The Beach

Sand…

Crystals

that clung to my bare feet as Christopher and I ascended the path up the Crocodile. He held my hand all the way and I let him, pretending to slip every now and then, even when I knew I had better balance than I’d like to show. After all, he was the one on my turf. He spent 2 hours sitting in a cramped up van to pay me a visit. But men always liked to play the Knight, the Rescuer of damsels in distress, and sometimes, Christopher could be quixotic. He’s romantic that way, as all men are in this era of damsels rarely in distress.

It was the hour of sunset. The sky was as red as the blood that rushed to my cheeks when he looked down on me and seemed to see things other than what I wanted him to see. The waves below us threatened danger if we made but one mistake in our steps, literally and figuratively. It was a short hike, just enough to justify the thunder-drumming in my heart that would have still been there had we opted to spend our time indoors. A walk in the beach seemed like a good idea at the time.

The beach. Baybay, the locals called it, which if you translate in English still means beach. Languages could be confusing even when they mean just one thing. In my home town, it is a local park, frequented more often than the actual local park. A long stretch of grey sand, seafood barbeque vendors, and butt-naked toddlers running around proclaiming the freedom of childhood. Christopher realized he has fallen in love in this beach. He was hypnotized by the music of the waves, the glow of orange and pink on everything the sunrays touched, including me. Deceived by his senses that I was so afraid he would change his mind when the light changed.

But he didn’t. He’d been struggling with that fact for a while now. Though a rebel he believed himself to be, he too is bound by the dictates of social norms, making it difficult to accept truths, including the ones he wanted so badly to be true. I could only imagine the inner battles he had to face. The simplest decisions made with utmost pain and the most blissful moments cherished as though they could not be.

But he didn’t change his mind and I could not believe it.

When we reached our destination, an unfinished construction at the top of the hill, we both let out a sigh that blended with the wind like the quiet interlude between choruses. We were on top of the Crocodile, a tongue of land that licked the ocean at the far end of Baybay, shaped, obviously, like a crocodile half submerged in the water.

My brothers and I used to invent stories about the Crocodile and how it never managed to catch up with the Turtle, a dome shaped island some few kilometers from the shore. Those names, of course, are also our own inventions. When you’re little, you’ll believe anything, including your own made-up stories. Not because you’re foolish, but because you choose to look at the world in wonder. And when I was little I chose to look at the world so. Depending on the tide and on the place where you stand, the islands do seem to have kept moving. It was (and is) an everlasting race that I’m sure will go on even when my brothers and I are long gone. By that time, some other group of kids would’ve invented their own stories. An everlasting race.

I told him of the story of the Croc and the Turtle and promised I would take him there. So I did. Only this time, the Crocodile had been transformed into a skeleton of what could have been a posh hotel.

It was not a love story. But it was a story about love. And an unfinished building, the testament of what could have been. From the layout of the crude structures, one could almost imagine a posh hotel on top of a private hill, overlooking the ocean that seemed to change colors with moods. If you go down some steps that were expertly paved along the side of the hill, you’ll come upon a rectangular hole, remnants of a swimming pool that failed to exist. The most beautiful part of it all was that you’ll never lose sight of the sea, almost as though it was right in the middle of everything that the building stood for. And perhaps it was. Love lost in oceanic depths. Turmoil as powerful as angry waves against steadfast rocks. Music without words that could calm a tempest, enrage a sparrow, drown out the world, enchant a soul.

The Croc was owned by a wealthy couple who found their differences too exhausting that the hotel was never finished. A would-have-been castle the stuff of fairy tales. The locals still talk about it in whispers that the wind could carry all the way up there where they could transform into ghosts living in the forlorn grass unkempt and neglected.

As Christopher and I found a cozy spot at the edge of the hill overlooking the blue-green ocean, I realized he has not let go of my hand. If I jumped and fell to the sharp rocks below, would he have jumped with me?

His eyes told me that if I jumped, he’d be strong enough to keep both of us from falling. Deep, coffee colored eyes framed by long graceful eyelashes that had me captured within like a Venus Flytrap. Snap! And before I realized it, I was a captive. We didn’t mean it to happen. It just did. The way I see it, nobody ever plans to fall in love, even when they think they have. At least not with the real thing. It’s as natural as falling out of love and falling right back in. You can spend all your life trying to plan how love should be for you and still it would never happen if it were not meant to be. We human beings can only do so much when it comes to things so much greater than ourselves.

I think it was the way he allowed himself to be vulnerable around me. A lot of Don Quixotes fake gallantry and end up obviously trying too hard or not trying at all. He was refreshingly honest. He’s not a Prince Charming, dear God, no! He swears a lot and loses his temper quickly and unexpectedly. He has problems with authority. He considers himself a walking contradiction, but he pains himself with always trying to do the right things when it comes to the things that matter. He has an opinion on everything and usually it contrasts the general ones. To some people, Christopher was quite the antihero. But to me he was an open book that nobody, except for a few, seemed to bother to read. That’s what happens when people become too self righteous or too intelligent. They forget that right and wrong is completely different from black and white. Sometimes the norms that we have set to guide us through the endless possibilities bound our way become the borders to which our minds are narrowed.

Despite the inevitable comparisons to female canines, and judgments from other people blinded by the myth of black and white, I sat there beside him on that hilltop knowing in my heart that Heaven has planned that very moment, that history would not take place as it should had I been somewhere else, and that I was definitely and exactly where I should be.

We talked of many trivial things. We were probably trying to escape into a world where there are no troubles. The world we came from was filled with the buzzing noise of rumors and little birds that spill so many secrets. We were alone up there, but I knew we were not the only couple who has ever gone up this hill. Lovers went there all the time. How incongruous, don’t you think? Such a testament of broken love becomes a refuge to lovers seeking solitude.

My heart stopped beating when he lowered his head to kiss me and the entire ocean seemed to have shushed for the moment to take place. A forbidden kiss. One I shall cherish because it could not be. And when the bliss passed, for that is what blissful means, a heavy pressure clutched at my heart. The same one that tugged at his.

Because as we watched the waves below seeming undecided about their own fate, we knew tomorrow someone’s heart will surely be broken. His girlfriend of seven years is probably crying over a friend’s shoulders, wondering why their relationship has gone downhill. In her heart of hearts, she knows the answer. She’s probably looking into herself feeling empty and betrayed and worthless, though everyone can see that to the right one, she is a treasure, and that come the time when her courage wins over despair, she will shine again like a beacon, brighter than she was before. Tonight I shall spend my wee hours counting tears, feeling wretched and worthless. I have to cry them all out now, knowing that an onslaught is to come when word breaks loose and the ultimate test of my character is at hand. Knowing that there is nothing I could do but face the world with my head held high, convinced of my innocence and ready to stand up for my own decisions. He, on the other hand, will dread every moment of his ride home, with the sand caught in the hems of his jeans and stuck in the soles of his sandals, reminding him of every grain of second he will have to spend deciding which heart to break: that of his first love or mine.

May 2, 2007