Prologue
They say first love never really leaves you. It lingers somewhere between the noise of our everyday life, the weight of dreams you chased alone, and the quiet hours when the world forgets your name.
You learn to forget the person but never the feeling.And sometimes, when you least expect it life brings that feeling back.
I met Adrian seventeen years ago—
back when the rain was our favorite excuse to stay a little longer.
I was twenty-two, a journalism student who still believed in fairytale endings.
He was twenty-four, an architecture intern who smelled of ink, paper, and sleepless nights who is also taking care of their business.
"You know, you’ve been staring at that blank page for ten minutes now." Adrian said.
"I’m thinking. It’s called creative process." I laughed softly.
"Oh? I call that procrastination." he teasingly said.
"Says the guy who’s been drawing the same line over and over again." I fought back.
We laugh together, softly—like the first note of a song we don’t yet know the lyrics to.
That was how it began.
Two strangers teasing each other over coffee, not knowing that one day, those small moments would become too big to name.
Days folded into weeks.
Weeks into months.
And months into memories.
He walk me home after class, carry my bag even but I tried to get it back but he stopped me.
"C'mon Adrian give me my bag." I plead.
He just shaked his head and continued walking.
I followed him still trying to get my bag back.
"No!! Let me carry your bag." he sternly said.
"Adrian." he didn't look at me and just continue on walking.
"Adrian why are you doing this?" I asked.
He stopped and look at my direction
"I'm just protecting the future journalist of the country, C'mon let me walk you home." that made my heart melt.
My heart keeps on beating fast when he slowly walks to me.
"One day, when you’re famous, you’ll write something about me. Promise me that."
"A-and what if I do? What should I write?" I nervously said.
"Write that I was your favorite chapter.
Even if I don’t make it to the ending." He said those not cutting his stares on me
There quiet pause, almost too heavy for words.
At twenty-two, I didn’t understand what he meant.
I thought love was about holding on.
I didn’t know that sometimes...
love is about knowing when to let go.
Because life as it turned out had other plans.
That year, Adrian left for Dubai—
a dream he couldn’t walk away from.
We promised to keep in touch, to visit, to stay.
But distance has its own quiet way of breaking hearts.
Messages grew shorter.
Calls fewer.
Until one day there was only silence.
And in that silence, I learned how to live without him.
Rain fades.
Silence.
One heartbeat of stillness
---
Seventeen years later...
I thought I had forgotten.
I built a life, a name, a version of me
that no longer waited for someone who once promised forever.
Then a message.
“Hi, Maya. I’m back in Manila.
Can we meet?” from Adrian's phone number.
And just like that every memory I buried
began to bloom again.
