Dating the Preacher's Daughter

Quantum physics proposes a possibility of more than one, single conceivable universe—of thousands, or even millions of other universes, each moderately or drastically different from the one we live in and know. I still perfectly remember the time I distressed over the idea of a multiverse: I thought of how I was stuck in a world where my love for her couldn’t be reciprocated, whilst somewhere out there was a world where the opposite was true.

My vision consisted of asphalt and my bleached, old beige Top-Siders. The door creaked open. Slowly did I raise my gaze till I saw Michael’s face framed in blond-dyed curls. His presence ushered away my doubts (or perhaps hopes) of having the wrong address. “Felix?”

“Hey,” I sighed. I stood still by the doorway, reflecting upon the momentous amount of energy I’d released to reel myself into wearing a decent shirt and pair of jeans—into catching an overflowing jeep along Commonwealth just to arrive late, sticky and tired.

“Glad you came!” Michael’s brows shot upwards, his eyes widened, dashed with enlightenment. “Rhema’s in the kitchen,” he prompted, as if my appearance must be exclusively for her.

Michael was right, though: I only came only to see her, perhaps to exchange, if she would allow, a word or two. Parties weren’t really my thing, especially if it was a high school senior post-prom celebration. The only one I had attended so far since I could say, “No; I ain’t coming,” to Grandma was my first-now-ex-girlfriend’s fourteenth bash. She’d asked me to try being sociable for once and I swear I had loved her and tried; but I hadn’t known a single Wattpad book and couldn’t care less about Gilas’ lineup for FIBA, so I’d ended up hogging PepsiCo chips and Coke in the kitchen, alone and anxious, while the other boys and girls played painted Twister and Pinoy Henyo.

“Thanks.” I watched another boy in denim overalls stagger towards Michael and slip a hand in his jean’s back pocket, before finally stepping inside and bringing my gaze somewhere else because the boy had started licking Michael’s neck.

I swept through the room of hot bodies, probably sporting a heart-shaped sweat stain on my back. The design palette of the apartment was of the dullest shade of every odious color I could think of: taxi cab, desert sand, hot pink, and lime. The lights were dimmed to emanate a yellow haze, thus, adding to the outright repulsiveness of my surroundings. In addition, the air smelled like milk and vinegar, which made me wince and breathe through my mouth. Good thing nobody pretended they knew me and stopped me for a chat.

An acoustic song played in the background, cradling the feverish chatter of my batchmates. Lately, I’ve been waking up alone… But the music was shortly changed to an EDM track, which incited everyone to shriek as they stomped their feet and flailed their arms about, diluted alcoholic drinks in hand. I was trying not to listen, to push the audible vibrations to the undersurface of my hearing and save myself from nausea and an impending migraine in the left side of my brain.

I found salvation in the dirty kitchen. I closed the door behind me, and the music was repressed to a muffled bass. My head cleared. But just till I heard her raspy voice and distinct accent anew—her glowing and carefree projection, the same one she used to teach the youth department in Vacation Bible School, or to remind me that I should eat more vegetables. I nodded to my side and there she was in flesh and blood, holding a beer mug swamped with pink liquid. She was in her usual black and gray plaids and skinny jeans, perched on the round table, raising her flag of Holy Modesty amidst a group of girls wearing cropped tops and high-waisted pekpek shorts. She was always the Oxford comma.

Shortly horripilatic sensations birthed in my chest and crawled towards my back and arms. I hadn’t seen her for the last two weeks when for some reason I had proved myself to be aversive.

“Why do I scare you?” I had asked.

“Because you’ve started to become the sun and moon, and stars to my welkin. As well as the rain.”

I had not pushed for a more specific answer. We’d already dated a few times though I knew she wouldn’t take a relationship with me seriously: in her religion we were “unequally yoked.”

“Do you hate me now?” she had asked; and I’d answered:

“I’d only hate you ifyou left me.” This had been my threat, hoping she would never want me to hate her, even though I’d believed that I had no ability to hate her at all.

“Very well then. You shall hate me soon.”

Rhema and I locked eyes for such a brief moment I could’ve mistaken her side gaze for a slide squint if it weren’t for her lips curling up ever so slightly at the corners. One of the girls suggested karaoke and the rest were excited. They pushed past me without a greeting. A chicken egg of unpolished quartz slid down my throat when I realized that Rhema had stayed. I stared at her, watched her swig her drink. She then jumped off the table, deposited the cylinder in the sink, and, snickering, slithered her way out through the backdoor.

I followed, my breath on fire, just like on days when she and I would skip classes. Her mind was always on bizarre trips, albeit never mischievous ones, and I always gladly accompanied her. There was a time we visited a village in Cainta, and wallowed away time in the labyrinth garden, naming the roses and carnations on the trellises till the skies turned magenta and tangerine. Once we stayed in the parking lot of Harrison Plaza, and climbed the swiveled trunk of an old pine tree, taking turns in reading our favorite poems aloud. But of all our escapades, my favorite was the time we lingered at the school’s abandoned building where there was a room filled with dusty, broken or out-of-tune instruments. We sat by the piano, her head on my shoulder, as I played Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 8 in C minor with a missing G4 key.

