“At times, I wonder if I had changed my angle I looked from, another point of view from their shoes, if it would all have been different. But then after remembering what I went through, I again think, perhaps not.

But that is how we all really are, right? What we always think about and matters for us is the past. The past that is already done and gone.

Of course, the past is part of who we are. Without it, we have neither the present nor the future. Without our building blocks, we wouldn’t have buildings. Denying that would throw us into another turmoil without any argument.

Where most of my fault laid though was that all I saw was not the building and the function it provides but the building blocks that no longer exists as only one. There were no more building blocks actually, they now exist as one wall where they create something big and where one falls the other follows. Interrelated. Building blocks and building. Past and present.

The me at the time, who had decided to be alone and my only happiness was all that mattered, thought that was the way to let go of what happened. I thought not thinking of the reason behind it all and pushing it back to the back of my mind was the only answer.

I can’t really say if I was successful on not thinking about it all by myself without a distraction. I needed a distraction. Fortunately, I never fall into drugs or changing my emotional turmoil into ual desires though I suspect that also has to do with my past.

I distracted myself into fantasies that never exist. Perhaps that is as addictive as drugs.

What I never realized was pushing it back to the back of my mind was my way of holding on to it rather than letting it all go truly.

At that time, in the young mind of mine words like love, friendship and betrayal were words that created huge scars in me. Their meanings were jumbled together in my head, I didn’t bother trying to untangle them because every time I opened that part of my life, it took me into a pit that was too shallow. Trying to heal from that wound by myself asked too much of me I couldn’t afford of. So instead of solving it, I chose the least hurting way. Avoidance.

At first it worked. As a matter of fact, it worked until the end but the consequences of it cost me of too much.

When I was in sophomore, I had a guy I liked. I had a crush on him for so long my best friend was always worried about me. She always told me to confess to him, but I never had the courage.

On summer break she told me she got me a blind date so that I can get over my stupid crush and not to ruin the date because it was also hard to arrange.

I was reluctant to go but since she was the one who asked, I went. When I got to the place it turned the date was my crush. Honestly, I don’t even remember how our first date went till this day but judging from the fact we were officially dating after a month, I guess it went pretty great.

Month turned into two then three then six then all of a sudden, we had only a week before it turned to a year.

I was in love. I thought he was too. Until I caught him snogging a girl in chemistry lab.

I felt my eyes clouding on me and was about to run out of the room holding down my tears when I saw the girl down him was my best friend. The only friend I had and my boyfriend. My heart sunk, and my legs wobbled but I didn’t want to appear like my world was crumbling on me because they were people I deeply cared about.

I didn’t want to let them know that when all they thought of me was…did they even think of me? They both looked shocked. Would have seemed strange if they didn’t, now that I think about it but it no more mattered.

I bit down my tears and walked out of the room. I hold it down until I got to the gate then the water works got out of control. Pardon my language, but it hurt like a .

Meeting either of them broke me every time so I avoided them, not wanting to make the matter become worse. There was nothing to resolve neither to look back to, I had decided.

After two weeks, I heard she transferred to another school. Then I lost the only best friend I had and the chance to even accept her apologies or hear her excuses. I never heard from her after that.

Thinking about any of them kept bringing back the image of them together and imaginations of what they could have done behind my back that it made me a mess.

I didn’t know how to be alone or to go through anything by myself because she was always by my side to hear me complaining and to solve problems with me. I didn’t know how to eat lunch alone or not laugh at the back of the teacher. I didn’t know how to get back home and do assignments alone. I didn’t know who to go to when I fought with my parents or my grades went downhill.

My emotions were everywhere, and I hated everything. I didn’t know how to suddenly adapt to the world where two of the people I most care about are no more in it. And the mere thought of them brought tears and feelings of betrayal.

I tried not thinking about it, about them but it didn’t work on my own. I needed a distraction and fantasies worked the wonder.

Little by little, I started creating fantasies in my head. I created them so they always made me happy. They were only composed of good memories that wherever and whenever something happened, they helped.

But after a while, I started not caring about the reality because there was no fantasy in it. My results and my social life went away with it. I stopped caring about things that I labelled as 'dull' with the sole reason of not making me happy enough as I didn't create them in my head or they didn't happen in a sequence I planned.

I believe that, is when I started getting obsessed with plans and avoiding change.

Plan everything ahead. Create a routine where nothing surprising occurs. And be alone if no one can’t go with that routine.

But I didn’t realize human beings can’t be truly alone and truly happy. They are always searching for companionship. And change was inevitable.

HE came in a way and time I never expected and reminded me what happiness really is like. After that is when I understood why they say truly alone and truly happy is never found in the same road, they never really do.

