A Mirror does not Forget
Sunday morning, Rick, our common friend, rang me up to confirm if I’d go.
“Of course, I’ll go,” I told him in a calm voice. “What’s the address?”
I took some scratch paper and a pencil and jotted down the street, the name of the subdivision and the municipality. The address of her house in Cavite. He knows where she lives of course. They go a long way back.
“I’m gonna drive. Maybe we can go together,” Rick offered. “That’ll save you from getting lost.”
“No thanks. I prefer to commute,” I replied, all the while thinking about her. Even she would agree that I commute.
“You sure? It’ll save you money too,” he insisted.
“I’m sure. Thanks anyway.”
“All right,” he gave up. “See you,” he added before hanging up.
I stared at the LCD screen of my phone for a while and then sighed. I got up from my bed and looked out the window. From there, I had a limited view of the sky, a limited view of the world. Somewhere, I could hear the faint chirping of birds.
I made myself a cup of coffee at the kitchen and smoked a cigarette.
We were friends.
For a period of time, maybe she considered me as one. If not, then I had no idea what we were during those moments we were together. How long ago was that, three, four years? It wouldn’t matter. What mattered, I think, were all those times we’ve spent together. But what was that exactly, those times we spent with each other? Even now, I had no idea. No sense trying to find out now, of course. It wouldn’t matter.
For two years, she attended the same university as I. We never became classmates because we belonged to different departments. She was a transferee. She was majoring in English while I was majoring in Social Science. Our first meeting happened on a café, located a few strides away from the university. It was a place I frequented, where I preferred to hang out or study. I had few friends and a long vacant period, so I kept myself up and going with dosages of caffeine and nicotine. I was reviewing for an exam for the following day when she approached me on my table. We gave our introductions, and talked about the university, life in the city (we were both from different provinces), among other things. She smoked and drank coffee like me. So we had a similarity.
Crushing her cigarette on an ashtray, she rummaged through her bag and took out a pen and a notebook. I watched her turn some pages, with the pen against her chin, and saw her eyes slowly moving.
“Exam?” I asked.
She shook her head. After taking a small sip from her second cup of coffee, she replied: “I’m trying to write a novel.”
“Oh,” was all that came out of my mouth. “What’s it about?”
She looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for the right words there. “Some doors I wish to close, I guess,” she replied. Then, turning her eyes on me, she added, “I want to be a writer someday.”
“May I?” I asked, reaching out a hand to her notebook.
She closed the notebook and stared at me, the blackness of her pupils seemed to be piercing me. “It’s not done yet,” she said.
“I’m just gonna check it out.”
She handed me the notebook and I flipped some pages. Her penmanship immediately took my attention. It was like the letters and spaces were measured with critical precision. Even the cross-outs and double strokes were done as if it underwent a strict process. “Your handwriting’s extraordinary!” I exclaimed. She laughed at that.
“What’s the title?” I asked. I turned to the first page of the notebook. It was blank.
She emptied her cup before answering. “Maybe I would come up with a title once it’s finished. If I ever get it finished.”
I handed her back her notebook. She took it and started scribbling while I opened my own notebook and read some lecture notes. I skimmed through some terms and other notes, muttering them under my breath. From time to time I would glance at her, writing on her notebook, the pen on her hand shaking with each stroke. How in the world does she write like that without doing it slowly?
A few minutes later, she closed the notebook and brought it back inside her bag. “That’s it. I’m not in the mood to write.”
My eyebrows kissed each other. I wanted to ask her how she wrote like that if she wasn’t in the mood, but I hesitated. I felt that it wouldn’t matter.
“You know that feeling?” she said. I lit a cigarette with my lighter and she lit one herself too. I noticed her long, slender fingers and her glossy fingernails. “One moment you’re into something, and then after a while you grow tired of it,” she took a long drag from her cigarette.
I pondered on what she said for a few seconds. “Well, that happens,” I didn’t know why I said that.
