We started sending messages to each other on and off maybe two or three years ago. I was probably in third year college when we started sending messages to each other. I took his number from my sister’s contacts on her phone. I was bored and I thought I could find friends on her list. As I was scanning on the long list of names, of both men and women, his name came up and I decided to copy it and save it on my own phone.
Later that night I sent him a message and surprise! Surprise! I knew the guy back when I was still in grade school. He was a senior and I was a sixth grader but still I developed a crush on him. I met him a couple of times in high school he was already a college student then. He went to the big city studying to become an engineer in a large university. So I just met him during vacation time. He was out of my reach so I decided to just keep those feelings to myself.
When we started sending messages we seem to hit it right off. And I learned that he liked me too way back then. Even though I was still a sixth, grader he had liked me but just couldn’t tell it to me because I was too young to be confessed such feelings to. We had fun sending messages, talking to each other on the phone, sharing secrets and problems with each other. I fell for him because on the phone he was the most perfect gentleman.
I studied in a different place during college and he was working somewhere far as well. We just can’t seem to meet on the same place at the same time. So it was pretty much like a long distance friendship. But I was happy with that because I know I could always rely on him for advice and for comfort during the moments when I felt that I was lonely. Then I learned when I went home that December that he already had a girlfriend in our place and that they’ve been going out for two years already. But still he wanted to meet me … he wanted to know if I was the same person he communicated with during those moments he had felt lonely as well.
So we met up it was a cold night at the beach. I wanted to meet him at a proper place at a proper time but he told me that he couldn’t risk it because it was a small town and he was afraid that he’s girlfriend might find out about our special friendship.
Hopelessly in love, I agreed with his plan to meet him at the beach. I wanted to know him as well. I wanted to see what sort of personality my childhood crush has or whether this new adult feeling that I have for him is for real. So we met up just the two of us and since it was cold he brought with him a bottle of gin. We drank only a few shots when his cousin came to his house and he was called right off. I forgot to mention that his house was just across the beach and we were seating right near the sand dunes having fun talking to each other. The worst thing about the scene is that his cousin brought with him his friends and that one of them was his girlfriend’s brother. Afraid of being found out he left me sitting there alone with a glass of gin on my hand. Frustrated I sat there and waited for him. Ironically my ex boyfriend was with the group of his cousin’s friends and he saw me there sitting alone. He went to me and asked who I was with. I didn’t tell him of course because I promised my friend that it was going to be a secret just between the two of us. And I loved him so I kept my promise but I was really hurt especially when he didn’t return.
Sadly I drank the whole bottle myself and my ex boyfriend took me home. It was raining and I was crying, crying because I was foolish enough to believe that he loved me like I loved him, and crying because I know that little girl who worshipped and loved him had died as well, and I was crying because I knew once again I was broken.
The next day I woke up with a head that ached so much I felt as if a million pins were drilling holes to my head. It was already way pass noon time and when I looked at my phone I received a message from him and I thought it was an apology. When I read it I was even more angry because he told me that he told his cousin that I was there because I was meeting my boyfriend who lived in a different town from ours and that my boyfriend stood me up.
And he saw me there alone by chance and comforted me. And that I was to go along with his story so that he’s girlfriend wouldn’t get angry or find out the truth about us. I was so angry that I sent him a message right back saying I won’t go along with his plan but I promise not to tell or confront his girlfriend because I was still hurting both physically and emotionally and I had no strength left to deal with a raging girlfriend. What annoyed me though was the fact that the message I received was sent at 8 a.m. and it was already pass lunch when I replied to it so instead of having him answer my message it was his girlfriend who replied to me saying to stay away from her boyfriend. Angry and depress I left it at that I thought things like that required no replies. When he left our town he messaged me apologizing for his girlfriend’s messages and to apologize for everything that he has done. I was hurt so I never answered him.
Months passed and I haven’t heard from him since … time seemed to dull the pain and I know I have recovered from the damages of that night. Until he suddenly sent a message and he sounded sad and depressed he was alone in a new place that he was assigned to. He had no family there and his girlfriend broke up with him. He had no one to turn to no one to talk with. I felt sorry for him and I felt that I really haven’t totally gotten over him so I comforted him. And we were back to that old familiar place where we had left off. But I was a bit hesitant though; hesitant to trust him again, afraid that I might get hurt again like he had hurt me then. But he was friendly and he was nice and he made me feel comfortable through the messages he had sent me. And I thought now we have a chance because finally he was free. We sent messages not purely friendly ones some messages have an undertone of love to it and care. But since graduation was coming I was busy with all my academic obligations so our communications weren’t as often as it used to be. Then after graduation I had a long review for my nursing board. We still text each other but it was not always and sometimes I wasn’t even able to reply to him until he finally stopped sending me messages all together. But it didn’t mean I have forgotten him I just had other obligations.
Months passed again when we were able to meet with each other on our town.
My exams were finished and he was transferred to another location and was given a chance to have a vacation back in our town. That’s when we started communicating again. And that’s when we both decided to meet up again. It was still a cold night in January when we met each other. He took me out to a seaside cafe and we talked for hours as we tried to wait for the rain to stop pouring. That’s when I learned he had a new girlfriend from the last location he had stayed in. And that our meeting was purely on a friendship level. I was hurt when he revealed that to me but I tried to act it out like a good friend should. But I guess it never really went that way especially when he walked me home. He told me how much he had liked me but he never knew whether I still liked him because we haven’t been able to talk to each other personally after that last disaster we had when we met. And that’s when he told me that that was the time that he had found the girl and that she taken away the emptiness and loneliness he had felt on that location when he had last been assigned to. We never really knew whether our friendship could become more because we never really had a chance and he left that night with a kiss on my lips and I knew that I would never have another moment with him again because fate seems to contradict with what I feel. I’m just glad that I have him as a memory—a bittersweet memory …