"Ang layo mo na..." I said as I watched you free the lantern in the dark sky. You were marking your new success. Just again.

You looked up to me, hugging the newspaper to your chest, the prettiest smile on your face. "Ang layo na natin."

"Ang layo na natin..." I reiterated, unable to reciprocate your smile, your gaze. "Sobrang layo na natin..."

'Di na kita maabot.

We looked up the sky, waited till the lantern vanished from our line of vision. Its distance from where I was standing mirrored how far you've gone.

"Remember when we were only hoping to pass my bar examination?" you broke the silence ensuing between us.

The cold wind rushed to my skin. I felt colder inside.

"I told Him I'd be the happiest if I passed, didn't I? But look, He blessed me, us, with much." You searched for your name again in the newspaper, which was the quickest to see for it was written on the top. "I couldn't be hap--"

"Remember that night when we crossed the threshold from friendship to everythingship?" I cut you off. You had eyed me confused, nonverbally asking why I was suddenly harking back. "Can you still recall the last two lines of your poem that night?"

Confusion persisted in your eyes, rather redoubling than diminishing. You replied nonetheless. "Dahil itinuro lang naman sa atin ng mundo kung paano magmamahal...Pero hindi nito sinabing may mga bagay na hindi magtatagal..."

"Perhaps," I gripped my hands tightly on our terrace's steel fences, hardly containing the emotions going rough inside me, "we are in that part of your poem right now..."

You stiffened.

I waited for you to gaze up to me but didn't.

To laugh thinking I was only jesting but didn't.

To question me as to why but didn't.

To slap me because you should but didn't.

All I ever received were your tears drenching the newspaper containing your name on the list of the bar topnotchers.

Everything around us just started to turn into hazy silhouettes in my eyes.

Too dark.

Too strange.

Yet too familiar.

It suddenly became my darkroom.

My panic room.

And I was put back inside of it.

After two years of being free.

"I knew...I knew there was something wrong...The way my smile no longer ignites yours...The way you lose your patience when I take forever dressing up...The way you turn me down when I needed some loving at night...The way you shut me up when I'd ask you to be the sounding board of my poetry...The way your eyes avert when I'd say you knock me off my feet...and the way... you never say it back anymore...I knew there was something wrong...I knew...I was just waiting for you to break it to me...Thinking by the time you will...I'm ready...But I'm still not...I'm fucking not...I fucking won't be..." you cried, "'cause I knew I would be a long shot... I...I think I could be a long shot..."

"I think we were only meant...to know each other a little better and longer than anyone else, Silo...And it would be over just that..."

Just when I least expected, those rain of questions I expected you'd give earlier came like bolts of lightning.

They seared brutally through my soul.

They hurled like javelins through my chest.

"Where did I go wrong?"

To none.

"Was I too much? Am I too much?"

You never were.

"Didn't you want me meddling with your personal life? Didn't you want me to mention your mom? Your father? Your stepdad? Your life before us?"

I never despised anything you did.

"Did I fall short of the woman I promised you I'd be?"

"You filled all my shortcomings...Even those you shouldn't," I had whispered unconsciously that I wanted to walk away.

But your response rendered me frozen on my feet. "'Cause I knew love should be that way...I knew love isn't about talking you down with your shortcomings...and finding it in someone else...It is about filling it for you as I don't want you to see yourself flawed...and weak...because you're neither..."

"Then perhaps..." I swallowed the hard lumps on my throat, "perhaps you were too much...too much that I...I picture myself worse...than I was before you...before us..."

"Or maybe until now...you still can't see the beauty...that I can clearly see in you..."

"Will you stop it?!" For the first time, I had raised my voice at you. For the first time, I felt anger, hate, and envy above all things synonymous with loving you. "Will you stop being so good?! Will you stop talking shit like that when we both know I'm fucking not what you think highly of me?! Will you stop telling me that I'm neither flawed nor weak when it's clear as day that I can't level with the nearly perfect you?! You've always been the loaded one, the smart one, the promising psychologist, the consistent board topnotcher, the bar topnotcher, the soon-to-be rookie yet sharp lawyer whereas I'm that wreck-still-trying-to-thrive bartender you picked in a seldomly-attended bar!"

"Tangina, Sadie..."Your eyes continued shedding tears I promised not to be the cause; in them unraveled a glimmer of happiness. Or what seemed to be the memories of our happiness. "We've come as long as two years...Two years! Two freaking years! Two god dang years only for you to see me as your competitor?! When did I ever make you feel that I needed you to keep up with me?! When did I ever make you feel that you're not the biggest part of my success?! Pucha, Sadie! Kada abante ko, dala kita! Kada angat ko, hawak kita! Alam mo kung bakit?! Kasi atin 'yon! Sa 'tin 'yon! I was doing all those at my very best because of us! For us! Hindi para sa sarili ko! At lalong-lalong hindi para ipamukha sa 'yong ito na ako at 'yan ka lang!"

It was when I found the answer to your question: are people born unlovable?

People aren't born unlovable, we make them feel that way.

And I made you feel that way.

"I'm sorry...I'm...so sorry...Silo...I'm so sorry...I...I really am..." I tried to reach for your hand but you stepped back before I could even.

"If every day...I'd have to narrow down my world...I'd be removing everyone from the equation...but you..." you cried as you held my gaze so vulnerably that I knew I had broken you harder before you could even add, "How dare you...to spin me a yarn so arresting...and believable...that my best experience of love...has been defined by the way...you mouthed those words against my lips..."

Perhaps I was the one who placed myself back into the darkroom you had tirelessly pulled me from. And I feel sorry for myself because my love was unable to keep you.

Fin.