“Got an exam later?” she asked, looking at the chaos of notes on my notebook.
I shook my head. “Tomorrow.”
“So, you’re kind of a study-freak, huh?”
“Not really. Just happen to have a 4-hour vacant period everyday.”
She finished her cigarette and put it out on the ashtray. She rested her elbows on the table between us and then stared at me, wearing a whisper of a smile on her face.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have this weird something inside of you?” she said. “It’s like I’m very comfortable with you. I know we just met and all, but there’s something; I can feel it.”
“I’m glad that I gave you such impression,” I said.
‘What do you say we go grab some beer?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. I glanced at the wall clock hanging on the left-side of the café’s wall. “I’ve still got a couple of hours before my next class begins.”
“Me too,” she answered almost at once, without looking at the clock. “I know a place.”
So, that was how we met.
We started going out. Not everyday. Maybe twice a week.
Sometimes, we would see each other at the café outside the campus, while sometimes we didn’t see each other at all. On times that we do meet, we’d talk or share opinions to each other. Sometimes, she was a talker. She’d talk endless about a lot of things, but there were also moments when she was just a listener. Not that I’m a great talker, of course. She won’t say much about herself, but rather she’d talk about something else—the weather, the gay professor, the professor who was a mistress of an administrator, the bitch student, the student who had an affair with a professor—things like that. Sometimes, she would tell me bits about her life, and most often I tell her about mine, even though there was nothing really special about it. When we get tired of the café, we would go to a bar and spend vacant periods with alcohol and alcohol-fueled discussions.
One thing I noticed about her was that she would sometimes speak normally, yet there were also instances where she would talk and act a little bit different. Like this one Saturday when we were at Intramuros. We were strolling on some street, admiring the walled city, when I happen to ask where she was living.
“I’m staying at an apartment in Quezon City,” she answered. Her family was living in Cavite; they just sent her here in Manila to study.
“That’s like a few rides away from here,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “One jeep ride only.”
I just nodded and we continued walking. I wasn’t that much familiar with Quezon City. We walked a few more steps. Up ahead, I saw the Manila Cathedral.
“In life though,” she suddenly said. I looked at her and saw that she was simply looking straight ahead as she spoke. “In life we can’t take a single, easy ride. We always have to stop at different stations. No easy way around it.”
See what I mean?
Instances like that happen rarely. Or maybe it happened on a lot more times we were together and I just got used to it.
She asked me to call her by her nickname.
I’ve known her by that name, but I never knew it was only her nickname until she told me. I never knew her real name. Not once did I see her wear an ID. It might be because we always saw each other outside the university. When we’d bump to each other inside the university however, I never paid attention to her ID.
“It’s fine. Everybody calls me by my nickname anyway,” she said. We were at the café, again. A cigarette was between my lips while she was talking.
I blew smoke from my lips. “Even the professors?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” I said, staring at the ashtray. It was full of cigarette butts and ash.
“What’s a name, really? It doesn’t tell much about the person who has it.”
She had a point there.
We shared a moment of silence before she spoke again.
“I want to sleep with you,” she added. Her black eyes were glinting with sincerity.
I gazed at her, my eyebrows raised. “What?” Did I hear her right?
“You heard me,” she said. The world became silent and still for a moment. The café kind of dissolved into a blur, and her face remained, along with her lips, repeating the words: “I want to sleep with you.”
I looked around, hoping that nobody around the café heard her. I panned my head around and fortunately, everyone was busy with themselves, mulling over their coffee and chatting about whatever things they always chat about.
My eyes fell back to her face. She smiled, her eyes still focused on me. I smiled back. My smile was something that rejected any description; perhaps it was a smile of confusion and disbelief, clouded with a thin veil of desire.
Then, I thought: Who was I to deny her wish?
We made love in a cheap motel. The kind where cobwebs occupy the corners of the ceiling, with squeaking doorknobs, a creaky bed, the sheets reeking with the scent of cheap fabric conditioner. Not that I cared about the place. Nor did she. Location was out of the question. And time, as I knew it that moment, was an existential myth. I’m sure we shared the same thought.
