This Boy

Dear Leloy,

You probably don't remember me but we met two years ago during the 16th Mindanao Parliamentary Debate Championship. You were the chief adjudicator and I was a debater. I can still remember the moment I met you, my team mates and I were having breakfast at Xavier's cafeteria and you were standing by my table sipping a cup of fresh warm coffee. You were wearing a grey KISS shirt and a pair of black converse chucks. Anyone would easily mistake you for a student, but I knew you who you were. The great Leloy of ADS. I ate my breakfast in silence, watching you beneath my lashes. Sometimes our eyes would meet across the table and I'd look away in embarrassment which for some strange reason would make you smile and stare more intently. This pendulum of awkward staring and looking away continued for a few more minutes. Then I looked up and you had walked away. The first round went my smoothly. Me and my partner managed to grab the highest scores. I was a bundle of electric nerves. I knew what this meant. On the second round, we would be matched with other top ranking teams. And we were. The motion was about Basketball. We were doomed. A ray of hope struggled to surface among the heavy gloom. Then you walked in, with that Bruce Wayne swagger of yours and you sat across us motioning for the match to start. I was the prime minister. I had to muster every centimeter of strength to look at you straight without warm blood flushing my cheeks. I looked at my paper blots of sweat stained it's edges, my hands were coldly perspiring. What transpires next would be the most difficult seven minutes of my entire life. I had to talk about basketball and imported players. Who the fuck cares about these trivial things? I surely don't and my team mate could not, for the life of him, provide anything remotely intelligent in our case. You stared at me blankly as I struggled to string coherent words together. It wasn't the same. That twinkle in your eye was lost. I might as well be a piece of wooden furniture. My seven minute hell was up and I slumped back in my chair certain of defeat. 

You said my arguments were very strong and profound. I appreciated your effort to be polite, everything I had said was utter gibberish. But my arguments did not fit the spirit of the motion. Ah, now there's the catch. You ranked us on the bottom of the top four teams. Defeat really doesn't matter at all anymore when it is expected. The tournament passed by in a haze with my head in the clouds. Every picture had your face, every person had your eyes, you were everywhere. I was engulfed in the violent delight of catching your gaze. Then sunday came and swiftly took you away. I was on my way home and all I could think of was you, that arrogant smirk, those beautiful eyes, that goofy smile. 

It's been two years and here you are again lingering in my mind. You have become this insatiable impossible dream. I love you like there's no tomorrow. It's irrational, it's mundane, it's as trivial as debating about basketball and imported players. But I cannot help myself, you are this boy I lost and never really had in the first place. She has you and she's perfect so like some cosmic predetermination, you belong together. She's cute and clever and skinny and never seems to sweat. You will make incredibly smart globally renowned debater children. I'm sure she's amazing but I love you. I love you, no questions asked. Every bit of you and all of you. No more no less, everything you have and everything you are. I will love you even when you have lost all your hair, the sharpness of your mind, the dexterity of your metacarpals and the fading of your eyesight. I will love you through it all. So pick me, choose me, love me. Look my way again and this time, stay by my table long enough for me to say something incredibly stupid. 

I'm just this girl pining for an impossibly perfect boy. I like to think I'm clever sometimes, I have sweat glands and our children will probably do moderately well in school but if they take after you, they're lucky. I still wish you were mine. I'm sure she's great but I will blow your mind in a million ways. I'll listen to you when you're complaining about the state of our political and economic affairs, I'll make you some chicken soup and warm lemon tea whenever you are feverish and your nasal passages become clogged, I'll be nice to your mum even when she's making snide remarks about the state of our household, I'll respect your bro code of honor and keep your friends' secrets, I'll rub my feet against yours when your toes become cold, I'll study the recipes of your favorite dishes by heart, I'll be your biggest groupie, and I'll always be pretty for you. We'll stay in bed on a rainy day and listen to Beatles songs, we'll get through a bad day together with our wits intact, and we'll enjoy everything that life has to offer, even when we are old and gray. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And maybe, just maybe, we'll meet again, if I'm lucky. 

My friends tell me (who worship you, by the way) that you are currently in Australia finishing your doctorate degree. I love you and I wish you all the best. 

Love,

Issey