Handuraw

She'd like to blame it on the pandemic, but even she had to admit that wasn’t the full truth. Her growing discomfort towards Siboo City began years before she had to set foot in it again at the turn of the year.

Do I really have to? She found herself grumbling as she dressed up, late that morning. She looked at herself in the mirror. Well, that was interesting. She hadn't dressed herself up for quite a while now. She remembered the first time she allowed herself to wear shorts in public, encouraged by her then-girlfriend in that room they rented in the city.

She remembered how full of light and warmth that room was. The sunlight entering from the window to their right and how they usually hated it when it peeked into their room too early. She remembered buying curtains just to block them out, but the two of them would always leave it open anyway.

Crap. She shook her head, in hope that she could shake off those thoughts too, grabbed her bag and left for the city.

She didn't live in Siboo anymore. She went back to her parents' home in Laputu City a few years back. That meant she had to ride a public van to cross the island and get to Siboo.

This was going to be a long day.

When she opened her eyes, she was still in the van, but they've crossed the bridge now. The first thing she saw outside the vehicle was this dome shaped mall that was always riddled with greens. Gardenmall. Great. This meant she'd woken up just in time. She remembered how she often woke up around here before the van pulled over at Shumart City Siboo's terminal. Those were the days.

God, she didn't want to go back to the days.

She stayed in Siboo for over four years, but she never actually got a hang of their transportation system. She got down from the van and furiously racked her brain to remember what jeepney was it that went directly to Foonte from Shumart. She'd ridden them before. Clearly, not enough.

She knew if she asked a stranger off the road, they'd be able to point her to where she wanted to go. But months in isolation didn't help her ability to talk to people she didn’t know. The thought of walking up to a stranger and asking for directions sent her senses to flight mode.

She guessed she could call her ex...?

She'd rather suffer. The long way it is then. 

She rode a jeepney that was coded by a combination of numbers and letters that she was never able to memorize. Sibooans were like that. They had this number-lettered transportation system that she's sure someone tried to explain to her before, but she never quite grasped. It was the bane of her existence then, but she thought of it with exasperated fondness now.

The route she was taking was her usual route to her university, Yuupi. She already hated it. She should really just ask people for directions instead of going back to her university and figuring it out from there as if she was back in college. But, fuck it, she guessed, this was easier.

The vehicle passed by Veeky's, a pastry shop near her senior's house. She'd almost forgotten how the building looked. She remembered looking for this shop everyday for at least a few months when she roomed with that senior. She remembered midnight trips to its neighboring store, Speedy Ngohiong, because she and her senior were neck-deep in sadness, missing their exes after watching the “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — or any other movie about exes and loves lost. They really shouldn't have fed themselves with those late at night. Those times were quite a ride.

Did it always take this long to get to Yuupi? She found herself thinking as the jeepney made its way past Asiatown Park. Other thoughts invaded her mind.

She remembered that Christian church near said park that she may or may not have kept attending because of her ex. She remembered countless months immediately after the breakup where she and another friend, whose heart also got broken. They spent days walking from their university to this damned park and stayed for hours just trying to figure out what went wrong.

The jeepney passed by another mall. Next to it, another old boarding house that she used to deny she was only staying at because she couldn't stand rooming with her ex anymore, a dark night of walking "home" alone after her ex tried to make a move on her to get past being rejected by a new love.

Fuck.

That does it. She was sleeping. She was so close to her university, but it was fine. She'd always woken up on time anyway. She didn’t want to remember any more of these memories.

She didn't wake up on time.

When she opened her eyes, she was a five-minute walk away from her university. Technically, it could be done in less, but she had small legs and her friends either had to adjust or walk away on their own (they usually adjusted). Panicking, she repeatedly hit a coin to the metal handlebars of the jeepney, signaling the driver that this was her stop. That was okay, right? She could still ride a jeepney to Foonte from here.

The vehicle skidded to a stop a few moments later and she found it ironic how she'd managed to stop just by that closed pizza place with a name in Sibooan that meant “the power to imagine” or “to reminisce.”

She did not want to reminisce. Or imagine.

But she did remember the many, many memories she had at that pizza place before her ex came along. She remembered that one Pride event they held in her freshman year where they watched Saving Face and she didn't know they were going to play a movie with an explicit scene. At that time, her eyes widened in confusion, and her seniors laughed and cooed at her distress.

She was about to remember a specific dinner there, legs tangling underneath the table where no one they knew could notice, laughter and “beer-thdays,” but she looked away. She hastily rode a jeepney to Foonte and prayed to the universe that she got the jeepney code right this time.

At least, going to Foonte was exciting. It reminded her of the days she was busy, the days she felt like she had a purpose. This wasn't the same jeepney and she wasn't going to the same place as before, but in her mind, they were related. She got lost on her own a lot, but she remembered when she was able to navigate the streets on her own like a pro, remembered waking up so early to fetch ribbons and other school supplies for that one event they held in her university.