When I got outside, Rhema was leaning back on her father’s matte black two-door 1979 Lancer. “Hey,” she said so casually, arms crossed, as if it hadn’t been seventeen days since we’d last talked—so much like the young woman I’d known who was certain of her being part of the Rapture.

The warm air almost choked me. I had done this before: stood beside her, whist, as she tackled my heart on to a hook and swung the fine thread around her thumb. I had known that my trust in her could someday be the death of me. “Hey,” I croaked back. My cheeks and nose burned. It was like talking to her for the very first time.

She giggled. Shit. How I missed her laughter—the tranquil notes of a steady shower in September.

“Are you sober?” I joshed.

“Is that a question?”

“Why d’ja leave so early?”

“Don’t I always leave parties early?” She shook her head ever so slightly, her shoulder-length virgin hair daintily swaying with her neck’s movement. “Are you planning to stay any longer?”

“Is that a question?” I bit my lower lip, feeling the heat reach my ears.

She was still smiling, her pearly whites gleaming in the moonlight—a little kid hunting for and keeping loose changes. “Wanna go for a quick ride?”

“Aren’t we asking too many questions?”

“Weren’t you the one who said we never could?” she retorted. She giggled again, now throwing her head back—the head I wanted to cup in my hands and bring to my face—the head that held worlds unknown, unkempt, unwittingly witty—the head that believed I was special and that I deserved to be loved—the head I fell in love with.

“Really?” was my lame comeback.

Rhema dug in her pocket and threw me a ring of keys.

And I caught it.

***

We drove down the busy streets of NCR. I was on the wheels, Rhema was my GPS. Her feet were up on the dashboard, swinging in her dirty black Converse. Owl City songs erupted from the car’s speakers, and we were singing and laughing with our lungs in our throats. After two albums and a half of city-lights and traffic jam, Rhema told me to enter a houseless block. We stopped in front of a sign that says, “n0 3spazzing!!!”

“My uncle owns this place,” she whispered, removing her seatbelt. She went out of the car so she could hold up one side of the chains that encircled the lot and I could pull over in the empty space.

She slipped back in the car and into the backseat, and threw me two backpacks. Rhema was never one for purses; she always had too much to bring. She called herself a girl scout, but really she was just a packrat, never short of scratch paper, candy wrappers, and of the sort. Before she’d suggested in class, with huge eyes looking upwards awing at the plain wooden ceiling as if she were beholding the Aurora Borealis, that maybe if she grew up with a mother she would be more organized; then chuckled and said, “Naaaaah!”

Rhema was back in the passenger seat, reaching into one of her bags. She tossed me the shirt she once borrowed from me after P.E. I changed as she wore her jacket, and followed her out of the car.

The space was grassy. The buildings were so far off in the distance I was wondering if we’d reached a province. Rhema pulled out a sleeping mat and unrolled it on the car’s roof. I climbed the car and helped her up.

The stars were clear against the deep indigo sky. We lay side by side, catching up on each other, neither of us mentioning her avoidance of me. We played a game:

“If you were an ocean, which would you be?” she asked, munching on Oreos.

“Antarctic.” I reached over for the food. “You?”

She slapped away my hand, giggled, and wedged a cookie in my mouth herself. “Arctic.”

I ate before asking, “If you were a musical note, what would you be?”

“Hmm… what would you be?”

“I’d be an E-flat.”

“I’d be a C then.”

“Nah. Too ordinary.”

“I am ordinary, thank you very much.” I could see her blush, which hinted her resolution.

“No, you are not,” I couldn’t help but snigger.

“Oh, yes I am! I’m a plain, smooth stone. A white-washed wall . . . or maybe even one left unpainted.”

Her answers were exactly why she wasn’t, but, “At least we complement each other,” was all I replied.

“You’d be better off with a G,” she said in a wistful tone, a fire tree losing its blossoms; “…or an F-sharp.” She put away the empty plastic pack, and snuggled up to me. She told me about buying She’s Come Undone because she had torn her copy when she was thirteen, appalled by a woman fucking another woman; about picking up a violin again; about strawberry cheesecake, and beige stilettoes; and many more things. I had fallen silent as the stars, immensely overwhelmed by the moment: I was there and then, alone with her.

“I was reading Jeremiah this morning,” she whispered. “‘He stretches the Heavens as curtains,’ reminded me of you.”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t forget how cheery you were to know I thought, too, that the universe is expanding.”

I couldn’t help but frown, recalling the barrier between us that she couldn’t tear down: her consciousness’s biblical filter. When we disagreed we didn’t spar, we clashed—on the definition of infinity, the degree of literalness of Genesis, the logical implications of moral relativism. I hated those moments, when we talked, cuddling till our conversation hit a rock—when her body would tense up against mine, her face brightly ablush. We usually reconciled by ceasing discussion, by her abruptly asking if I wanted lemonade, or planting a kiss on my cheek.

