VERONICA'S CHOICE

VERONICA’S POV

It was raining the first time I saw Rico. Just a light drizzle but still…the sun was shining. I had just stumbled out of the faculty building, hurrying to welcome the freshmen when I saw him come out of an SUV.

It was his first week at the university. He was eighteen, I was twenty.

I had seen good-looking boys before. Heck, in university I was surrounded by them. But something about the seriousness in his eyes, and the dark clothes he was wearing made me wonder about him. ‘What had put that sad look in his eyes,’ I wondered. ‘And how could I help in taking it away?’

At the time, if anyone had told me that I’d fallen for Rico at first sight, I would have argued fiercely. But now, over seven years later, in the vulnerability of my dreams, I could admit that my feelings for him had started from there.

But first, we were simply course-mates. An upperclassman and a freshman.

It was harmless when I walked up to him during orientation and said, “Hi” for the very first time.

Harmless when he looked up at me and I saw the shadows in his eyes lift.

Harmless when he started to greet me first and talk to me around campus. Especially after I became his upperclass mentor in Business Administration. No one blinked twice when he started studying with me, after all I had the highest GPA in the third year of college; I was brilliant and ahead of my peers, and in several ways, so was he.

When he started to do little things like tucking strands of my short self-cut hair behind my ears during our study sessions, and buying flowers for me. When I started to notice the way he looked at me, especially when no one else was near, and how he would hang on every word I said…perhaps, it made my heart beat faster. Perhaps, it gave me a thrill. But when I saw the scars on his back for the first time and I cried, I knew I loved him.

Then, he asked me to go out with him. I said yes, and everything was heaven.

Then his father found out and my life became hell.

In my dreams, I went through all the memories, the phases of good and the bad. The dates we shared at the cinema, how I took him to shop at the mall, the way he'd buy me my favorite yellow roses "just because," all the times I cooked for him, every touch and all the kisses we shared, all the warm moments and that one fateful day when we got too careless. How I started to get sick in the morning, and how my body started to change.

It had taken a lot of courage for me to buy the pregnancy test. And even more courage for me to go to the hospital to confirm my suspicions. But when Rico had found me in from of his private dormitory, worried sick about how to tell him I was pregnant and how he would react, he’d simply held my face gently and begged me to tell him what was wrong.

Most people saw the seriousness in Enrique’s gaze and every fiber of his being. But I saw the softness and vulnerability.

“I-I’m pregnant,” I’d said, squeezing my eyes shut.

He went still for a moment, and then he said calmly, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I’d exhaled on a hysterical laugh. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

By now, I was twenty-one and he was nineteen. We’d been dating for close to one year.

“This is all my fault,” I’d blurted out, more to myself. “I’m the older one, I should be more responsible. I mean, what was I doing dating a kid? Ouch!”

He’d pinched my cheek.

“I am not a kid! So, you’re older than me, big deal V! We’ve been over this a million times, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m the one who seduced you, remember? I’m the father of your child.” He’d pressed a passionate kiss to my lips, catching me unawares. “Your future husband,” he’d added in a whisper.

“What?” I didn’t know what to say, what to think.

“Come inside, please. I have something to show you.” He led me by the hand into his apartment. His father hadn’t wanted him to stay with others in the school hostels, or to have a roommate. To avoid distractions. But over the last few months, Rico’s private space had turned into a safe space for me. It was more than a love nest, it was a place where I could come and catch a breath, and escape the hectic nature of my own life.

“Wait here, please.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Just give me a moment, V!” He’d said with a wide, happy smile. I could see the very faint dimple in his left cheek showing. Most people didn’t even notice it was there because Rico never really smiled this much around others.

By now, I knew every nook and cranny of it. So, when he disappeared into his bedroom, I was tempted to follow him.

My eyes widened in shock as he came back got down on one knee. There was a small case in his hands, and inside it sat a lovely diamond ring. “Marry me, Veronica Ligaya Ibanez.”

“You bought me a ring?”

“I’ve been holding on to it for a few weeks,” he admitted shyly. “I wanted to ask you at graduation. But today works too,” he added quickly. “V, I’ve never felt this way for anyone before, and I never want this feeling to end. I have more than enough money saved. We could get married right away. I want to be with you forever…”

Of course, I’d said yes. I loved him so much. Too much. And I was happy that he wanted the baby, because I’d been living life alone for too long. Without family since I was eight. Even if Rico hadn’t been so supportive, I would have kept the baby anyway. Now, I would be gaining not only a child but a husband too!

