CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

There came the flashbacks

•••

"Look who I got here," an irking familiar voice erupted beside Satan as she filled in a styrofoam cup with the warm water from the dispenser. Instantly, she frowned.

Her mother made chocolate shakes for everyone over breakfast, and naturally, she'd seek the kind of kick only coffee could hand. But having Architect Sixto Iglesias as a separate serve along with it was not vitalizing at all. 

The mischance was very timely to ruin her day even more when she spotted the time; thirty minutes before eight in the morning, thirty minutes before the rest of their colleagues would arrive, and thirty minutes prior to the stay-in honorable construction workers to spare the project a lot of elbow greases. 

"Good morning, Engineer Alejandro," he went on. "Hindi yata maganda ang gising mo?"

From her peripheral, she caught him cradling the same cup in hand. 

"You're early, Architect," she replied, moving aside to the square table adjacent to the dispenser to give him way and to get herself a sachet of three-in-one coffee. 

"So are you." He pressed the red button, with eyes swimming to her displeased face. His eyebrows met. "You know what? For someone being courted by two, that isn't the kind of face I'm expecting you'll wear." 

She gazed sidewards to catch a picture of his face, which lacked distinctive expressions to tell if he was jesting, bastardizing, or merely trying to come up with a topic. He unpressed the dispenser's red button and stood straight in a good measure apart from her. 

"Humor me then, Architect." She turned on her feet to face him. "What kind of face am I supposed to pull on?"

"A smiling face, at least?" He poured the coffee powder into his cup. 

"With you as my only companion?" She scoffed. "I'm so sorry but my smile resists taking residence at the corners of my lips."

Grabbing her coffee from the mini square table, she trotted to the wide collapsible one and occupied the lawn chair at the head, where she could grant herself the first sight of Kean or Sergio's needed presence. Sixto, on the other hand, took the other end of the table's head; a grin was glued to his face.

His one foot was swinging to and fro, hitting on one of the table's legs; eyes never leaving Satan's face even as he blew the steam off his coffee before taking huge sips from it. 

"What do you want, Architect Iglesias?" His stares discomfited her. "You're staring like crazy."

"What do you want, Engineer Alejandro?" he brought out after taking another sip from his cup. "You're staring like crazy, too."

"Why would I--" 

"You wouldn't see me staring if you're not doing the same thing." He smirked. 

She cocked a brow. "Point taken. But--"

"I pity your suitors, you know, Engineer Alejandro?" he cut her off. "It's like they've got themselves into a war with no other weapon but their courage. And there goes your ex, although dead and fertilizing the land, still has every bit of your love at his disposal. Surely, it won't take a love guru to know that you will be choosing neither."

Her eyebrows knotted. "And you're raising that topic because?" 

"I, myself, prefer to be dumped earlier than later when I had already invested so much." He smirked, leaning forward on the table. "Why are you still keeping the two when it's crystal clear that it's Ulysses you'll still be choosing?"

"I see that you know not to put yourself in the right place to bring up such." She chuckled in derision. "But I admire the audacity, Architect."

About to rose on her feet to leave, Sixto said,

"Validation, I see." He stood. "To be chased by a man and a lesbian who would normally go after a biological woman, what an ego boost could that be for a transgender like you, eh? You must be drowning with--"

"What do you want, Sixto?" she hissed as she thumped her fist on the table, causing their coffees to splatter. 

He whistled as though cat-calling. "You look way hotter when you're off the right temper. Unluckily, I can't hit on you as we have dealt. So, I reckon playing with you is all there is for me." He swiped his cup of coffee and raised it as though begging her for a toast. "Cheers to that."

"What kind of mindset do you have?" she spat venom. 

"Strange. Highly unusual," he curtly replied. "Makes me feel I'm putting myself ahead of your suitors. Of Ulysses even."

Her jaw automatically clenched at the mention of her late lover's name. "How dare you drop his name just that," she said, every word as though punctuated. 

He threw his head back and laughed just as if Satan wasn't, by all appearances, off the wall about the behavior he was dishing. 

"Is there a watered-down way to say his name? If there is, will it bring him back from the grave, Engineer Alejandro?" 

Anger for the man in front of him, and pain and longingness for the man who used to be the focal point of her world began to drill deep holes in her chest, slowly rendering her strengthless that all they left for her was the strength to deprive Sixto of her hurting self. 

She jailed herself inside her car, writhing in pain as tears welled from her eyes. His memories mobbed her mind even as she tried thinking of diverting stories whilst her hand wrapped her ring finger all the harder. 

How can Sigmund's pieces of advice work not when I needed them the most to? she painfully thought to herself. 

Screeching tires were amiss. 

A rumble of thunder crashed overhead. 

Car horns sounded far afield. 

