IX

I am the only one who can choose my fate

I AM AWAKE even before the alarm clock rings.

Alas kept on slipping into my mind last night, so without thinking, I dialled his phone just to hear his voice, to pacify myself. Be reminded that he's here, hasn't gone anywhere else.

He understood because he stayed-and kept me company-until I fell asleep.

His voice, moderate and sweet, is still on my mind even as I start my day.

This is the day.

We're going to the orphanage today.

I tremble at the thought, at the crushing anxiety that there's a chance I'll relive the worst day of my life once again.

With trepidation, I slip out of the house, arriving at the orphanage hours earlier than my blockmates do.

My nerves are on fire, and I feel hot, my breathing coming out as hurried and uneven.

I try to school my features, but my blockmates have noticed that something's wrong. They keep asking, but I don't answer-can't. I'm antsy.

Why isn't he here yet? He wasn't late the first time.

While waiting for Alas, I direct my frazzled attention to the kids.

What do I want? I remember asking myself before when I'd first seen them.

I want Alas to live, is all I can think of now. Will allow myself to think of.

I'm afraid that if I lose focus even for just a second, he'll slip out of my grasp again.

When Alas finally arrives, much much later than usual, my breath catches - and I'm suddenly in front of him, studying his face, his body, his everything for any signs of harm. I find no traces of any. He's the same Alas, with that same tousled hair, and dazzling dimpled smile.

I breathe out a shaky sigh in relief.

"Morning," he beams.

The smile on his face falters when his eyes graze upon the twitching corners of my lips.

He doesn't say a word - doesn't need to. He lifts a hand and wipes the tears that form around my eyes. I'm aware of the curious attention we're attracting, but I don't care.

I focus on him, can only focus on him. The tears blur my eyes, but he wipes them again.

"I'm still here, Chari," he whispers, understanding filling his voice. "Sorry I'm late. I had to take my brother to school today."

"You scared me," I admit, my voice breaking.

He pulls me close and settles me in his embrace. I can feel him take a deep breath, and when his lips draw close to my ears, I release a shiver.

"Calm down," he coaxes. "Just breathe."

I follow - and try to breathe as much of his warmth as I can. I desperately cling on to all traces of him. I'm shaking, and crumbling, and all I want is to take him to where it's safe.

But Alas pulls away. With a swift motion, he smoothens my hair, cups my cheeks, and gives me an encouraging smile. "Let's get back to the others, okay? I think they're starting to think something is wrong."

I know they do. A quick sweep over them shows me their startled glances. Alas placates their worries with his sheepish smile and a wave of his hand.

"We're okay!" he says, and then they break into smiles, absorbing his energy, and then they fall back to what they were doing before he arrived.

Alas too steers me back into the flow of the activity. I'm hesitant to pretend that everything is okay but he's insistent, and stubborn, and makes it his mission to stay close to me as we distribute the goods to the children, all to appease my restlessness. I don't let him out of my sight even for a full minute.

The rest of the day is spent moving around each rooms in the orphanage and making sure every nook and cranny are spotless clean.

I put every second that passes to good use. I'm still shaking, and my heart is hammering against my ribcage, but I burn off that fear by cleaning, scrubbing, mopping, and basically by doing everything else except replay how he died in front of me before.

Alas notices this, and with a soft murmur of my name, takes the mop and rag of cloth from my hands with a worried frown. He deposits them to the table nearby.

And then he's back at my side, leading me to the kids' bedroom where we're out of earshot. "Slow down. You've been tiring yourself out since we started," Alas tells me. His hands hold me in place by the sides of my shoulders, as his soft brown eyes gaze down upon mine. "I'm right here, Chari. I'm still here. Breathe."

I do as he says again - and I take lungfuls of air. It doesn't help.

Instead, I burn all over once more as the image of his dead body flashes in my head. Horror spreads through my body. 

Alas studies my face and sighs once again.

"I wish things were different," he then murmurs. "I wish you never had to see that."

"Me too," I reply.

We stay like that for the longest time. In my head, I beg for time to freeze and for this moment to stop, right here, right now, where we're closest to each other and I can feel his breath caressing my cheeks.

But we don't, and the spell breaks when Alas takes me by the hand out of the bedroom, threading his fingers around mine. He tells Dior and his friends that we're taking a break, and then he's leading me out of the building. 

My eyes narrow momentarily when we step into the oppressive heat of the sun.

"Where are we going?" I ask him, but then my train of thoughts make a violent stop. I hear the sharp intake of my breath when I realize where he's taking me-the nostalgia hitting me like a cold slap.

The tubby angel is there as we walk past, staring at me with judgment, a painful reminder of what is to come.

I check the time in my wrist watch and dread consumes me inside and out.

Almost 4:30 p.m.

My chest constricts. I yank my wrist off his hold, but his grip is firm and stronger than mine, and I'm unable to drag him to a different direction.

Alas manages to bring me as far out as he can. A wave of vertigo hits me when I notice where exactly we're at-where he has led me.

"What are we doing out here?" I say, uneasily eyeing the gates flanking the entrance. "We need to get back inside. C'mon. Please. Let me take you back." I try to pull his hand to bring him back inside, but he doesn't stir.

When Alas faces me with an apologetic, sad smile, I start trembling again, wilder this time.

"Alas, you're scaring me. Please get back inside. Anywhere but here, please."

"Don't be scared, Chari." His voice comes out as a whisper, feather-light and soft. "This is my choice. We are where we're supposed to be."

