CHAPTER 3: "NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES"
2326 Words
Then graduation came.
Toga. Flowers. Pictures with fake smiles.
Everyone was throwing their caps in the air like their future was certain.
Mine wasn’t.
Because my future had your name in it.
And everything started to change.
.....,..........
We started drifting apart.
Not with a fight. Not with a slammed door.
With silence. With “seen.” With “busy.”
Less texting.
Your “good morning” became “gm.”
Your “good night” became a reaction to my story.
Your “I miss you” stopped completely.
Less meet-ups.
“Org meeting.”
“Family dinner.”
“Finals week.”
“Can we next month?”
You were busy with university. Scholarship. Org work. Dean’s List.
Your calendar was full of color-coded blocks. 8am class. 10am meeting. 1pm tutoring. 5pm committee. 9pm review.
I watched your stories and saw you in blazers, holding certificates, smiling with people who looked like they belonged in your world.
I was busy too.
But my busy looked different.
I decided to focus less on romance and more on our future.
Because someone had to build it.
I started selling anything I could just to earn money.
Scrunchies. Dresses. Custom orders. Reselling ukay. Pre-orders.
I’d sew until 3am, my fingers pricked and bleeding, then wake up at 6 to pack orders and reply to customers.
I’d eat once a day.
I’d skip class to deliver.
I’d tell myself: “When she’s ready to be with me, I’ll be able to give her everything.”
A small shop with glass windows.
Our names on the sign.
A life where we didn’t have to hide under tables or lie to friends.
That was my dream for you.
But you were choosing a different path.
A path that was clean. Public. Safe.
A path with LinkedIn posts and award ceremonies and parents who could post “Proud of my daughter” on f*******:.
A path where “girlfriend who sells online” didn’t fit in the caption.
A path where I didn’t fit.
Slow replies.
“Sorry, was in a meeting.”
“Can we talk later? I’m drained.”
Later never came.
Cancelled plans.
“I’m so sorry, something came up.”
“It’s my org’s event. I have to go.”
I’d sit at the 7/11 corner table alone with two drinks. One iced coffee for me. One hot chocolate for you.
The ice would melt. The cup would sweat.
I’d drink both.
“Can we take a break first?” you texted one night at 1:13am.
A break.
From what? From us? From pretending? From me?
I held on.
Because that’s what I did for 4 years.
“Remember day one? We were groupmates.”
“Remember our shop? You said you’d do marketing.”
“Remember the 13 times I confessed and still stayed?”
You read it.
Seen.
No reply.
But you were scared.
Scared of what people would say.
“Is that your girlfriend?”
“Why are you always with her?”
Scared that being with me would ruin everything you worked so hard for.
The scholarship. The reputation. The future your parents bragged about.
I understood.
God, I understood.
But understanding didn’t hurt any less.
Every night I asked myself:
“Am I not good enough because I’m not on the Dean’s List?”
“Does all my hard work mean nothing compared to your degree?”
“Was being rejected 13 times easier than this?”
Because at least then, I knew where I stood.
Now I was in limbo. Halfway loved. Halfway gone.
And I couldn’t let go.
...........................
I told myself: No matter what it takes. I won’t give up.
So I didn’t.
I showed up to your university events even when I wasn’t invited.
I’d stand at the back, holding a bouquet I couldn’t afford, clapping the loudest when your name was called.
You’d see me. You’d smile for one second. Then look away.
I learned your new schedule.
I’d “coincidentally” be at the same 7/11 when your class ended.
“Hey, small world,” I’d say.
You’d say, “Yeah. Small world.” And leave.
I stopped sleeping.
If I slept, I’d dream.
If I dreamed, you’d be there.
So I worked.
I took 20 orders in one week. My back hurt. My eyes burned.
Customers said, “You’re so hardworking!”
I was.
I was working hard to earn a future for someone who was already building one without me.
I stopped eating.
Food tasted like guilt.
Every peso I spent on myself felt like a peso I couldn’t put into “our shop.”
I lost weight.
Your friends noticed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I’d lie. “Just busy.”
I got sick.
Fever. Cough. Migraine that lasted 3 days.
I still packed orders.
Because if I stopped, I’d have time to think.
And thinking meant remembering that you were fading.
“No matter what it takes,” I whispered to myself while sewing at 4am.
“I’ll prove I’m worth choosing.”
But you were already choosing.
Just not me.
..................
It was my birthday.
I didn’t ask for anything big. Just you.
I bought cake. Two forks. Red velvet. Your favorite.
I waited until 11:59pm.
Me: It’s my birthday.
You: Omg I’m so sorry. I had a board meeting. Happy birthday. I’ll make it up to you.
You never did.
I ate the cake alone. It tasted like cardboard and loneliness.
That night I wrote in my notes:
“They say love is remembering. But what do you call it when they forget you on purpose?”
