The Day When The Second Chance Came

Have you ever had that 'One That Got Away'? Or at least someone from your past that you wanted to revisit and see how you're going to take off years after you have matured? I guess some, if not most, of us have that one person. I know I do. I've been thinking lately of how I would meet this person and how I think it would go.

Although, I have actually encountered the day when that second meeting came - but it wasn't a second chance. I was available while he wasn't, and we were all good. We were friends. He helped me sort everything out when I was a wreck. It was all good up until the point that he had found someone new and I had, too.

But this is how I envision how the second chance would come.

It would be in a cafe, because I remembered asking him back when we were together on where we're going to meet up. I'll be ordering my own coffee and see him from afar. At first, we won't notice each other but we'll catch each other's eyes. He would ask how I am, and ask if I can grab a coffee with him. Since I had planned on spending the whole day on the cafe anyway, I agreed. I am not sure how I'm looking at right now, but I know I probably look like I am grinning from ear to ear. This is what I have been looking forward for in doing for years now. But I know that I was in for a ride - times have changed, anyway.

I was done ordering my coffee and I sit on a chair. I see him look at me and I smiled once again. Now, I'm thinking how much he has changed over the years. It has been 4 years since we were last together, but 2 years since I saw him last. Hell, even in those 2 years I'm sure I'm not the same person anymore. Now, I am feeling a little bit awkward. Who wouldn't be, right? So I fumbled through my phone, trying to check my Twitter feed as if anything on it would save me.

It was a few minutes after I was scrolling through my phone that he pulled a chair in front of me. There he is - the guy I have been hoping to see in all of those 4 long years. Between us, he said the first word. I knew he would. I guess in all those years, his chatter's something that did not ever change. I responded, trying to settle in the whole situation. I know that if I were looking at us at a different person's point of view, we could pass as someone who's here for their first date. Hell, I think we're more awkward now than we were during our first date. I guess confidence and the free attitude were sucked by adulting.

It wasn't that much sooner that we were in the midst of asking each other the basic things we need to know. If both of us were working, what's our work, what do we do, how's our families, how's some of our friends that we introduced to each other when we were still together. It's as if we're trying to get a sense of familiarity from where we left off. It was a good 30-minute conversation now and our coffees have arrived. ALMOST all the questions were knocked off except for one thing - how our lovelifes are going.

After being blocked from his social media for so long, I had no knowledge of where he's at in that department. On the other hand, I am an open book. Everything's on my social media accounts - only if he'd check them. But I always had a feeling that he was checking them or maybe it's that lingering sense of hope that he would always cars about me. He had the guts to ask me first and I frankly answered. I wasn't sure if I should ask the question back since I really didn't want to know the answer. But I did anyway. Much to my relief, he's not connected to anyone at that moment.

I don't know what was about it but getting that out of the way eased my worries. Now, I can be comfortable. Ooops, I think too comfortable to be laughing very hard now. I know that he had sense that I was easing off from my tense state. Although, over the years, I had a condition that triggered me for these reactions - something I'm sure he doesn't know. So, I fill him in. That's where how the past has been now unveiled.

I told him that the depression must have come from when we ended things. It was then I was trying to self-destruct. I didn't knew it at that time but I knew now. It was at that time that I was trying to go back to the places we once valued. How I went back to Gateway's rooftop and looked up at the buildings, how I went back to Cubao just to get a feel of what the place was like when we were together, how I made new memories at SM MOA just because all of those reminded me of him so much, how every MRT ride reminds me of him, and how every Cubao-Balibago EDSA us ride reminds me of how I felt when we just finished a date. All of these, even after all these years, I still remembered how these made me feel.

I wasn't sure if he was ever ready to hear those, neither was I to say it all in one sitting. At the very least, these were for the midnight conversations over the phone. But that was then, and it was how I told him that I had slept with someone else. Four years after, I know that's not how I wanted to tell him all of these things.

Silence engulfed the both of us and I immediately think if I should regret the things I just said. I still had no clear answer for it when he told me that he wanted to try again - how it was still me over the years, and yes, that he always checked up on me. That, like me, there were still bits and pieces of everything I left in his memory.

This was the moment that I have been waiting for to this narrative that I have been thinking about over the years. However, what wasn't included in there was the scenario that he would actually want to try. I wish I had questioned myself sooner if I had actually wanted to try.