She remembered staying up for 36 hours straight for an overnight event and being so wired even after it was over that her ex had to hold her close at 9 AM just so she could finally sleep.

God damn.

Why did her brain have to take her there?

At last, she got off at Foonte and started looking around for the laboratory clinic. She was going to get a test done on her skin for some persistent rashes that left some marks on her upper thigh. She did not enjoy the nervous squeak in her voice as she talked to clerks and medical examiners to get her test done. But she found it funny how she was here, casually getting her skin checked because of rashes when just below them, on that same leg, she carried other marks from when her ex tried to look back at her while driving her motorcycle. Her leg got burned when they got a little too close to an oncoming car.

That was dangerous, she realized now. She used to find it cute when her ex would try to talk to her while they were riding, and sometimes her ex would even tilt her head to the side just a little so she could hear her better. That was really dangerous, she found herself repeating that in her head as she thanked the medical examiners and the security guard on her way out of the clinic.

When her leg got burned, she remembered crying right then and there. The lovely couple driving the car thought she was in so much pain that they insisted on bringing her to the hospital and getting her leg checked. In reality, she was crying because she spent months convincing her parents that her girlfriend was a safe driver, and that she wouldn't get them into an accident, yet there they were. She lied to her mother about how she got the burns when she went home that week.

She sighed. Oh, how those were the days. Now, how should she go home? Foonte wasn't an unfamiliar place to her. She'd spent an entire month here for her internship, but her parents brought and picked her up each time. She didn't really know how to get home on her own.

She supposed she should ride a jeepney to Shumart, right? She vaguely remembered a route to Shumart somewhere from the center of Foonte. Shumart was a big mall and probably the most common and/or known mall in the country, after all. You could get to anywhere from Shumart. Similarly, you could get to Shumart from anywhere.

As she was walking to the center, her mind briefly touched on that one memory in college where the owners of Shumart tried to change its name to just the initials. They wanted to call it SM. She snickered to herself. What kind of name was SM?

If her memory was right, she had to ride two jeepneys to get to Shumart from where she stood. Considering the time of the day, she figured it would take her a while to get a ride. Should she hire a public motorcycle instead?

That wasn't her brightest idea. Her mind flashed back to one drizzling night. They had plans to watch a play at this obscure building she had definitely previously heard of but never mapped out in her mind. Her then-girlfriend went ahead because she was leaving her parent's house.

She remembered having a bad day, hailing a motorcycle exactly where she stood now to arrive at the building faster, its driver berating her for something she couldn't remember, and her then girlfriend - seriously, why did she think that was okay? - got angry at her for complaining about the driver. She said she could have picked her up from Shumart instead, they would have arrived earlier.

She remembered furiously trying to calm herself down during that ride to the building, praying to every god she believed in to please, please, please don't make her eyes swell. She remembered distracting the uneasiness away by focusing her eyes on the play the entire time.

Her ex didn't notice a thing.

She convinced herself it was only because she was a phenomenal actress.

She snapped back to the present as a jeepney she was waiting for finally passed by and she rode it with a heavy heart. There was something sad about turning her back against the street to enter the jeepney, like she was also turning her back on something.

Somehow, she allowed the memories to come crashing in as she made her way home. The jeepney brought her to her stopover - a different mall with a different park. Her mind was filled with memories from those days where they went to this mall almost everyday after school, how most of those days were so brightly colored, so warm. How they played “Pokemon Go” in it until it closed and snickering at how they sent a senior pouting after they named a bulbasaur after him. The multiple vlogs she had were really just an excuse to try to keep the moment longer — make it last forever.

How towards the end, it was more of a routine for them. Bleak. Dull. Confusing. How she went home from that same mall, crying, on Valentine's Day. How their "make-up date" was worse.

They spent so many days like that at Shumart too. She remembered some days where she was especially sad and her ex girlfriend would wait with her at the lines to catch a van home even if she didn’t have to. Her ex already had a motorcycle by then and could ride it home any time. She remembered the first time her ex said she loved her back, properly, more than halfway into the relationship. Right at those waiting lines.

Knowing what she knew now, that her ex actually found it hard to tell her that because she wasn't sure if she really did, she wondered. 

Why were her memories of that day still so bright?

Why did she still hold it close to her heart?

I must like pain, she thought as the van taking her back to Laputu started moving. She was on her way home now. She should be happy. The excruciating trip to memory lane was finally coming to a close. But why did she feel like she was turning her back against home? That she was leaving instead of returning?

Was her home still where she was? It shouldn't be anymore. She didn't want it to be. Her thoughts spiraled.

Their van crossed the bridge back.

Rain poured in Laputu. She wondered if it would still be raining when the van drove by her house. If the rain was the earth’s way of letting go of its pain, could it wash away hers too?