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Have a long story to tell which goes back to my first year in college when being cool is as easy as walking on my DC skate shoes I bought in the States because back then getting a pair, the exact model want, in the Philippines is impossible. Back then, I couldn't care more about being all womanly when my sneakers can seriously kick the living lights of anyone who crosses my path. Style to me then is not written on the pages of Preview but on the posters of the bands I listen to. I wasn't a woman, not even a girl but a boy in large t-shirts bought from Streetshop in Iligan, boy jeans, Chucks or DC, Jansport backpack, studded leather cuffs and waist-long hair in braids.

When I looked back to that afternoon, I always mistaken it for a summer class when it must be on the the second term of the school year. That was a steamy, humid day like a lazy summer afternoon when the sun is a little too yellow like an incandescent lamp lighting a cozy quaint bar of gypsies. You see, I easily forget what happened the day before today but oddly enough, I remember every detail of that summery afternoon of November. I was running late to our History 3 class. Indeed I was about twenty minutes late which is bad because we have a huge class of two sections fused and forced to share a classroom that can barely fit half of the class. We were having a quiz when I arrived. That wasn't bad enough if I can find a chair for myself. I stood at the door for an eternity, frozen because I can't decide whether I will go in and stand the whole class or walk out instead. Either way is humiliating.

And then I saw you waving at me at the back of the class signaling that I can take the chair beside you. Relief flooded my parched veins with ice water. I sat down and just when I thought I am already in control, I realized that I don't even have a paper to write on because a diligent and always-prepared student like me does not bring anything useful to class. So I crossed my arms around my chest and just looked the window to pass the time until the class is finished with the damned quiz while all the while I am pseudo apathetic and almost too cool for school.

"Uy magquiz ka. Heto papel. Number one..."

I was stunned that you did that. The quiz ended and I couldn't believe that I actually took it and answered well. The usually apathetic me find it difficult to stay cool any more. Suddenly, I was aware that you exist and that you are inches away from me and I could almost hear the heaving of your chest as you breathe and I was under your humongous shadow, literally and figuratively. Suddenly I was aware that I was underdressed for the occasion. Suddenly I want to wear a dress in pink floral print with my hair hanging loosely tossed carelessly by the wind. Suddenly I needed and wanted a mascara and a lip gloss. Suddenly I was too uncool because I noticed just how attractive you are while I am out of your league and how special you seem to me for no apparent reason at all. Suddenly I was just another woman blushing beside a stranger who caught more than her fancy.

That afternoon, sunset began right after our class dismissed at four o' clock in the afternoon.

I was wrong when I said in the first sentence that this is a long story. Maybe I meant that the story dragged on for years but nothing really happened in between that afternoon and that night I swore to myself to get out of your shadow only to realize today that I stuffed most of the space in my universe with you that when I let you out, a big black hole, a void, was left in my cosmos, sucking everything else even the light. How can it be a long story when those years can be summed up to these words: "You made me lonely"? There were a hundred instances when I passed by you with your brothers in your fraternity and I would fight with all my might not to take a glance longer than a quarter of a second because I was afraid that I would want you more when I see that you are still cool with your perfect imperfections. But who am I kidding? I wanted you too much already. As I write this I am in awe of how I am able to write this. And I think of Shakespeare.
He must have felt something too TOO that through his affair with the pen and paper, the best love story that was ever told was born, inspiring a platoon of movies, novels, poetry, and songs of the same theme.

Fast forward to that night of wanton abandon, my cosmos revolved around you and me. I knew it will be the first and last. I had a thousand things to tell you but the night is rushing angrily towards midnight. Words should be sorted out then, only the couldn't-wait-to-be-told and the will-be-regretted-if-not-uttered should be said before the phone call is over. You said we'll be together when we are 25. You want us to be together when we are 25. When we are 25 but not tonight, not this moment. But really, what differs today from that day that we're 25? I did not understand. It is humiliating to say this but the truth is I failed to win you over. All my hopes of saving face and dignity is to bravely resolve to not want you anymore and tell you that I want us to be strangers again like what we were before that summery afternoon in November.

Days after that, I would daydream of you crawling your way back to me when we are 25 and I am the fabulous woman that I always wanted to be and you are still the old you, perfect but still just you. But when we are 25 I'll be too fabulous that I will ignore you like perfect hamburger, perfect but I don't need and crave anymore. Like a rubber band that is stretched beyond the limit that snaps back with a sting, reality always makes its way to my daydreams and the colorful vision turns black and white and red, a daydream turns to **daymare. It is futile to say that I was unscathed after that night when my emotional bruises cannot be hidden by verbal cover-ups.

I am limping my way out of this barren terrain that I found myself in. All these sores that I single-handedly nurse don't seem to improve. Still I ache all over. I know in my heart that a malady like this needs only one prescription. You cannot cure Vitamin A deficiency with ascorbic acid supplements, can you? What I am trying to say is because you were the cause of these bruises; you alone can kiss them away. But where art thou? Lost forever showing up only maybe when we are 25. Is there another way to recuperate? And then I remembered that scene in Eat Pray Love, that line uttered by the stage actress in the play Permeable Membrane.

"The only way I can recover is to be infatuated with someone else."

P.S. Perhaps I have never written anything as unintelligent as this but hey, I am Ayeesha and I have gotten away with dropping out and wearing a sequined floor-length dress to school, so I can also get away with this. *chuckles*
**a nightmare in the daylight