Hi blog. It's been long. How are you? I'm sad to see that you were not updated for so long. What happened? Well, I won't mind if you cannot answer. The girl behind the words you so proudly let anyone who could find you read cannot even answer that at this moment either. She'd been through a lot during the last months that she was not in touch with you. She had been fighting her battles alone for so long and deliberately ignored you because she didn't know how to talk to you, what to tell you, or how to let things out. She's been keeping all of it in. She reckoned everything will go well for her. She refused to talk to anyone apart from the few she chose to keep inside the walls she built around her.
Yes. Walls. Tall, sturdy walls which had kept everyone -apart from the few she chose to stay inside- out.
Don't tell her I told you alright? But I saw her burst out and break down a couple of times. Her red pillow in her room smells like the sea already, I bet she had cried on it a lot of times.
I saw her running around the campus, too... She tried to walk with her head down, trying to hide her face with her thick black hair. But of course, I know her too well... I know that the way she walks depends on how she feels, and I just know that she only walks head down and face hidden by her hair when she can't stop from crying. I saw her when she went out of that shop down town too, she looked like she was not sure where to go. She was so sad. I followed her, she went past the shops she used to go to when she's bored. I think she was thinking of going to Shoe Mart but though I wondered why she went the other way, I didn't dare ask nor go near her. She looked so fragile that time, too vulnerable. I kept on walking a few feet behind her. If her thoughts were not elsewhere, she could have seen me. I tailed behind her until I found her in the compound of the Cathedral.
She kept on walking, I was tired following her but I didn't have the heart to leave her... I wanted to be there just in case she'd break down again. She seemed to be searching for someone. I saw her talk to a middle aged man, I tried to eavesdrop. Well, she was actually searching for a priest... That was just so her. She always seeks for spiritual counsel. That's just one of the things she does when she's down. I hid when she turned towards my direction, I thought she saw me but, strangely enough, she walked past me and sat in the first pew in front of the altar and attended the mass. I sat a few pews behind, all the time during the mass, I was just staring at her... Her face, though lonely, was blank. I caught her wiping tears away. Under the golden light inside the decades old cathedral, her face was almost the color of the dying sun.
Just after the mass, I saw her stood up. She walked out, I saw her gaze at the sky, I saw her gave the beggars outside the church a look of compassion. I smiled when she did that. I just know the kind of heart she has, the kind that would never run out of compassion for the people who need help and passion for helping them at the same time.
She kept walking and so did I. She rode the jeepney home, I rode with her too. I wanted to make sure she'd be home safe. She was so lonely, when she asked the passenger beside her to pass her fare along to the driver, there was sorrow in her voice.
She was trying to hide her face again, she was starting to cry, again... When she finally got off the ride, I went down too and walked just behind her. She entered their gate. I saw her stood still just outside their balcony, obviously mesmerized by the Christmas lights her cousin put up earlier that afternoon. I tried to go nearer, just so I could see her face.
I was right, she hadn't stopped from crying. Her eyes shone so bright, as if trying to mirror the dazzle of the lights that had caused those tears to stream down her face in a beautiful cascade.
But oddly enough, when I gazed into her watery eyes, I saw not only sorrow but a tinge of joy. Not just a glimpse of her weakness but a little spark of strength.
And that was the only instant I felt that I, after a couple of hours of following her, am free to go home. *
