I promised myself a passing score. That would be my treat this Valentine’s Day. 

Everything else is secondary, I said. 

But between the two of us, it feels egregious sitting in front of you right now. Gaunt and ghastly, void of any dawny signs of energy or prior afterthought for appearance, squished in the middle of a sweltering, sweating jeepney. 

A traitorous knot forms amidst the bile bubbling in my bowels. 

Why now? Why you?

I fail to notice the jeepney whirring to life in this shocked stupor. Even as I try to catch myself, my eyes can’t seem to leave your still form. Sitting up, the sun’s pointed glare cuts through the slim window and right through my uniform.

Like an arrow through the chest, I could feel the staccato rhythm of my heart rattling my ribcage painfully. A hasty drum beat leaves the cavity between my lungs scorching, constricting the alveoli within. Breathing becomes conscious. Space, now relative. And time, a mere concept. 

How dare you return to my life like this?

An abandoned reviewer acts as a lifeline as we barrel down the scorching roads. A barrier of texts between the narrow space of our seats. My mind yells at itself to focus on what is in front of me. My reviewer. My exam. My future —

But there you are. Molded with age, untouched by time, and still haunted in memory. Between paragraphs of meaningless jargon, my eyes wander.

I count the moles on your cheek. The lesions on your barren lips. The glow of your warm, sunkissed skin. And although my mind discards you in the past, my heart remembers you traitorously ad infinitum. 

Someone yells for the driver, whom I don’t recall, and the jeep crawls to a halt by the bridge. Five exit out. You remain. We remain. Time bleeds on as we weave past traffic. Lessons meld into a hapless heap of words I can’t even comprehend or analyse. I don’t want to comprehend. Not anymore. Not when it’s just the two of us. 

And when my fingers reach the final page, words have lost all meaning. My will had dissolved into a frantic, flustered nostalgia bathed in reds, pinks, and silver car headlights. And beneath the choir of memorised terms, definitions, and jargon, a numbing thought silences them all —

At one point in time, you were my future.

A rose-tinted fantasy I drowned in willingly.  

But time demanded I follow in its parade of untimely responsibilities. 

Down this path, I resigned myself to a solitary present, a timeline whose consequences are between the cusp of success or the edges of society. 

Now, my heart weighs heavy with the regret of replacing you with certificates and medals

Still, 

You were — are — a wonderful distraction.

And I can’t help but wonder

If I chose to be swayed by your love, 

Where would I be? 

Who would I be?

Would I be happier with fewer accolades, if it meant I could celebrate them with you? 

“Para po, kuya!” 

Your voice cuts through the silence. I hang on every moment, watching you haul yourself out step by step. As your foot leaps off the jeep’s ledge, your honeyed eyes pass a glance at my lone figure. A selfish part of me wishes you’d grimace or frown.

You exit the vehicle without so much as a second glance, leaving me once again. 

Right. I still have exams tomorrow. 

This can wait.