Chapter Nineteen

| Regrets |

A day never passed without me shedding huge drops of tears. The following weeks had been very miserable, and facing a day with a smile is a miracle.

Due to my Dad's persistence, I managed to finish school, although not getting the top-of-the-batch award I have been struggling to aim. However, those didn't matter as my grief won over my goal. All my subjects barely passed, but since my teachers knew what I was going through, they helped me, and then I finished high school.

I couldn't forget the day when Kuya was buried meters down the ground. Petrichor and the smell of wet grass filled my nose, as my eyes continue to fall down tears. I held the white flower tight against my chest, wailing like a child. Mom cried louder than I did, and I'm sure she's filled with regrets as to how horrible she treated Kuya when he was still living. Maybe she'd been wondering, has she really been a mother?

I was bereft, and through those days of my misery, Sean never left my side.

He'd always been there, trying to make me feel better, trying to make me laugh, and sometimes, I've been so annoyed at his presence that I tend to just push him away. I will regret it soon enough but it will seem like he never holds grudge against me. He always smiles.

Gone was the Sean I've met several months back. Gone was the Sean who never smiled.

At mornings, I will always receive a beautiful text message from him, then he will call me, ask how I am, how I'm doing, and saying he'll come over. I always let him. After all, his very presence makes me feel better. We walk at parks most of the times, eat ice creams, and whenever he'll notice I'm zoning out again, he'll make me laugh by making himself look stupid.

He's always successful.

The most beautiful thing he always does to me is at midnight, when I couldn't sleep thinking about Kuya, and he will call me all of a sudden. He makes me go towards my windowsill and look at the stars, and he will sing for me. It's cheesy, I know, but it made me happy – us, happy, and nothing else mattered.

It has always been lovely, falling asleep with the sound of his voice. He sings beautiful songs I loved, and amidst it sometimes I cry silently, thanking God for having him by my side.

It made me feel bad at times when I'm talking about my sadness and he will yawn, a sign of tiredness, and I'll ask if he's sleepy. He will always deny it and out of the blue, he will sound energized again, but of course I knew it was just an act. Sometimes, just for me to be considerate enough, I act sleepy so he can sleep as well. I appreciate his efforts so much, that sometimes I pity him, for if it isn't for me, perhaps he'll live a happy life without me being a burden.

I once told him about that thought and he wasn't so happy about it.

"A burden?" he said, in a voice my Mom would've made when saying, "Punk song?" He snorted on the other line. "The hell? Hindi kita tinrato nang ganyan."

I started to compose a reply, but erased all them to replace it in a simple question.

"Why?"

I know him so well, that even if I don't see him I can sense what expression he's wearing. I sensed he was smiling.

"Well," he said. "Do I have to say it again?"

He loves me. He loves me. I nailed that to my head.

Sean was so precious to me; I can't imagine losing him. I was so lost after my Kuya's death... so broken, so incomplete. But even through his flaws and incompleteness he tried to fill my missing pieces – those missing pieces that were products of his brokenness just to make me whole. His songs, his voice, his words of comfort, his hand on my back, his smiles and jokes and his laughs. They were real precious to me. I loved him – I loved him, no questions asked.

But I did something – something so stupid, and something I regretted, something I wish I never did, and something that roots my very heartbreak up until now.

He was Sean, the guy who had saved me from a boy who was trying to assault me sexually, with raging eyes and strong hands.

He was Sean, who brought me to his club, his haven, and bared himself to make me see.

He who sang so beautifully, with voice so rough and yet so smooth; he who sang that brings the crowd go screaming.

He who held my cheeks and wiped my tears and told me to be brave.

He who guided me towards the bright path I never knew was there.

He who tried to wipe my tears even when he was holding back his.

He who tried to complete me even when he himself was not whole.

He... he whom I loved. And he who loved me.

He was Sean.

And I broke his heart.