Your Writer

by Leigh Anne Darlene E. Dispo

My maid outfit caught your eye, and I knew this because I saw you turn your head from where you prepared our food in the kitchen. I couldn’t glance back at you, because it was the very first time I dressed up in cosplay for someone—because I honestly thought that if I saw you looking at me, I’d die in happiness like a proper Victorian damsel in distress.

We were in an Airbnb apartment you rented at Alabang—I remember how you sprung it upon me, weeks after the last time we met. You were telling me about your work and the number of days you needed to fill in working on-site. I’m sure you’d remember if you ever will. Hell, you may never even be reminded. You’re lucky.

But anyway, you sent me these posts about places to pick, asking me if I’d go. I remember my childish orphan grin (See?) and the way my heart skipped. Truth be told, as much as it’s cruel to admit now, you were always making my heart dance. Sometimes, I really miss it.

What hurts me so deeply is remembering you that first day of our week. You were in your yellow Star Wars shirt, your paces hasty alongside the vans. You looked like you were going to leave if I

was late. But I didn’t think that yet, because it’s not like I already knew you were already someone else’s back then. And every time I remember you in your soaked shorts—or the topless version of you at the kitchen, making me a cup of coffee—or you beside me in the van, your voice and arms coaxing my hair, my head, and all the air between us to turn only to you, I can feel my lungs swell inside my ribs.

And you’re so lucky to have her. She used to remind me what I lacked and what I could have been. But she’s probably your favorite fool, because I’m sure she’s forgiven you. I’m sure she’s still looking at you, the way you’re no longer inclined to look for me. Is she the one that truly brings out the better in you? Is she that kinder, easier, prettier than me? Is she a better fit? Does she hold you now in the way you used to ask me to?

And you do know that’s one of the things I’ll never forgive: knowing you’ve hurt me in the most irrevocable way, but I also hurt you that much by never being better. Funny how love looks in the aftermath—all we have now is immeasurable hurt and resentment to wade through. Personally, I have unattended laundry, including that maid outfit at the very bottom of a paper bag.

And now she just reminds me that I won’t be saved by making you the villain in this story—because you weren’t, not exactly. You simply shared a glimpse of the real thing, and I simply thought it was the entire world. Back in Alabang, when I was lying down on the bed and looking through the beaded partition at your form around the theatrical bathroom light, you hummed the chorus in White Horse. And I was laughing uncontrollably.

So now I finally remember my rightful place. I know this is where I stay: the part where it’s over, and I am not the ecstatic protagonist in the poem; I am still the writer. I know this because I’ll make a comment in my head, “All Too Well’s better”, and then I’ll chuckle in

misery. I know it because I have you and her in my head sometimes, and I’d make up a scenario, so then I’d realize how happy it could be because I am no longer in the picture.

If you had asked me what would make me heartbroken, the answer would be these words. I wouldn’t have said “If you left me” or “If you chose someone else.” In the end, I know I can only write again. In the end, my writing is the love I’m choosing.

My kind of love is the one that demands to wait and remember. F