Every Girl's Guide to Boys (3 page)

Let me explain
, and let me explain by re-introducing myself.
My name is Chrisanta Carmela Legaspi. Most people call me Chrissy. I’ve had my
heart broken by the occasional guy who won’t like me back, but have never
harbored a grudge and have always believed that true love is worth the wait. I
have two best friends: Anna, who’s smart and sarcastic but secretly a softie,
and Rickie, who’s tall and slim and gorgeous and absolutely aware of it. I used
to have another best friend—the first guy who broke my heart, although
I’d like to believe he didn’t mean to. My childhood best friend and I were
inseparable; he was two years older, but because I had always been
“responsible” and “mature” for my age, we got along perfectly. We talked about movies
we both liked, exchanged books and CDs, played basketball, bugged our dads to
buy us ice cream on Saturdays, and helped our moms do the groceries on Sundays
(our parents were the best of friends as well). At that time, I did not have a
concrete concept of crushes yet, but I knew I didn’t like it when he spent
Friday afternoons with Rebecca, a girl in his class who had shoulder-length
silky locks, eyelashes that would automatically bat themselves at anything male
that moved, and the longest legs I had ever seen on a fourteen-year-old. He
moved to the States, leaving me devastated, a few days after I graduated from
grade school and he finished his sophomore year in high school. We tried to
keep in touch at first, but the letters became shorter, the phone calls fewer,
and our worlds farther apart. Nico never promised to return, and I have never
taken this against him. But I think deep down, I have always been waiting.

So when he called me
several days ago, telling me he was in town and asking if I wanted to meet up,
I did not have to think twice. Having secured my parents’ permission the
previous day, he drove me to a Thai restaurant nestled in the heart of
Tagaytay; he would only be back for a couple of weeks, he explained, and did
not want anyone to see him and demand to know why he didn’t announce his
return. “I don’t get that,” he had said, “How do you proclaim ‘I’m back!’
without sounding like a self-absorbed dude who expects people to rejoice at the
sight of him?” I thought to myself, “But I did rejoice at the sight of you. At
least I have you all to myself now.” And I understood that everything would
remain between us, that I wouldn’t tell anyone that the love of my life was
visiting. Because telling people would bring me back to reality—that he
was
just
visiting,
and that I was never the love of
his
life.

“So,”
he said, once the waiter had taken our orders, “what have you been up to? Did
you miss me?”

 
“Not really,” I replied. And it was
true. It wasn’t like I had been holed up in my room pining for him the entire
two and a half years he was away. I had been preoccupied with other
things—school and extra-curriculars and my family and friends and Nathan.
Oh
shit, Nathan
, I thought. I considered texting him to tell him where I was and
who I was with, but what was I supposed to say?
Hey, Nathan, what’s up, I’m
alone with Nico at a secluded restaurant in Tagaytay
? Probably not the
smartest idea. I was aware that if I were in Nathan’s position, I would have
been annoyed, maybe even hurt. I was aware that Nathan was a great guy, that he
was a reliable Student Council treasurer, and that he opened doors for me, and
smiled at babies, and loved art, and wrote me poetry, and painted a beautiful
sunset scene for my bedroom, and gave my mom flowers on Valentine’s Day, and
talked to my dad about politics and the economy, and played game after game of
Mario Kart
with Justin. That
given the right circumstances, what we had could be permanent. But I pushed all
of that to the furthest, most unreachable corner of my mind by thinking,
He’s not my
boyfriend anyway
. I was also aware that Nico and I had long ago stopped being a
part of each other’s lives, and that it would take more than a short visit and
a romantic dinner date to make things right, to re-establish the connection and
restore whatever was lost. I was also aware that Nico would be leaving again,
soon. That no matter what I said or did, what we had was temporary. But once
more, I pushed all of that away and thought,
But he’s back now. Here. With
me.

Nico grinned at me. He
probably thought I was kidding. “Well,” he said, “I missed you. Terribly.”

I tried to ignore the
funny feeling at the pit of my stomach. I also attempted to avert his gaze, but
he was so near and we were so far away from everyone else. “You certainly did
an excellent job at hiding it.”

To that, he actually
laughed. “Come on,” he said, staring right at me, his eyes
insistent—close to pleading—despite the nervous burst of laughter.
“You stopped writing, too.”

He had a point. “Okay,”
I said.

“Okay what?”

“Okay,
forget what I said.” An awkward pause hung over us until I realized I had to
change the subject.
“Hey, guess what. I have an online advice
column.”

“That sounds cool,” he
said, inspecting the handle of his fork. Looking back, I think I should have
been suspicious of the lack of interest and enthusiasm on his part. But at that
moment, I did not notice a thing.

“It is,” I told him.
“I’ve been getting tons of mail. You won’t believe how many people in our
school have
love problems
.” I said ‘love problems’ like they were
shallow and trivial and completely beneath me. “And, I have a secret admirer.
But it’s not a real secret admirer.
Si
Nathan
lang pala
.”
Si
Nathan
lang pala
. I felt like I was
betraying Nathan by saying that, and I wanted to take it back to prove that I
knew where my loyalty was supposed to lie, but Nico was already asking, “Are
you sure it’s him?”

“Duh,” I rolled my
eyes. “Of course I am. He calls himself ‘N’. He denies it all the time, but
basta,
I know it’s him. Who
else would it be?”

Nico nodded. “So, you
and Nathan...?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I
mean, no. I mean, yes and no. I don’t know.”

“There’s something?”

“I think so.”

“But it’s not
official?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why is it not
official?”

“Because,” I said
lamely. It dawned on me that I had never really thought about why it wasn’t
official.
“It’s just not, alright. Let’s just
talk about something else.”