There came the flashbacks. 

"Anak, let's go home, please..." She felt her mother's hands on her shoulders, trying to get her on her feet. 

On the cold floor outside the emergency room, since Ulysses was pronounced dead, she'd been slumping for hours on end, eyes never drying from tears. 

"It's getting cold..." Sirach crouched in front of her, hands rubbing one of hers to warm. "You're getting cold, Anak...Umuwi na tayo..."

"Why, Mama?" She swallowed the pain caught up in her throat, tears rivered down her cheeks unchecked. "Why does death...has to be one of life's...cruel certainties...? Why is life...so hard when we love...? Why do I...have to carry the burden of being loved...and left afterward...? Why do goodbyes...have to be so...final...Mama?"

The tears flooding her mother's eyes drenched her hands as they dripped down from her cheeks. Her lips parted, but no words could seem to come out that she clenched it closed and rather solaced Satan with her insuperable motherly embrace. 

"Drown yourself in the pain for now, Anak," she whispered against her ear. "But please...don't forget to surface...Mama wouldn't afford to see you so ruined..."

-

"Sas, you've had enough...Tama na..." Aki snatched the bottle of Whiskey off Satan's hold. Her misty eyes spoke volumes of her pity. She fumbled for bills in her wallet and handed them to the barmaid before she latched on her best friend's arm. "Let's go. I'm taking you home."

Satan didn't budge from the barstool. She instead motioned a hand at the barmaid, asking for another bottle of liquor. "Go home, Aks...I'm staying for the night..."

"For the night?! Again?!" Her voice roared amid the blasting music from the surround sound. "Are you out of your mind, Satan?! Hanggang kailan mo balak sirain 'yang sarili mo?! Hanggang sa sumunod ka sa kanya't pati sina Tito at Tita mawalan din ng anak?!" 

The customers lounging around the bar countertop and the nearby tables stole glances at them. One of the bouncers within the area ushered himself to them, yet receded midway as Aki gestured her hand. 

"He's dead, Satan, for pete's sake! Wala na si Ulysses! Patay na si Ulysses! Hindi na siya babalik! Hindi. Ka. Na. Niya. Babalikan," she hissed, stressing the last few words. "Ano pa'ng hindi malinaw--"

"You shut the fuck up, Arkisha!" She pushed her on the chest, causing her to step back. "If you don't have anything good to say, umalis ka na lang! Kaya ko sarili ko!"

"We made a pinky promise, didn't we?" Aki so suddenly sobbed. "To never ruin ourselves for long because of someone..." She hastily wiped her tears with the back of her hands. "But look at you now...It's been almost a year since he left...Pero hindi ka pa rin umuusad sa kung paano ka niya iniwan... You're more than just ruined, Sas...If only you can see yourself through my eyes...I'm sure you'll opt not to lay a second look...Maawa ka naman sa sarili mo at kina Tita...Naiintindihan kong masakit and I shouldn't liken that feeling to anyone else's but...that doesn't compare to the pain you're giving your parents every time you go home in such a state..."

"Just...just give me more time...please..." Satan cried. "This...isn't something I...can battle for months...'cause what we had...was a lifetime memory, Aki. And he's...one in a zillion..." She glazed her eyes at her. "No one can afford to love, accept, and boast me as he did..." A bitter smile touched her lips. "I ain't a woman like you...who can have that kind of love at their fingertips...when someone drifted away..."

-

"Good morning, Engineer Alejandro," the chief of the Human Resources department greeted, stopping her on the way to her executive office. Tension was evident on the older woman's fidgeting fingers latched on a folder and her quivering lips as she continued, saying, "Do you have the convenience of time?"

"Would you mind, Miss Serrano?" Satan pointed her hand at her office, briefly decided to do the talk in her space. 

The engineers and staff residing in their cubicles were furtively stealing her glances. She'd been absent for months without filing a leave and was the subject of every smart-mouthed, nosy employee's shared lunch for being impertinent to disregard the company rules just because she is one of the owner's heirs. 

Serrano shook her head and let Satan lead the way. They sat fronting each other on the coffee table fronting the casement window of middling size.

"Allow me to save your precious time, Miss Serrano." She coerced a smile. "The folder in your hands, I assume it's a memorandum for my rolling absences, isn't it?" 

The elder's tensed lips tried hard to curve up. To no avail. She slid the folder towards her. "I'm so sorry, Enginee--"

"Don't be." She forced another smile. "It's not for you to say." She thumbed through the folder's content and looked up at her. "My apologies for my absences and being the subject of gossips for months. I'm certain I'd been your department's terrible headache."

"It's not as bad as you thought, Engineer..." Her trembling fingers played with the tissue paper on the table, allowing Satan to see how her nervousness acted up. 

