I always thought romantic fiction books were way better than reality.
That is
until my life began turning into one.
My story
– it sounds like an impossible cliché,
but I wish it was only just a fantasy.
I was living the dream
of finding the love of my life…
but it quickly became a nightmare.
So, there I was,
16 years old,
just another unremarkable day scrolling through Facebook after school
when
a new friend request from...
’Sky’.
“Who’s Sky?”
I thought to myself.
So,
I did what any normal person would do:
I stalked his account for a while,
looking through posts,
pictures, and friends.
He was a model apparently,
my age…
and we had a mutual friend – Joanna,
my best friend!
So, I accepted his request.
A message from Sky.
He introduced himself, saying
"Hi!
I'm Joanna's cousin."
Oh yeah,
that makes sense…
I remember Joanna mentioning she had a cousin a while back.
I was about to reply
when he sent another message saying,
"You're my long-time crush."
What?
My heart skipped a beat.
I mean,
how could someone I never met
have a crush on me?
Surely this was a prank;
someone had dared him to do this.
Then he said,
“I fell for you the moment I saw you dancing in the rain
with Joanna”.
Oh,
the time we forgot our umbrellas
and got soaked while everyone else ran into the store.
He told me, after that moment,
he couldn't take his mind off me,
so he asked Joanna,
found my name on Facebook,
and added me.
And now we were chatting…
and chatting…
and chatting.
For almost 3 weeks
we talked to each other every day.
Until
I began developing feelings for him too.
Joanna saw us as a match made in heaven
and was endlessly supportive.
But
because Sky’s mother was so strict,
he was barely allowed to go out
and would have Joanna give me the love letters he wrote.
And
– oh my -
his letters gave me butterflies every time I read them.
With every letter,
I fell for him more and more.
And like any in a romantic novel,
we became boyfriend and girlfriend like a whirlwind.
And even though we never had the chance to go out together,
we were nothing
if not committed to each other.
We tried our best to see each other in person
- we really did –
but between his strict mother,
our disagreeing schedules,
and distance from each other,
we weren’t able to.
It had been 3 months since we met,
and I was…
disappointed.
But…
I knew we loved each other,
and I knew if this was meant to be,
we’d find a way eventually.
That was what mattered.
Then he told me something that made my heart sink:
he was going back to his family’s province
to resume his modelling career.
But the second thing he told me broke my heart
altogether.
The truth was…
his mother hated me.
She believed
I was the reason he wanted to stay here in Manila,
that I was the hindrance to his career.
Maybe I was the reason he wanted to stay…
but how could I have known?
That’s why he was never allowed to see me.
In her eyes,
I was the one keeping Sky from his home
and she wasn’t about to let me take him from his mother's too.
I was distraught...
what could I do?
Convince her that she was wrong about me?
That I loved him as much as she did?
The next thing I knew,
Sky and his family were about to leave.
He begged
and pleaded his mother to see me,
just once,
before he left,
but she wouldn’t let him.
And I was LOST.
I felt helpless,
like my heart was chained down,
while the love of my life left for who knows how long.
Even as we chatted through our tears,
we tried to comfort each other,
repeating
“I love you”,
and “it’s going to be okay”
- not knowing for sure
if it was ever going to be.
Even though he became busier and busier with his career,
we never stopped chatting.
And while we talked less than before,
my love for him grew,
leaving him long, sweet messages when he wasn’t online,
and talking like he had never left when he was.
But one day,
I saw his picture
and he looked so pale
I almost didn’t recognize him.
“Are you okay?” I asked,
and he told me that he's just a little bit sick from the flu.
But when I saw Joanna the next week,
she told me something I never could have expected.
Sky wasn’t just sick.
He was suffering from appendicitis.
I broke into tears.
“What?
Why didn’t he tell me?”
I confronted him when he was online,
and he said he was sorry;
he just didn’t want me to worry.
Well,
too bad,
there I was,
more worried than I had ever been.
He comforted me, saying
“I’m going to be fine…
I’m getting surgery in a couple weeks
and then maybe I’ll come back for a bit…
just to see you, okay?”
I convinced myself
everything was going to be okay.
It was Valentine’s Day.
He wasn’t online much leading up to his surgery,
but when I logged onto Facebook…
he had left me a message.
I smiled as butterflies filled my stomach.
He didn’t forget.
My face beamed all morning
as I got ready for school,
and just as I was about to leave,
I heard a knock on the door.
Still, with a stupid grin on my face,
I opened the door,
it was Joanna!
“Hey! What’s going on?”
But nothing...
she was paralyzed.
Then,
I noticed she wasn’t wearing her school uniform…
and that’s when I...
I looked closer
and saw her eyes were swollen.
Bringing her inside, I asked,
“oh my…
are you okay?
What happened?”
But she just shook her head
and sat down,
still trying to collect her breath.
Then from her school bag,
she handed me a jar of chocolates and a love letter…
from Sky!
“Huh?” I was surprised.
"Read the letter first," she said
and left the room to give me this private moment with him.
I opened the letter
and tears began falling from my eyes and onto the paper.
I thought it was another Valentine’s day message,
but I was wrong.
He was saying goodbye.
He was sorry.
Sorry for leaving me in Manila.
And sorry for leaving me for heaven.
He was sorry for never being able to see me in person.
And sorry for not being strong enough…
he told me he was tired
and that he knew it was time to leave this world.
My heart sank further
and further
until I was
buried with my pain.
I couldn’t breathe,
I was drowning in sorrow,
gasping for air.
But he also reminded me how much he loved me
and that he will take care of me from heaven.
He told me he’ll be happy
when I find someone new to love,
someone caring,
and someone who will be there for me from I need them.
He knew this was happening.
And when Joanna came back into the room,
she held me in her arms as I sobbed,
she confirmed the one thing
I didn’t want to believe:
“He’s gone;
he’s in a better place now.”
She told me how Sky’s father told her he whispered my name in between spells of pain,
how he confessed to his mother how happy I had made him.
“Even in the end,
he was thinking of you.”
I cried for hours,
days,
weeks.
It didn’t feel real;
just wanted to wake up from this terrible nightmare.
So,
in the end,
I never did get a chance to see him.
I was so broken
– depressed –
I didn’t leave my room for the weeks that followed.
I didn’t go to class,
didn’t bathe,
barely ate.
I didn’t want to go into a world
he wasn’t in.
He was my first love
and I wanted him to be my last.
So please…
take a risk
and cherish the time you have with loved ones.
Whether it's a romantic novel
or a tragedy,
enjoy each chapter
because the story goes on...