And we did. We talked
about how fast-paced his days were in the States, and how he had missed the
relative calm of his life here. We talked about Rebecca, and how they had
broken up when he saw photos of her getting drunk at a party with another guy
sometime last year (why she was stupid enough to post them online, I will never
know). We talked about how it hadn’t really been working between them anyway,
how he had always felt like he was being shut out of everything that was
important to her, how he had stopped believing in long distance relationships
since. We talked about my college plans and his career plans. We talked about
how he often remembered me—in ice cream parlors and on Sunday mornings
and every time he heard Rilo Kiley on the radio—but figured telling me so
would be pointless because there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He did
not ask me about Nathan. I did not ask him when exactly he was leaving, or why
he was even back.

The ride home was quick
and quiet. He took my hand without the slightest tinge of hesitation, like it
was the most natural thing in the world. Like it was something he had always
been meaning to do. Like he had never been gone. I didn’t have to lean forward
and stare at my painted fingernails for him to get the hint. I didn’t even have
to wait. He knew. I guess he always had.

I know now
, of course, what I have to do: talk to Nathan. I know
there are two options available—to lie and tell him it meant nothing, or
to be honest and tell him it affected everything. I also know that, when it all
boils down to something, there are only two choices—him or Nico. I have
always been the kind of person who knows what she wants. As a kid, I knew I
liked purple more than pink, I knew I liked my books more than my dolls, and I
knew I didn’t like the Disney princes because they were so much prettier than
the princesses. When I entered high school, I knew I didn’t want to join the
glee club because I didn’t want to embarrass myself during the auditions, and I
knew my goal was to get good grades and graduate with honors. I have always
known that I don’t like alcohol and cigarettes, and I have never allowed myself
to be swayed. I have always known my family is the most precious thing in my
life, and I have never thought otherwise.

But at this moment, I
do not know what I want. I cannot even make a list of the pros and cons of
being with Nathan versus being with Nico, because who they are and what they
mean to me are already starting to blend into each other, the edges and
boundaries blurring into a massive wad of indecision that I will never fully
grasp. I know a million girls would sell their souls to be in my position (
poor Chrissy,
two hot boys are fighting over her, boohoo
), but this situation is something I
wouldn’t wish on even the most pathetically lonely person in the world. Because
it is easy and logical enough to decide between what is right or wrong, or what
your mind is saying versus what your heart is feeling—but how
do you decide between two things you value in a
similar manner and an almost equal amount? It is simple enough to let go of the
past in favor of the present, but now that Nico is back and I realize that I am
genuinely thrilled about it, I don’t know where that leaves Nathan. I don’t
know where that leaves me.

And so I set aside the
question of What I Want to make way for What I Have to Do. Because I am a good
girl, and that’s what good girls do.

Nathan picks up on the
first ring. I expect him to be angry, I expect him to start bombarding me with
questions about Nico and Tagaytay, I expect disappointed silence all over
again. But he just says, with enough sincerity and vulnerability to douse me
with guilt, “Hey. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

My mouth feels dry.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

He doesn’t tell me it’s
okay, and I feel even guiltier because “it’s okay” is precisely what I’m hoping
to hear. I’d even settle for, “it’ll be okay,” anything to indicate that he
understands I never meant for this to happen. How could I have planned this,
when I wasn’t even conscious of my more-than-friendly feelings for Nico, when
all of this has been bubbling barely beneath the surface but I was too wrapped
up in a blissful six months of dating my long-time crush that the thought of
liking someone else didn’t even cross my mind? If it was imperative for him to
blame somebody, I wanted him to blame Nico—because based on the twisted
logic of teenage romance, blaming the third party and choosing to overlook
everything else meant you were willing to put up a fight to save the
relationship, or whatever was left of it. Because ultimately, it meant you were
willing to forgive, to forget. To stay. Instead, he asks me, “When did we start
lying to each other?”

I almost try to correct
him: technically, I never lied to him. I just withheld the truth, because I
knew it would make things messy. Besides, I didn’t know Nico was back for good;
technically, it was supposed to be a harmless visit. And technically, I
shouldn’t even be apologizing for wanting to catch up with an old friend. But
there are too many technicalities lodging themselves in the space between us,
too much sadness in his voice and too little remorse in mine. I try to distract
him by answering his question with, “I promise I will never lie to you again.”

I’m not sure he
believes me, and I am suddenly consumed by the pressure to prove that this is
not entirely my fault. I am suddenly overcome with a terrible case of
defensiveness, and I feel I have to protect myself somehow. The rules of my
relationship with Nathan had never been very clear in the first place, and I
have a right to change my mind, don’t I? I have a right to rearrange our
dynamics—to ask him to re-adjust his feelings for me, to tuck them away
in a safe spot and bring them out in the open again only when we finally figure
things out. Somewhere within me, a monster rears its ugly head and whispers,
it’s not your
problem he’s so easily replaceable.
And I think
I
need time and space away from this stifling idea of “us” that is yet to be more
than an idea. I think I need time and space away from him. So I take a deep
breath and add, “But I cannot promise to stop seeing Nico.”

This, apparently, he can
believe right away. He puts down the phone. And gives me all the time and space
I want.

It is a
Friday afternoon, and Anna, Rickie, and I are hanging out
in Anna’s boyfriend Miguel’s newly-renovated living room. Anna puts up her
flip-flops-clad feet on the coffee table, and Miguel looks at her and says,
“Dude. Your feet are gross.” They giggle about it—an inside joke,
obviously, because I can’t see what’s funny about gross feet. Rickie pretends
to gag. I smile at Anna to show that I’m happy for her, because I truly am. She
and Miguel have been a couple for less than a month, and everything is new and
fun and exciting. I wonder when I will ever experience anything like that
again.