"At least for you." Her smile hardened on her face. She knew the chief was one nosy coworker who'd sit for hours on end just to get a scoop of someone's life. "Anyway, do you have any other concerns to raise, Miss Serrano? Any questions you can perhaps ask me personally?"

"N-none..." She scrambled to her feet. "T-thank you for your time...Engineer. I hope you won't mind if I'll excuse myself. I have a lot of paperwork to attend."

"I don't mind at all." She stood, gazing down on Serrano whose height was cut to her chest. "See you around, Miss Serrano. It's a pleasure seeing you in good shape, by the way. I've heard so much about you for the past months I've been away."

"All the good things, I hope." She reached for the door handle.

Her lips turned up. "Incomparable to the rumors you've spread about me." The woman stiffened. "There's actually this one rumor I so want you to enlarge upon for me." For seconds, she idled her eyes on her threatened face. "What did you mean when you said I deserved my loss because it's a consequence of putting high bets on my gender identity?"

"Engineer...I..." Her hand climbed to her arm, which was slapped away not a second it landed on the flesh.

"You people are the main reasons why we're losing our hopes to be loved, Miss Serrano," she had bared her fangs. "I hope one day when your child chooses to deviate from what gender is normal for you, you won't be the reason for their aches. Because it's harder to be unaccepted, than if they've never uncloseted at all."

The elder woman couldn't seem to speak a word. Her head hung low throughout. 

"You can spread any rumors you please, just make sure they're not going to reach my ears." She opened the door for her. "My father's secretary will inform you later this afternoon if your service will still be needed in the company. For now, you can get back to your post and mourn on my behalf."

-

"Sasa, Anak," Soña, Ulysses' mother, called as she reached for Satan's hand. They were in the Saenz residence's living room. All their bags were packed, movables were cloaked in white. Every corner was divested of the life given by the paintings and pictures that adorned them once before. "Sana maintindihan mo 'tong desisyon namin, Anak. We're not just doing this for ourselves, but also for you." Her misty eyes swept around. "This is our home, yes...Not until it didn't feel like one anymore when every day it's slowly turning into a fount of pains and aching memories."

"Tita, please..." Satan took Sona's hand between hers. "Please...Cebu's too far from here...from me...How can I reach you when I need you...? How...how can I...take care of you and Tito...like Ulysses and I...swore to never stop to do...?"

"Our son was the life of this home, Anak." A solitary tear trickled on her cheek. "Staying here would mean losing him, again and again, every single day. Alam mo bang kaninang umaga...when I was laying out the plates on the table...I--I laid out three...No'ng naglaba ako...I saw his shirts at the bottom of our laundry piles...I washed them, let them dry, and ironed them as if he could still wear them...When I tried to rest...I felt his hands massaging my head like he used to..." She held her hand tighter. "Hindi ko kayang manatili rito, Anak...Ikamamatay ko..."

"I'll get you guys a condo...I'll...I'll handle all the...the inconveniences of moving out..." She swallowed the hard lumps on her throat. "Just please...don't leave me..." Her tears soaked Soña's hand. "You're the only ones he had left of me...If I'll...If I'll lose you both, too...then...then what's the point of...of moving forward...and leaving the past behind?"

"Exactly, Anak…" Her trembling thumbs dried Satan's tears. "With you, seeing us. And us, seeing you…What's the point of it all…when we will only be painful existences to each other…? When every time I'll see you, I'll remember our son…How happy he could have been when he marries you off…How his smile could have stayed forever on his face…How his eyes would have welled up as you walked down the aisle…How good of a father he could have been to our grandchildren you two would have adopted…"

-

"Are you busy, Sasa?" Lucifer popped her head in the opening of the attic's door, where Satan had roomed herself since Ulysses died. 

Satan immediately closed the wooden box containing Ulysses' letters on her lap and turned up to face her sibling.

"Why?" she asked. 

"Datdat and I were thinking maybe we can get some polluted air outside?" she had replied in jest.

Laughter had no room in her. "You guys can go without me. Ingat kayo."

The younger one did not dare to insist. She threw the door close after dismissing a goodbye and a flying kiss. 

As if a faucet was turned on inside of her, tears soaked her cheeks the instance she reopened the wooden box and one after the other unfolded a few letters Ulysses had given her. 

-I wrote this when I was downstairs, waiting for you to dress up for our date. I was in the playroom where Datdat and Lulu were bowling on Wii. He groaned when his ball swung to the gutter, while she roared with laughter and told him even virtually he was stupid. I laughed. But at the back of my mind, I was hoping our future mini-mes wouldn't take after their Tita. Lmao. You don't let them read this, My love, do you? Anyway, I simply wanted to share this with you, thinking you could take the hint that any time I might propose and you should be prepared to be annoyed 24/7 with my five adorable moppets tailing on my back.