Rhema slipped her hand behind my neck. She smiled, and the next thing I knew stars spilled from the heavens: she put her mouth on mine. As far as exchanging saliva was concerned, sharing a slice of pizza or a cup of juice was the closest it could get; so having Rhema’s tongue flounder for mine was a planet spinning out of orbit.

It took me a moment before I managed to lock my arms around her waist and kiss her back. Her hand was still on the back of my head, fingers groping through my hair. She tasted like watermelon shake and Oreo. She had so often told me the Trinity was within her. Perhaps she was right: if there really were a god, I also tasted it in her. She was utterly delectable. I was going drunk.

When my lips felt raw, I hazarded for the very first time, “I love you.”

She slowly pulled away, and the stars floated back to the skies. She didn’t even smile. I wanted to ask why she had disappeared the other week, but didn’t, afraid she’d go away again. She had tried so hard to be my friend, ended up being the best one I ever had, and the thought of losing her was simply appalling.

“You shall hate me soon,” she said.

It wasn’t a new thing for me to hear; she’d always said that I’d hate her someday. I had told her it hurt me, as if she didn’t trust me to love her for who she was.

“Sorry,” she sobbed. Rhema nuzzled my chin and closed her eyes, sniffling every now and then. But she stayed there and soon drifted off in my arms. It was galaxies more fulfilling than Facebook heart stickers or midnight private Snapchats of her sleepy face.

The pictures I’d saved on my tablet showed her big, slanted eyes, pinched nose, thin lips; but in person she was even fairer, her skin more milky. I tried to memorize her in that moment for my Rhema was a sparrow too fragile to cage; I could keep her in my hands for only so long till she decided to fly away.

***

Rhema and I woke up to a rain shower. It was a few minutes past five and we rushed to get in the car.

The trip home was silent. We arrived at my place before seven. Rhema tossed me a quick smile as I closed the car door, but I could only grunt in return. The wave had crashed, the rush of wind subsided; we were back to being a black box.

Looking back, I don’t think I could’ve guessed Rhema would leave that day. I thought she’d only been avoiding me as before. When Monday came, though, and the teacher didn’t call her name in class, I was informed that she had moved to Mindanao with her father for their church ministry.

Rhema had warned me that she might need to leave as suddenly and strangely as she had appeared as the new student in art class one Thursday in August the other year; but I never expected it to be like this: without a good-bye, without any clearance of where we were standing relationship-wise, without directly hearing from her that she loved me back.

I stalked her online every waking moment, even during classes, staring at her red Facebook profile picture with a blush pink cross every twenty minutes or so. Are you all right?, What’s happening?, Where are you?—I couldn’t resist not flooding her on Messenger. (Her phone was out of reach.)But the icon said that though she had come online, she was ignoring our thread.

I tried summoning my usual equanimity, assuring myself that she was busy, and it was okay because I was busy myself, preparing for graduation and college. The blow only occurred when the messages I sent her had finally been marked as seen—when she posted a Facebook album titled “Fun in Cabadbaran,” which contained pictures of her, cheeks flushed and a little tanned, all smiles with charcoal-skinned children. It was perhaps the worst wound inflicted: knowing she was doing well without me.

At first I was not sad. I was mad. And my anger manifested in my intense wallow of reclusion. I avoided people more than I ever had in my life. I locked myself in my room all day before and after school, watching Filthy Frank videos or reading a book. I ignored all messages and e-mails. On graduation day I even went straight home after the ceremony.

“You need to get out more, smarty-pants,” Grandma told me when she entered my room and found me curled up on the bed, still in my formal attire, playing Terraria without a pause for the last eight hours; “to see a world much bigger than a girl named Rhema.”

Before bedtime I finally checked my Facebook and Yahoo! and saw an e-mail from Rhema. I tried not to open it—to sleep it away—but I tossed and turned in bed all night thinking of nothing but it; and before the first sunray broke through my window, I couldn’t resist anymore.

Sire Felix,

I am much delighted to learn that you have been accepted into your dream university to study your dream course, (hence, granting you the chance to pursue your dream job, correct?) Alas! I pray for you always! for you to have a blessed life!

Sincerely yours,

Lady Rhema

It wasn’t the closure I was looking for, but it was clearly the good-bye I needed. I didn’t respond. Just cried for a while in bed, her sheer absence weighing in on my chest. I still missed her. I still wanted her. But I deleted her pictures from my tab, and swallowed the fact that though we may bump into each other someday, she was never coming back to me, and neither will I to her.

You shall hate me soon . . . She was right. I would. But only for a fleeting moment. I still love her, and often think of the universe where we are together. I no longer loathe the idea. In fact it has turned out to be my cup of hot tea on a rainy day. I wish there was a universe in which we were happily in love with each other. I hope that somewhere out there was a braver Rhema—one who loved Felix enough to stay.