It hits me in full force what he's been planning to do all this time. My knees weaken, and my surroundings start to spin. The urge to throw up is assaulting me. No. He means to do the same thing again.

"No... please... no... don't do this."

"It's what's meant to happen. That little girl has a long way to go," Alas is saying, now facing me. A small smile is etched on his face, but I can't miss the wistfulness beneath his eyes. "Her life is barely starting. I've lived nineteen years of my life and it's enough. If we try to avoid this, we won't know if she'll remain safe. What if something goes wrong? I don't want to risk it."

The minutes are passing by. I can almost feel every second slip away like sands through my fingers.

Tick tock, tick tock.

My chest feels like it's going to break. I want to throw up.

Alas presses a kiss to my forehead and holds me close to his chest. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, Chari. I just want to say goodbye properly. I don't mean to hurt you again by showing you this. But I really want you to be the last thing I'll see before I go. So I won't forget. So I can find you again in the next life. I hope you can forgive me," he says and continues, "I want you to know... that I'm grateful... that you'll be okay... that I'm doing this not to leave you but because it's the right thing to do. I hope you find the will to keep going. That's all I ever want for you."

The jeepney is coming. I can hear it, can feel it, can almost taste it.

I try to break free from his embrace, to drag him to safety if I have to, but my arms have gone weak.

"What about your dreams?" I ask, desperate.

He pulls away and with an aching softness, looks at my face. He cups my cheek, his thumb grazing my skin. "Life is the ultimate dream, Chari. To continue living, and to accept when it's time to go. I hope, this time, you hold fast to yours."

The jeepney stops. My breath stops with it.

He kisses my lips once, twice. "You said... in your story... that I am the many colors in your black and white world. But darling, you are in every vibrant shade of me. All the good and bad moments with you are my everything. In our many pasts until now."

"Alas... I don't understand. What story?"

The mother alights, followed by the little girl.

"I've always been in love with you, Charity. Even when you weren't always this you. Back to the very beginning, I loved you."

The wind comes, and then the bus speeds by.

"Did that world help you in anyway? I hope it did."

How? Before I can respond, struck at the implication of his words, he is already running.

As he runs, the world slows down in my vision and I become hyperaware of every little sound around me. The screech of tires, the groans of the engines, the rapid sounds of my breathing.

Every moment I have with him, starting from when I first met him in med school, flashes in front of me in a quick montage.

Alas who is smiling and introducing himself to me.

Alas who keeps shooting stolen glances at me.

Alas who is blushing everytime he asks me a question.

Alas who makes a point to eat lunch with me everyday.

Alas who brings me to different places to meet different people.

Just Alas.

Alas who is laughing.

Alas who is living.

Alas who is the definition of life itself.

Then it occurs to me. Maybe, everything that happened is meant to happen for this exact point in my life. Maybe that dream world has to happen for this exact time-this fleeting moment between life and death.

At some point, my life began to change for the worse after he died. Without him, I surrendered to my darkness-and maybe... maybe... this is my reset. My chance at salvation. He said this has always been what's meant to happen but maybe it shouldn't be.

Maybe something has to change.

Because nothing is the same anymore.

I'm not that dry, stupid girl who watched him die.

I admit it now. I need him. I don't want to live in a world without him.

And I don't want the world to continue without him either.

He has so much to offer. The world needs more of him to make it less difficult to one more person who needs him.

I can't do that but he can. I can't do that but I can do this for him.

In between the slow seconds, my feet hit the asphalt as I run after him. A strong push is all I need to throw him and the girl out of the way.

As our gazes connect, his eyes widen in realization, and he looks startled and wildly afraid.

But I give a smile and quietly say with my lips, "Don't be afraid."

He is right. Everything is a choice now.

I have a lot of unfinished businesses-my parents, my dreams, him-but that's okay. Life trumps everything.

He trumps everything.

He asked what my dream was-and I think I know now.

I want to be good, truly good, to someone, for once. It doesn't have to be everyone. Just one. Just one person is enough.

Just Alas is enough.

What's the point of living if we're all going to die? I asked once.

I've found the answer to that too.

It's the small infinite moments between the hello and goodbye, laughter and tears, and you and me.

Life is a whole kaleidoscope world of dreams. And now, in my last seconds, I realize he is my dream. I want him to live.

I want to be like him.

A shout pierces the air as the collision hits me and sends me away. I'm airborne for a while, flying. Or at least it feels like that. I close my eyes. I don't feel anything else anymore.

When I open my eyes, I see the rays of the sun pouring down on me like a blessing. Dimming now, but it's okay.

I want to see him.

Alas is suddenly by my side, hovering over me with tears running across his face. I hear something. My name? Is he crying my name over and over?

I lift a hand to wipe his tears, but I've lost all my strength.

Don't be afraid.

In my last seconds, all his faces in all our past lives start to mix with his current. They are all that I see.

Then the memories come back to me . . . all my lives and deaths, all my failures and his sacrifices, how I died and lived again and again in one constant loop.

In all my lives, there's only one constant.

Alas.

Alas with the many names but one never-changing spirit.

Who shone with the thousand vibrancy of life, even though death followed like a shadow.

Whose light I clung to, that never diminished.

Who saved me, over and over, like a hymn of prayer.

In my last breath, I finally remember him.

You are my rest, my space, my freedom.

You are my choice.

In my last second, I finally smile. In peace. In understanding.

A flash of light is the last thing I see before the great unknown of black finally consumes me.