Page 44 of Chasing Mr. Prefect
“I have no idea what I was thinking at the time. It just made sense back then. Everything hurt. I had no proper outlet. But here came my friend Cholo and got my reckoning. Nothing useful was coming out of me blaming good people and I had to cut it out.”
There was no point denying it now. Cholo made me see sense. Hanging out with him and hearing about his family, it made me realize that one could be hurt and still deal with their pain with grace and readiness to forgive.
“Alam mo, Ma, Tita Cris does know her stuff. She makes amazing dinners. Best part is she never poisoned my food no matter how sungit I got. And Liana… She’s awesome. She makes me baon, she waits up for me when I go home late so we wouldn’t have a repeat of that night that I ended up sleeping on the sidewalk. They’re good people. They just kept putting up with me and whatever I threw at them.
I’m sorry I used losing you as an excuse to act out. That was not right. And if you were around, you’d probably whoop my ass for treating your best friend and her daughter like that.”
I sighed and took my rosary out of my pocket.
“I’m sorry, Ma. I’m trying to make up for that now. I’m trying to grow up and become something you’d be proud of.”
I let myself cry for a bit before reciting my prayers. I stayed there in quiet, thankfully uninterrupted, and spent the rest ofthe afternoon just hanging out with her without worrying about academic requirements or club duties.
I left the memorial park just in time for the early evening mass in the village parish that day. I was not the type who went to church every Sunday, but today was an exception.
The church had a candle station behind the main shrine, just beside the adoration chapel. I lit a couple more candles after the mass for my mom and after that, I was going home.
Suddenly, I felt someone move beside me and I smelled another candle being lit.
“Sana po, may isa diyan na makaalalang sumagot na sa cell phone niya,” said a loud voice, and I turned to see Cholo standing beside me, carefully placing a candle in one of the panels. “Amen.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. He looked so pissed off. “And can’t you keep your voice down?”
“Juliana told me I’d find you here, in achurch. I honestly thought she was pulling my leg but here you are.”
“Can you not,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I meant, what are you doing so far South? We had classes today.”
“Bakasyon ko na rin kasi bukas, okay lang ba?”
“Hala, why so cranky?”
“Vinnie, if I’d ignored your texts and didn’t answer any of your calls all day, you wouldn’t just be cranky. You’d hang me upside down on the village square!”
Well, that was true. One time I told him to text once he got home and he forgot. I got so worried I called his house’s landline number.
“Clingy ‘yon?” I joked, hoping to ease his annoyance, and it thankfully worked. He stopped frowning and just shook his head at me. “Anyway, I skipped class. It’s my mom’s death anniversary today so I can’t be bothered going to school. I visited her and attended mass after.”
“Okay. I knew it was today. I was just worried because people were looking for you. Our teammates wouldn’t stop bugging me, too, because one of them tried calling you and your phone was off. Good thing I found Juliana.”
“Why would they call me? Did something urgent come up? Miss Mikayla approved the video last week, did she want any other revisions?
“No. Kristine and Seth and the others were calling you because it’s the last day of school and they had Christmas presents for you. You could’ve texted them back, you know.”
“I will when I get home,” I said, leading the way out of the candle station. He followed my lead.
“Why turn your phone off, though? That’s a bit extreme.”
“Nabwisit ako kaninang umaga, eh. One of my aunts were being annoying. Imagine, she posted photos of them at the memorial park.”
“Ay, badtrip nga ‘yon. Hoy, this way,” he said, stopping in his tracks and pointing in the opposite direction.
“Huh? My house is that way.”
“All your gifts are in my car. You need to take them home. Some of it is food.”
“Ay, ganun?” I said with a small giggle. “Okay. Thanks for getting them.”
“I didn’t volunteer. They just gave it all to me because they knew my house was near you,” he said, sticking a tongue out at me.