thinking of you

Black called me over for our “traditional” (this was the first) New Year’s date, in commemoration of our one-year anniversary.

Black’s my best friend, by the way.

He said this was, I quote, “A time for us to recollect, eat, drink, and laugh the past year away, then forget.”

…

Never worked for me, though. The forgetting part.

For me it’s more like, “recollect, eat, drink and laugh, then try to forget but I know it’ll never work so I’ll just pretend to forget (just to get it over with) but B always has this way of knowing, so I might as well forget it.”

Hm… yeah. That.

I met up with B at our common train station (where we ride to go to school) then we went to our favorite pasta place.

It was fun, getting to spend time with B after so long. He told me of his Christmas trip abroad where he actually spent more time in the city library than sightseeing. He’s always like that.

So we talked and talked and laughed with our mouths full of the unlimited garlic bread when B suddenly asked:

“What was on your mind exactly one year ago?”

I honestly believe that my jaw actually dropped to the floor at that question. Vivid recollections flooded my head.

The first thing that I thought of as an answer was, “What was on my mind?!? You! You drop-dead gorgeous hunk… YOU!!”

…

Of course I didn’t say that.

I lamely stammered my way out of saying I didn’t remember. But I did. Oh boy, did I remember.

I met Black at the Kapihan, the café a few blocks from school. He practically rammed into me when I had just got my drink, spilling it all over the floor (but thankfully not on me) in the process. I instantly got fuming mad, but just as quickly cooled off because of the charmingly sincere way with which he was apologizing. He also offered to replace my drink.

Fate plays funny tricks sometimes, as it did with us. There were no more tables available except for one which we had to share. It was fine by me, since I always had a book handy. He seemed prepared, too, with a notebook in his hand. So there we were, strangers sharing a table, until I couldn’t help but comment, “that’s an interesting name.” He glanced up from his writing, looking…puzzled. I pointed to his cup bearing his name. “Black, I mean.”

He turned the cup to see. “Oh! That. Heheh! Yeah…not my fault… my parents seemed to like it as a name…”

“You mean it’s your real name?!?”

He shrugged. “Yeah… Unusual, but… yeah, um…what was it?” he reached over and turned my drink around to see my name, “…Laura.”

That started it. We ended up staying for five hours, with one more drink each and truckloads of talk. We found that though we lived in both ends of the city, we went to the same school, stopped at the same train stations, loved the same pasta place, and went regularly to that café, among other things we had in common.

But Black and I are still different—poles apart. He was actually honest. “Exactly one year ago I was thinking how lucky I was to have met you. I still do, by the way,” he said just before sticking another piece of bread in his mouth.

That’s B: sweet, sincere, intelligent and handsome… what most would call the “perfect guy”. I feel the same way, I believe I’m lucky to have met him, more so with the fact that we’ve become close friends.

Some have asked me, after being inseparable for so long, why B hasn’t changed from being my “best friend” to “boyfriend”.

…

How the hell am I supposed to answer that?!?