“I gave you 4 years. You couldn’t give me 5 minutes.”
Scene 2: The University Fair
I saw you from across the crowd.
You were at a booth, wearing your org shirt, laughing with someone.
Someone new. Someone who wore the same shirt. Someone who could stand beside you in photos.
You saw me. Your smile dropped for one second.
Then you looked away.
I stood there for 20 minutes pretending to look at notebooks.
Hoping you’d come.
You didn’t.
I went home and threw away the bracelet you gave me in 2nd year.
Then dug it out of the trash at 2am and cried until I threw up.
Scene 3: The Hospital
I collapsed while packing orders.
Dehydration. Exhaustion.
Lolo brought me to the clinic.
The doctor said, “You need rest. You’re running yourself to the ground.”
I nodded.
The first person I texted was you.
Me: I’m in the clinic.
Seen.
3 hours later:
You: Are you okay now?
Me: Yeah. Just tired.
You: Take care.
That was it.
I stared at “Take care” until my phone died.
“Take care” from the person I would’ve died for.
........................
It was raining that night.
The same kind of rain from the first time you came to my house to “work on the project.”
You called me. After 2 weeks of silence.
You: Can we talk?
Me: About what?
You: Us.
We met at the plaza. Our plaza.
You were wearing your university hoodie. I was holding the umbrella I bought when we were still “us.”
We didn’t sit.
We just stood under the roof, watching people run in the rain.
“I can’t do this anymore,” you said first. Voice shaking.
My heart dropped. “Do what?”
“This. Us. Whatever this is.”
You wouldn’t look at me.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered. Tears falling now, mixing with rain. “I can’t accept that we can no longer continue our love story.”
That sentence.
“I can’t accept that we can no longer continue our love story.”
It was like you were breaking up with me and mourning me at the same time.
“I tried,” you said. “God, I tried to choose you. Every day for 4 years I tried. But I’m scared, ate. I’m scared of losing everything. My scholarship. My family. My future.”
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to shake you and say “I’m your future!”
But I didn’t.
Because I saw it in your eyes. You already left. Months ago.
So I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like someone else’s. Someone braver. “Okay. If you can’t… then we can’t.”
The rain got louder.
“You deserve someone who isn’t scared,” you said.
“And you deserve someone who isn’t tired of waiting,” I replied.
We stood there for 10 minutes. Not touching. Not talking.
Just two people saying goodbye without saying goodbye.
When you finally walked away, you didn’t look back.
And I stood there until the rain soaked through my clothes.
Because leaving the spot meant it was really over.
...............
They say heartbreak isn’t physical.
They’re wrong.
It started in my chest.
A dull ache that never left.
Then it spread.
To my stomach. I couldn’t eat.
To my head. I couldn’t sleep.
To my hands. They shook when I sewed.
The doctor called it stress.
Anxiety.
“Take a break,” she said.
How do you take a break from grieving someone who’s still alive?
“No matter what it takes,” I still told myself.
“I’ll get her back.”
So I texted.
I called.
I showed up.
I begged.
I blamed myself.
I changed myself.
I cut my hair.
I stopped selling scrunchies.
I enrolled in review classes I couldn’t afford.
All to become someone you wouldn’t be scared of.
And you?
You got more distant.
Because my desperation reminded you of what you were running from.
It was like cancer.
The more I tried to cut it out, the more it spread.
Until there was nothing left of me except the love for you.
THE QUOTES THAT KEPT ME AWAKE
I started collecting quotes. Like scars.
To prove that someone else felt this too.
“The hardest goodbye is the one where you never said it.”
That was us.
“You can love someone and still lose them to their fear.”
That was you.
“I held on so tight I forgot I was bleeding.”
That was me.
“Some people are meant to be chapters, not the whole book. But you tried to make me the author.”
_“I would’ve burned the world down for you.
You were scared of lighting a candle.”_
I’d post them on my private account.
You’d like them.
Then you’d post a photo with your org. Smiling.
And I’d delete the quote.
AFTER
People say time heals.
But time doesn’t heal.
Time just teaches you how to live with the hole.
I still walk past the plaza.
I still go to that 7/11.
I still have the notebook where we were supposed to write the report.
I’m building the shop.
Alone.
And sometimes, when a customer says “This is beautiful,” I hear your voice in my head:
“You’re smart in a different way.”
But you’re not here to see it.
And I’m learning that the hardest part isn’t the 13 no’s.
It’s the 4 years of yes that came between them.
It’s the “no matter what it takes” that took everything from me.
“Sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for, is the one behind the gun.”
“We didn’t break up. We just stopped choosing each other.”
_“I loved you until it destroyed me.
And I still don’t regret it.”_
I don’t hate you.
I just miss the version of us that could’ve been.
The groupmates who never did the report.
But did everything else.
And couldn’t finish the only thing that mattered.
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