HE suddenly changed it all. Change is part of who you are and at that age, it is part of your daily life but that wasn’t me. I did all I could to have a routine because it was easier that way. I didn’t have to try to keep up with anything that was inconsistent. No surprises; all planned ahead.

HE wasn’t planned. HE was all that I never thought of.

Junior high ended and senior high took its place.

People like holidays I said, birthdays, anniversaries and all those labelled as special days. Times where you go somewhere you have never been before, eat food that is foreign, do something new to commemorate the day. I prefer the normal boring days where nothing unplanned occurs. I presented that for literature in class one day.

Like always, I was alone.

Off stage, on stage.

I folded the paper and looked up to the students who were at looking me with that strange expression they always had. And among them, I noticed a tight smile that mirrored our professor's.

HE was my age, wore the same uniform we all wore, opened his books like all the students did but had a smile on his face. That was the first day I realized we are in the same class. The first day I ever saw him.

Two weeks after, I caught him plastering ''live life to the fullest'' papers in the hallways early in the morning. Those papers were motivational lines from movies or books or documentaries and at times rebelling quotes.

Students and the student committees named them live life to the fullest papers as the first papers that appeared had live life to the fullest without being wary of anyone written on them with huge fonts and were plastered all over the school.

The first time those appeared in the hallway, the student committee throw a fit trying to find out who was behind them, made a fuss for weeks before they gave up as there were no leads whatsoever. Turned out you can't stick any flyers or anything at all for that matter on the school properties and the vigilante or what the school called him, seemed like he knew the rules, but did it just to spite them. Or that is what I had assumed.

That morning, my schedule was to get to class early, finish another literature assignment then retire to the rooftop to get some morning sunlight before the students pour in the school gate and the once calm place turns into chaotic mess with unnatural high noises.

Catching my sight, his shoulders tensed and his eyes ran up and down my whole body in alarm trying to figure out who I really am through my hidden identity under my hood. Realizing I had no thoughts of removing my hood off my head, his eyes shifted to my bag to which I was strapping with one hand and then to my neck where my small koala necklace was hanging out on my chest.

Suddenly his tense shoulders flattened and breathed deeply as if he had been holding on to it for a while. “It is you.” he said in a voice that was strained yet calm.

I didn’t even know then those two combinations were possible before I sensed it in his voice. And the remark 'it is you' caught me more off guard. It is me? What is that supposed to mean? And then he simply smiled. His eyes turning crescent moon and a dimple flashing on his left cheek.

I shifted my sight to the paper in his hands and to the paper on the locker. It read "Let us dream". I looked up to him.

I didn't want to get involved. The last thing I wanted was for my parents to get called to the school because I was caught plastering some motivational flyers, but I couldn't hold back the comment that slipped out.

''No one cares."

"You do." his smile didn't leave his face.

I shook my head. I didn't. "I don't."

"It doesn't matter." he replied to a question I never asked. It seemed, for him the world wasn't dull yet. I without saying then just stared at him. He didn't ask or answer either.

I believe then was when he became my change too, but I never truly got around finding out.

HE smiled his tight smile again with his dimple showing before he brought his index finger to his lips. "Shhh..." he mimicked. His smile never disappearing from his face, he turned around and went out.

The next day, I saw him in class doodling on his notebook. As if he felt my stare he looked up and caught my gaze. Then looked down right away before looking up again this time around with his notebook raised. It wasn't a doodle HE was doing. It was a sketch, a sketch of our school rooftop.

I frowned.

It wasn’t just a sketch. His sketch wasn’t that of an amateur. It seemed like he knew what he was doing, as if he had done it before. Can you meet me there on lunch break? He had written on the bottom.

I looked to him. He was smiling. He raised his eye brows and pointed to the note.

I had to work on another literature assignment on lunch break before I retreated to the rooftop. It was my solace, the rooftop. But I didn’t want anyone there. Even though at that moment, I had felt that my comfort zone was broken.

I didn’t give him any answer. I simply turned my attention back to the teacher. But after a while feeling a stare, I turned back to him. As if he was waiting for me to look at him again, he raised his notebook right away when he caught my eyes.

I know you draw! He had written.

In disbelief I looked back to him.

If you want to know how I know, meet me on the roof top later on. I won’t keep you long. He wrote again. Needing to know how he knew I used to draw, I nodded.

I used to draw then. More of, I was a cartoonist. Like a webtoon. I used to upload on different sites and the response was quite good. I used to dream of becoming an artist. At least until I saw my boyfriend cheating on me with my best friend.