-You were being mobbed by your blockmates earlier when I was to invite you out for lunch. I bumped into one at the restroom and asked what was keeping you busy. He told me you were teaching them the subject I deject the most--Math. I suddenly remembered how hard you were on me back when we were in high school when I used to skip our two math classes and you'd be finding me up the tree planted at the rear of the junior high building.  You'd drag me back to the class, telling me we'd break up when I would resist. God knows how much I hated Math, but he knows more that I am head over heels for you, hence here I am, still knuckling under to Math and secretly tucking these pieces of papers inside your bag at the very opportune time.

-Did you know that I love the way you idle your eyes on me with stars forming constellations in them as I shimmied into your favorite dress shirt? The way your gentle hands would stroke my hair into your preferred style? The way you'd mouth my name ever so softly with the sweetest smile taking residence at the corners of your lips? The way you never said any lines synonymous with the excessively sentimental three words and eight letters, but not once failed to make me feel how much you do?

-My parents would always tell me that I was too outspoken and too ambitious for you. And that only to prove that I am one of the lovers at the top of the pack, I sped the pacing of my youth, skipping all that the others didn't, and went straight to securing life in the future with you. Not a second, did I regret doing that. My father clapped his hand on my back; You surpassed me, he had said. I wasn't aiming to, but coming from a man I had always dreamt to be, I was so proud. My mother smiled at me with sparkles in her eyes as she said, 'I thought Sasa was putting your life on hold and was hindering you from growing but I was wrong...The man you are right now is exactly the man I prayed to God you'd be. Someone who'd be his woman's gain and sun in her universe.' I simply wanted to be the man who'd grow old with you, till then, I didn't know I was so much more. And so I thanked God that you came.

Just as though she was submerged by the bodies of water, she caught her breath convulsively and audibly when a loud thud erupted as she felt a weight on her left. A pair of hands pulled her against the warmth of a chest, murmuring against her hair;

"Engineer..." 

The voice, the designation regardless, she knew the arms circling her shuddering body weren't Sigmund's. Because if it were him, just by a single hold, the storms and highs of emotions battering her heart would have gone somehow motionless. 

But they didn't.

"E-Engineer..." she cried.

"I hate seeing you in tears..." He stroked his hand on her hair. "But if it's the only way to let that all out...then feel free to cry them on my shoulder..." 

"Engineer, p-please..." She sobbed. "P-plea--"

"Don't force yourself too hard, Engineer," he said so gently. "You don't have to talk. I won't ask anything as well. Umiyak ka lang. I'll sta--" 

"P-please..." She pulled away from the hug. Her trembling hand made way to her left pocket and fished out her phone. "P-please...call Sigmund..." She handed him her phone. "Tell him I...I badly need him...n-now..."

"But I'm here, Sasa...I'm here..." His eyes wounded their way to hers. "Why search for his presence...when I'm right here...inches close to you?"

"Kean, please..." Her glazed eyes blinked another fresh batch of tears whilst her pair of hands insisted the already-unlocked phone into Kean's own. "Please...Ng-ngayon lang...a-ako hihingi ng...ng pabor s-sa 'yo..."

"And this is the hardest I was ever asked to do..." He feebly smiled as he took her phone and barged out of the car. 

The next thing she knew, she saw Sigmund clap his hand lightly on Kean's back before he walked past him, reached for the car door handle, and scooped her into his arms. 

"Na-late yata ako ngayon," he whispered against her ear. 

"Napaaga lang masyado 'yong check-up call mo kanina..." she replied, arms tightening around his waist when her eyes instantly watered. Did she miss him when he said he wouldn't make it for his morning visit because he has a client to meet at seven? She couldn't address her question. 

"I'm sorry." He rubbed his palm up and down her arm. "I simply didn't want to skip it."

"W-what's important is...y-you're here now...in the flesh and not just through ph-phone...and that...a-and that..."

He peeked through her loose strands of hair, which he gathered behind her ear to see her tear-stained face buried sideways on his chest. "And that what?"

"And that I'm..." she chewed on her lower lip, hand played with the collar of Sigmund's dress shirt, "feeling better now..." 

He gently raised her chin to level gaze with her, to no use. Satan's eyes remained down, too shy to reciprocate his stares. 

"But I haven't said or done anything helpful yet," he uttered softer than a lullaby. 

"Your presence alone is enough, Sigmund..." That was when she gazed up at him. His smile resembled Ulysses' the first time he burrowed his hand into hers. "Thank you for coming...despite not having the convenience of the time..."

He gently caressed her tear-streaked cheek. "I wouldn't miss it for the world, Sasa."