s daughter who regularly attended church services at the front bench; so timid, the one who would never shatter a glass.
Or birthed a child out of wedlock.
I knew she had her own family – separated for now at least – since we first met at the coffee shop downtown. The father of her child was a riff-raff who squandered all her fortunes to gambling. He was nothing but a douchebag, I told her countless times, and yet, she accepted and cradled him still. Though it baffled me why couldn’t she just run away, she always replied, “Some of us have no choice in this life, Lily.”
“You can bring Willy here next time,” I said, addressing her son as the nickname she gave him.
“Yeah?” There was something ambiguous in her response that I didn’t know if she was waiting for my assurance or turning me down. I told her we could just play pretend as workmates in her office or a friend she met at the church. She only chuckled.
Silence enveloped the night as if the blankets were not enough to sublime our naked bodies tainted with our noxious immorality. That moment, I felt an irrational dread choking my chest, like the first time I cut my hair short because I knew I would receive an earful from my mom. Only now it wasn’t scissors to blame but those dead eyes staring back at me albeit her smiling lips.
I caressed her face and slid her cascading cowlick at the back of her ear. Then she smiled again, this time with her eyes and that was when I knew it was genuine. It was funny how her cheery disposition alone could elicit exuberance greater than any of the drugs I had tasted. And truth be told, it didn’t dawn on me until now how assessing someone’s feelings was as important (and perhaps even comparable to joy) as knowing mine.
“You know you can just stay here forever, right?” There was a hint of desperation in my voice that I wished would reach her ears. If begging was not enough, I would gladly fall to my knees before her. All just to make her stay.
“I wish there is forever for us.”
That night, I had yet to realize why an abrupt disquietude resided in my heart after she said those words. I only knew it when I woke without her in bed the following morn.
Yvette was like ecstasy. No, she was worse than that because no drugs would take my hand up to utopia – until my heartbeat became erratic, my vision blurred, and my thoughts went haywire – only to drop it mid-air. If gravitating towards her was like my dependence on drugs that could be appeased by swallowing another pill or snorting a hit, maybe it wouldn’t be this painful.
I let go of the pillow. Part of me was wishing it was easy to find her just like how she found Willy a month ago but the futility of it was more heart-rending than just accepting what couldn’t be. Tonight, I cried hard and not because I couldn't feel anything when I was supposed to feel something. I cried because I felt it all. And I felt her still.
Outside, the city was alive and bustling as the agitation of welcoming another year filled the atmosphere. And looking up, the night sky was a canvass splashed with different hues, all fleeting and ephemeral.
PHOTO: Erica G. Ildefonso
Published by: Aira Lindsay L. Dela Cruz
Date published: January 6, 2022
Time published: 4:32 PM
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