Ch. 03: What They Think They Know
796 Words
They say I was never chosen.
It is not something they tell me directly.
Not always.
Sometimes, it comes in whispers—
soft enough to deny,
but loud enough to hear.
Sometimes, it comes in the way they look at me.
A glance that lingers a second too long.
A smile that feels like pity dressed as kindness.
And sometimes…
it comes in silence.
The kind that fills the space when people do not know what to say to someone like me.
Never loved.
That is what they assume.
That a woman who grew old alone must have lived a life untouched.
Unwanted.
Unclaimed.
As if love only exists when it is seen by others.
As if it only matters when it ends in marriage, in children, in a name shared and carried forward.
They do not understand.
How could they?
They only see the ending.
And endings…
have a way of erasing everything that came before.
There are afternoons when I walk to the small sari-sari store at the corner of the street.
Not because I need anything in particular.
But because sometimes, I want to hear voices that are not my own.
“Good morning, Ella,” Aling Rosa would say, always with that same warm tone that never quite crosses into curiosity.
“Good morning,” I would reply.
Behind her, a few women would sit on wooden benches, talking about things that change every day—prices of rice, children in school, neighbors who have left, neighbors who have returned.
Lives moving forward.
Lives that seem… full.
Their conversations pause, just for a second, when I arrive.
Not obvious.
But enough.
And then someone would ask, gently—
"Didn’t you ever marry, Ella.?
I would smile.
A practiced smile.
“No,” I would say.
Not before and not anymore.
As if it were a choice that simply passed by.
As if it were something small.
They would nod.
Understanding… or pretending to.
Then the conversation would shift again.
Away from me.
Back to things that make sense.
That is how people are.
They do not dig deeper into stories that make them uncomfortable.
They prefer answers that are easy to accept.
A woman who never married.
A life that must have been empty.
A story that must not be worth telling.
But they are wrong.
Not because they mean to be.
But because they only see what remained—
Not what was.
There are stories people don’t see.
Stories that live quietly beneath the surface.
Stories that do not announce themselves.
That do not leave behind proof anyone can hold.
No photographs displayed on walls.
No names written beside mine.
No children who carry my features or my laughter.
Just memories.
And memories…
are easy to doubt when you are not the one who lived them.
But I remember.
I remember what it felt like—
To be looked at, not as someone passing by,
but as someone worth staying for.
I remember the way my name once sounded in someone else’s voice.
Not as a habit.
But as something held carefully.
As if it mattered.
There was a time—
Before silence became my companion.
Before mornings felt endless.
Before this house learned how to hold only one heartbeat.
There was a time when my life was not this still.
They say I grew old alone.
And in a way…
They are right.
I did grow old alone.
But that does not mean I was always alone.
There is a difference.
A quiet, important difference—
Between a life that never knew love…
And a life that once held it…
And had to let it go.
Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been easier—
If I had never known it at all.
If I had lived exactly the life they believe I did.
Simple.
Empty.
Uncomplicated.
But then—
I remember.
And even now…
After all these years…
There is something in me that refuses to call it empty.
Because what I had—
Even if it did not last—
Was real.
Stories are not always measured by how they end.
Some stories live in the middle.
In the quiet moments.
In the things that were felt…
But never seen.
And mine—
Was one of them.
I stand by the window again as the afternoon light softens, stretching across the fields like a memory trying to return.
“They’re wrong,” I whisper, not to anyone, but to the air that has learned to listen.
“They don’t know.”
And maybe they never will.
Because some stories are not meant to be understood by everyone.
Some stories…
Are meant to be remembered only by the one who lived them.
And I did.
I lived mine.
- Writer