Then one day, I got a series of texts from my employers at each of my part-time jobs: ‘YOU ARE FIRED’ ‘DON’T BOTHER COMING TO WORK TODAY’ ‘I’VE FOUND ANOTHER TUTOR, YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.’

I tried calling them to find out the reason why but none of them would pick up my calls, not even the parents of the high school students I tutored on the weekends.

I’d walked back to my hostel in a daze, trying to make sense of what was happening to me. Then the bombshell dropped, an email from the university: “DEAR MISS VERONICA IBANEZ, THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR FULL SCHOLARSHIP FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES AT THE DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION HAS HEREBY BEEN RESCINDED…”

That was when I saw the Rolls-Royce parked in front of my hostel.

An elderly driver in clean-cut suit had approached me and said in a grave voice, “Miss Veronica Ibanez?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I’d nodded with a sense of dread in my heart.

“Mr. Serrano would like to speak to you.”

He ushered me into the backseat of the luxury car, and my life changed forever.

The dreams changed again. They got ugly now.

“How could you?” Rico shouted at me with anger and pain in his eyes. “How could you abort our baby just because my dad paid you some money?”

He hated me.

“Enrique, I had no choice! He was going to destroy me if I didn’t leave you alone! For goodness’ sakes, he has already destroyed my life! Open your eyes and stop dreaming! Nothing good was ever going to come out of this!” I’d hurled the hurtful words at him, angry at him and painfully sorry at the same time. “Don’t pretend it was ever going to work out! Don’t look at me like I’m the villain in this story! You know your father, you know how sick and twisted he is! Yet you lied to me! You lied to me when you said you’d be able to take care of me!”

“How am I going to take care of you when you won’t even let me try?” He’d shouted back. “You didn’t tell me anything until it was too late! Until you’d already killed our child! Is your scholarship that important to you? Do you really care about money that much? Then why the hell did you agree to stay with me when I said I was willing to give up everything for you?”

I’d scoffed as heart-wrenching tears fell down my face. “Rico, can you even hear yourself? You sound like an entitled asshole. How…that scholarship, those jobs, they were all I had and your father took everything in just one day. Just like that,” I snapped my fingers. “And you can’t even understand how scary that is. He told me to get out of your life or he’d make me disappear, and guess what, I believe him. So, I’m not sorry for doing what I had to do to save myself.”

He stared at me with those pain-filled eyes. “So, that’s it then?”

I nodded, understanding the finality of his question. “That’s it. I never want to see you again, Enrique.”

The worst part was that parts of me meant it too.

I had willing given Rico up for my child. My family. I would make the same choice again in a heartbeat. And months later, when I held my baby in my arms in America, and felt her heartbeat on my chest, saw that same familiar dimple in her left cheek, I knew I had made the right choice. But then, I lost everything all over again.

And so, the final scene of my nightly dreams is always the same thing: me standing over the charred remains of Gwenie’s tiny body after the firefighters put out the flames in my old apartment.

That was when I’d jerk awake, sobbing in pain.

D.J SERRANO’S POV

I knew I would find Emmy at the beach.

Too much had happened that day, and I knew she liked thinking here. Hiding from whatever it was that occupied so much space in her mind.

I’d come here as if I was being pulled by some invisible thread. I’d come for the peace and silence. But I’d also come for her silent companionship.

When I sat down beside her, on the sand, she didn’t say a thing.

“Hi,” I said breaking the silence.

She sighed. “Hi.”

And went right back to brooding.

“Let me ask you a question. Earlier today, when you said you saw my Dad,” she asked resolutely. “Did you really see him? Or were you joking?”

I considered my options carefully. On one hand, I was already in therapy and soldering through life with a prescription of mild antidepressants. Did I really want to add more fire to my mental illness flame? But this was Emmy, the girl who already believed I was crazy. I was curious to hear what she would say if I told her the truth.

“Yeah. I really saw him. I saw my grandfather too,” I admitted quietly. “In the hospital.”

“Wow!” She shook her head slowly. “You really are crazy.”

I threw my head back and laughed.