complete me

This is a story about truth, beauty, freedom; but above all things, this story is about love.

The heroine says to the hero, “Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of your time.” But the hero leaves her standing outside a run-down coffee shop in Manila. He strides away, prepared to sacrifice himself to a distinctly sane, unexceptional and rather dull relationship with a girl named Connie Cruz who wears khakis and white button-downs.

The hero eventually dumps the poor, unappreciated Connie and races back to our heroine, (named Sylvia) who welcomes him with open arms. Together, they decide to embark on the greatest adventure of all, a love that will undoubtedly be madly, passionately and extraordinarily perfect—leading of course to a house in Forbes Park, 2.5 children and incredible sex.

I’m going to show you what happens to the fairy tale—after our hero leaves his Connie to fall into Sylvia’s open arms. He becomes Prince Charming and Zorro rolled into one, ready to fight his way through dragons, bandits and MMDA patrols to reach the sleeping princess. He jumps into his car and races down the streets of Metro Manila, dodging buses and pink railings. He rushes up the flight of stairs to Sylvia’s apartment and, panting, pounds on her door. She opens it, and her face breaks out into a smile of pure, unadulterated joy. She tries to pull him into her arms, but he holds back.

“Wait,” he says. “Wait. I want it to be special.”

His face becomes serious. He takes her hand. "I'm just a boy, standing in front of a girl... asking her to love him."

She looks at him, saying nothing. He begins to feel afraid. With Connie, there are no moments of uncertainty like this. Then Sylvia throws her arms around him, and Connie is forgotten.

“You had me at hello,” Sylvia says, with her head buried against his neck. “You had me at hello.”

She lets him in. He strokes her hair, runs his hand down her arm. She laughs. "I appreciate this whole seduction thing you've got going on here, but let me give you a tip: I'm a sure thing."

***

So there they are, the hero and Sylvia, living life like a box of chocolates, ready to face any moment, as long as they could do it together. Sylvia gets out of her little apartment and moves in with our hero. She starts wearing khakis and white button-downs, waking up early to make breakfast and asking him if he’s had dinner. He enjoys the fussing, and they settle into a routine. “Take care,” she’d say. “I’ll be back,” he would reply, with a kiss on the forehead and an accompanying squeeze of the hand. He drives away with a smile on his face. This, he thinks, is as good as it gets.

But I know this hero—and the story doesn’t end here.

He meets someone else; someone who shows him that life can still be exciting. He is swept away by the thrill of the unexpected. He is in love. “If you love someone,” the woman tells him, “You say it. You say it right then, out loud, or the moment just... passes you by.”

He doesn’t say it. He says, “I’m with someone else.”

He goes home to Sylvia, answers her questions about his day and compliments her on dinner. He looks at her. And he remembers. Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of your time.

I can’t tell you if he still loved Sylvia—I don’t know. But suddenly, his “I’ll be back,” turns into “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Sylvia begs him to stay. “You can’t handle the truth,” he says. Tears fill her eyes. He grips her shoulders, looks at her.

“I think I’m in love with someone else,” he explains. He strokes her hair. “Remember what we said before? When people are in love, time, distance... nothing could separate them because they knew. It was right. It was real. It was—“

“A movie! That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie!” Her hand streaks up to slap his cheek. Then she stands still, shocked.

She steps back. “I didn’t mean it,” she says. ”It’s just that—it’s just so sudden. Don’t you think that maybe…maybe it’s just a passing thing? Infatuation? They say even the best relationships have their downs. We can forget about this.” She smiles bravely.

He pulls back, his face expressionless. “I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.”

The tears fall now. Sylvia clings to him. “Please. Please. I love you. Don’t leave me. It seems right now that all I've ever done in my life is making my way here to you. Believe me. ”

He sighs and pries her away. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

***

You’ll wonder why I know this story.

I met him long ago, long before this story began. It was one fine day. I was still in college, walking around my University. Maybe it was fate, destiny, I don’t know. I tripped. Suddenly a pair of strong arms encircled my waist.

“Swoon,” he said. “I’ll catch you.”

I knew he was the one for me. I was never surer of anything before—this kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime. I knew he felt it too. He admitted it, told me he loved me. But he was with someone else back then too. I don’t remember her name, maybe it was Connie.

“Why can't we be together?” I’d ask.

He’d look at me wistfully. “You want to know why? Because I don't trust myself with you. You’re exciting, different—I love you. You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. Maybe I don’t deserve you. But there’s always her I have to think about. She loves me. I can’t hurt her.”

There is fate, but it only takes you so far, because once you're there, it’s up to you to make it happen. I tried to convince him to leave her, that what we had was worth it. I said that love is like oxygen; that love is a many-splendored thing; that love should lift us up where we belong—all we need is love!

He left her, that Connie—and came running up the stairs of my apartment to hammer at my door. I knew who it was even before I threw it open. He picked me up, kissed me, and it was like oxygen, that kiss, a many-splendored thing that lifted me to the clouds. I knew, there and then, that it was true: all you need is love.

I remember every day I had with him. Every one of them. Mostly, I remember the last one, the wild finish: a girl standing beside an MRT station in the rain, with a comical look on her face, because her insides have been kicked out.

You see, he had met Sylvia.

***

This is the story of the other woman: the one in the fire-engine red dress and the screw-me heels—the one in khakis and white button-downs.

This is a story about love.

Hello. My name is Connie.

I used to be someone else, now you can call me Connie.

*this is a repost from peyups.com