I didn’t stop then and there. I would draw and draw and it all ended up looking all similar. Dark. That wasn’t why I used to draw. That wasn’t my why. Seeing my works and only remembering that incident, I started hating it. I started drawing less and less until one day I had realized, I had stopped drawing at all. The only thing by then all I had was my imagination.

After a while, I took down my works from online and my dream of becoming an artist started fading away. Until HE mentioned it.

That afternoon, I completed my assignment and went up to the roof top. HE was already there with a pad in his hands.

“I am Edin. Big fan.” He beamed.

I didn’t know his name was Edin. Neither the fact I was someone with fans.

“I used to follow your works until you took them down.”

I used to upload with pen name and I had no information on my account about my real identity.

“When you took down your works last year, I was really disappointed. I always wanted to work with you so even though it may be considered a trespass, I sort of tracked down your IP address.”

 “Work with me?” I asked him. The trespassing didn’t even bother me compared to what he said.

“I am the president of the school media club” I didn’t know. “and I’m currently participating on the regional short film awards for those under 20 years old.”

I am sorry I told him then. That there was nothing I could do to help him. Yes, I used to draw but not anymore. Even though I saw no connection to the competition he was in with my drawing.

“Please.” HE begged. “I need a cartoonist. I am working on animation. I want to work on animation. I had already submitted my papers and I have already been approved to the competition. This is a rare opportunity and you don’t know what this means to me. This is my very first production that will be publicized officially and I don’t want to stop before I begin.”

I am not good enough, I told him again. That I hadn’t picked up a pencil in a year and my drawings are probably too dark for him.

“I know.” he said then. Now when I think about it that’s the moment I had decided to work with him.

“I need you.” he said. “I need that. I don’t know why your works were suddenly turned to angst but until the last moment you took them down, I had kept up with them. Now I don’t know the reason behind all that, but I want you and your everything on your drawing. I want to produce your work, not anyone else’s.”

We were eighteen. A beginner cartoonist. A beginner producer.

Four days later, I told him I can try but with no promises. Another unplanned event.

After that my life basically went upside down, at least that is what it felt like.

We had to meet twice a week to show what I worked on and every time he would just take the papers off my hand and smile. Even I knew they were not good. There were too many repetitive plots. I couldn’t create something new. Even with ideas that were provided to me, I would go around and around and draw something similar.

That wasn’t the only thing I had trouble with. There were a lot of unplanned meetings after school and I had the hardest time attending them knowing they were not in my schedule.

On top of everything, we had to submit the theme of the story by the end of the month and we had nothing. All I was creating was either too unrealistic and stiff something that can’t be saved or a cliché that was seen too far many times before. I was more than frustrated.

All I wanted was to go back to my imagination where nothing unpredictable happens. Where there is no such a thing as too unrealistic or a happy ending that didn’t have to satisfy everyone but me.

With just one week to go and no actual theme to submit, HE took me to an actual filming site that was located to near the beach from where we were living. Later on, very later on did I find out the fact his family were the owners of a big film production company. And that film HE made was to show them he has what it takes to enter the production industry.

Being on an actual filming site then was the first and last time. The shoot was delayed for around an hour and I was standing near the ocean feeling the wind and dipping my leg on the wet sand when HE told me,

“You can draw whatever you want to draw. You don’t constantly have to think about the fact you have to satisfy everyone. You can just create a world you want, a world you need like you used to do and people who can get in will get in there. You don’t have to worry about the fact it is too dark or similar. Draw what you feel. I want your emotions, I want you. The emotions you feel don’t have to be in category of right or wrong. There is no such a thing. Shame, regret, guilt, betrayal, isolation, dejection, panic and terror. Draw them. They are not dark for me. I want to see what you see, show me.”

Then I felt my heart skipping a beat.

After a week, we had submitted our theme.

While working on our project, I needed a constant inspiration. We all do. But in order to get it you need to be faced with new things. I never had those moments. For me I wanted the common things, the old habitual daily things. I didn’t have to continuously be on the lookout on what may occur on the day. I liked things that were predictable.

 I couldn’t create new things out of same old cycle and HE had to deal with that side of me. HE frequently had to make me come out of home even if I was always saying no. HE would send me pictures and videos when my persistence of staying home was stronger.

Like that we spent six months on the short film and submitted it. After two weeks we got a call back saying we didn’t get the first three ranks, but we won the popularity category that is Netizen’s favourite.”

“But that is not why I brought up this story.” I said through the microphone. “Why I wanted to bring up this story of mine is: I read somewhere, in life we all want the same thing. Happiness. While older people seem to think that lay in the past, the young thinks it is in the future. While working with him for almost seven months we had to spend a lot of hours together. At school, after school, weekends, breaks. Attractions and attachments come always with time. I knew he liked me.