I undressed her. Blouse, skirt, bra and underwear. I glided my palm across her smooth skin, caressed her breasts, and went inside her, gently and slowly at first. I found no difficulty entering her, which was normal for girls her age. She closed her eyes and out of her mouth came warm hushes that brushed against my cheek and ear. Her hushes turned into soft moans as I agitated, going faster, and I could feel her breath gaining pace as it rushed a whisper against my ear. The run-down bed creaked as our bodies moved, and her fingers gripped my back tight that I knew it would leave marks there. I went faster until I came inside her.
It was euphoric.
Her moans changed to a smile.
Right there and then, something inside me came alive. No, it wasn’t anything sexual, or anything related to that. Not even lust. Deep within me, I could feel it. Like an electric appliance somebody plugged in on an outlet; a connection to something, a bridge built to connect two wide gaps. It was the first time I’ve ever felt such thing. I’ve made love with other girls in the past, but this was the first time that I’ve encountered something like this.
It was extraordinary. I couldn’t put it into words, but after that first time we slept together, I knew and I understood. I want her. I need her. Yet at the same time, I felt a thrusting pang of hesitation in my chest, like something was not right. Not right at all.
I lay on my back on the bed, while she had her head on my shoulder. I could feel the tickling brush of her hair on my skin. She put a palm on my chest, looked at me and said: “You’re tired already?”
My heart really was beating fast. What the heck. Sex is a strenuous activity. “The heart beating fast doesn’t always mean one is tired, you know,” I chuckled.
“I have a boyfriend,” she said in a low voice.
Somehow, I knew. A long moment passed before I spoke. “You don’t love him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she answered.
I got up, took my pants sprawled across the floor, and from its pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes. A few wrinkled sticks were left. I took one and lit it.
“Then why are we doing this?” I asked. Confusion was doused on me like gasoline on paper, ready to be set to flame.
“It’s fun. And I’m happy,” she replied. “And like what I told you before, I’m comfortable with you.”
I looked at her and grinned. I didn’t know what to say. Or maybe I considered it as one of those moments wherein speaking wouldn’t do anything about it. She smiled too. I gave her a cigarette. For a while, we sat on the bed in silence, watching the smoke emanating from our cigarettes brush our fingers before twirling away, wafting around us like incense. The room was all but quiet. I glanced around, and found everything to be peaceful. The ceiling was intact, with thin strands of cobwebs hanging from it. A cabinet adjacent to the right wall of the room stood there, motionless, and it made me wonder why on earth would there be a cabinet in this room.
Naked, she stood, threw the cigarette butt out the window, and then opened the cabinet. Inside were empty shelves. Maybe she too wondered what a cabinet’s doing in a cheap motel like this.
She turned to me. “Hey! Come here.”
I picked up my pants from the floor, but she told me not to get dressed. So I went to the cabinet. There, I found out, attached on the other side of the cabinet’s door, was a mirror. As I stood beside her, it reflected our faces and our bodies.
“Um,” I began. “What are we doing?” I felt weird looking at our bodies in the mirror.
“I want to remember us,” she said, her eyes on the mirror. “Like this.”
Like it was the most natural thing in the world, I stared at her naked body, and then to mine, and she did the same thing. Then, I wrapped an arm around her waist and she kissed me on the cheek.
“If it would make you feel any better, I’m going to break up with him,” she said.
Again I didn’t know what to say. That time, I wasn’t thinking about a lot of things because there she was with me. And there was something about her presence that I couldn’t place, like it was all just a dream. But of course, all of it wasn’t a dream. It all happened.
Even up to this point in time, I could remember that time we stood in front of the mirror. Sometimes, when I look on the mirror, any mirror, I could make out a thin, silhouette of her face right there beside mine.
I’d close my eyes, shrug, and once I open my eyes again, the silhouette’s all but gone.