Superimposed

The girl—not a girl anymore, really—closed the door as the boy left the room (I’ll be back in a sec, babe.), and walked dazedly to the bed—wondering if it was all real, if she was really here, staring at a spaceship poster on the opposite wall, if she really sprayed that musky perfume—the scent he breathed in while he caressed the length of her arm as he took her jacket off and hung it on a peg behind his door. He had been pressing her for months. She had been doing her best to refuse—they say it was the proper thing, after all, she being a nice girl, well brought up and all that. But then she thought about that other boy and that other girl, as she often did, and she didn’t feel like being such a nice girl anymore—was sick of it, really.

That other boy, he used to be hers. They used to be always close—closer than brother and sister. He used to be always there for her, used to make her feel like she was never alone. Like that December night, when she was shivering in the cold—better be outside and cold than inside and miss the fireworks. He approached her, leaning against the railings of the veranda, with a smile on his face and a gift in his hand and her silly nicknames on his lips. He laid an arm on her shoulders.

Hey, you’re shivering.

I feel chilly.

So he wrapped his arms around her, wrapped her in his warmth, and they swayed gently in the stillness, to a melody only they heard, only they understood.

Then that other girl came into his life, came between them. At first, she lent him books. Then she lent him her Sunday afternoons and her laughter and gab and homemade goodies and warm brown eyes, and he repaid her in full, and more. He often murmured how beautiful that other girl’s eyes were, how fit for a poem or a song. He’d sit at his desk, sometimes for hours at a time, scribbling pretty lines for that girl’s pretty eyes. Soon he was far away from her, lost in a world where that other girl’s name was the melody he swayed to. Soon she found he was not hers, not anymore.

You two look perfect together, she had said with a perfectly bright smile. And then she too walked away, put some distance, tried to dull the pain that was always there, tried to let go of what could never be—and find something else to hold on to.

And this was where her steps had taken her. Another December night with another boy—not a boy anymore, really—and again she was shivering—but not from the cold. Suddenly, she felt rough hands on her waist and jumped with a start. She hadn’t noticed him enter the room—for the past few minutes, she hadn’t noticed anything at all in her midst. He had sprung on her, with a glint in his eye and his shirt in his hand and her name—and other words besides, words like I want you—on his lips. He stroked her shoulders.

Hey, you’re shivering.

I feel chilly.

So he wrapped his arms around her, wrapped her in his heat, and their bodies agitated to a wild rhythm his coaxing and touches induced. As his lips trailed down her ivory neck, she thought of that other boy again, and tears rolled down her ivory cheeks. She thought of his face, not this boy’s, and murmured a name, murmured it so softly only she heard, only she understood:

Kuya