At eighteen most of us have not figured what we want in life, but he had and he was living it. He was fighting the school and the curriculum we were under was too strictly academically, not based on what we have deep inside us buried, our natural gift. HE was working several jobs to fund what we needed on the short film. HE was working for his dreams. HE knew what he wanted out of life.

HE was also able to embrace the me who was stuck on my past. He never asked what made me what I was like back then. HE never once was frustrated with me even if I myself was mad at me for the silly mistakes I made.  HE simply would smile and say “Rain, I know you can do it!” before hugging me.

Even then, by eighteen when all we do is look forward to the future, I knew he was a guy I wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. Even then I knew what we had, what we could have had could have lasted forever but I was so stuck with my past, with the fact I wasn’t able to untangle the mess in my head when it comes to relationships, even when he gave me his hands to help me to stand up from the darkness I created around myself, even then I wasn’t able to go beyond myself.

I let situations, events, incidents that occurred way back define me and simply let HIM go.

Why I brought up this story amongst many things is kids, in life everything is unpredictable. Life throws a lot of curve balls and if you are always looking back, you won’t see it coming. It will knock you out. Then you will miss out a whole lot of other things after that.

Those seven months are one of the best memories I have in my life. Yes, I went through up and downs emotionally. Acceptance didn’t come for me on a straight path, for some of you it might not as well. But with him, I was happy. Perhaps, I realized that after but I was and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. All I want to say right now is, don’t obsess on the future it will come when it will and don’t get stuck on the past, that is not where you are living right now.”

Some of the students in the hall were smiling melancholy while some seemed like they were lost in their own past so I let the silence hang on for few seconds. Then on one corner, one student raised her hand.

I pointed to her giving her chance to ask what she had in mind.

“Thank you.” She smiled. “How would you describe your eighteen then?”

I don’t want to answer. Because I knew exactly how I would describe it.

Smiling, I inched towards the microphone, “Emotional turmoil.”

And I saw another student raising his hands before the microphone was passed to him.

“What is your favourite phrase?” he asked.

He bit his lips and held back a slight smile knowing the question was out of topic but I chose not to brush it off because if I am here as a guest lecturer and these theatrical art major students are here to listen to not only what I have to say about their subject matter but also life, I thought down the road in hopes it might even shine a dim light to the right path, “Wabi-Sabi.” I answered.

“It is Japanese.” I tried to clarify when I saw the confused expressions on their face. I didn’t make it any clearer, I realized, as the confusion cloud was still hovering on their face.

“It is a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

Another student raised her hand and the microphone was passed to her. She got up from her seat before asking, “You said you were more of a cartoonist. Even though I am glad as I am a big fan, what made you decide to focus on modern art then?”

“HE told me to create a world that I am comfortable with. After I entered campus, I did that. It turned out that world of mine is inside modern art.”

The student who had asked me the first question raised her hands.

“What happened to you and Edin then, Ms. Rain?”

I looked to her. We, Edin and I happening seems such a long time ago. Getting out of my reminiscing bubble, I answered.

“After winning the Netizen popularity award both of us got a scholarship. He went. He asked me to come with him. I declined. Instead I went across the country campus. I didn’t try to find him for a long time. When I finally got the courage to do so, I heard he was in Thailand teaching. After that I have never heard from him.”

 

 

 

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A/N

The first time I thought of this plot was on the first period in school. Senior year had started and rather than the reality of it, expectation had exceeded everything. But by the fourth month, it hits you. And I heard the word turmoil and then that is it. That is my next story I need to tell, I thought, but I wrote the preface and stopped. I had to focus on studies and all that crap, I wasn’t able to write anything until class was finished and exams were over.

Now six months after, I completed it. Short stories normally take a lot of time plotting because you have to put every thought in a given page or certain word count. But for this story I just couldn’t stop writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote and end up with close to 4500 words one shot. If it wasn’t now almost close to mid night and I wasn’t travelling the whole day I probably would have continued writing and wouldn’t have decided on ending it here. But Sheldon once said when you are sleepy or you have to go to toilet you make a better decision at that moment. Trusting that annoying brat I will leave it here.

Writing Rain was one of the hardest times I had. She seemed like me yet she didn’t seem like me. She was ambiguous, lost yet the older version of her knew what she needs to know so drawing both of her was tricky. I think at times we all just want to live in the past. That is what all Rain wanted to do even though she didn’t know until she missed out on someone who may or may not be her life partner, the love of her life. For Rain it was someone, love, for others it is perhaps a career, once in a lifetime opportunity and for some others it could be the definition of who they are.

Well it’s like that saying. It is good to go back to the past once in a while and reminisce, just don’t pack your bags and move there.