DEAR ASTERIA, BY AVAH.

Asteria,

Meeting you was by chance, really. I haven't really thought of a decent school to transfer in, but Santiago Univ was clearly last of the list—I could have been in Ateneo, FEU, PUP, or even University of the East, in Caloocan, but I chose Santiago Univ because there was a certain pull to that place—that pull, turns out, is you.

Asteria, you would still continue to be my first love. Ikaw kaya ang origin ng gay awakening ko, and not because lagi kong kasama sila Eli at Andrea at the time (may sarili din naman silang mundo), it was because I had admired your beauty too much that it turned to be a little crush, then I got to know you, and it became something more—ang mali ko lang is hinayaan ko yung feelings ko na yon na lumago, because I thought that we had a chance. I thought that like every fairytale, like the stories I hear about gay people in the Univ, I thought na like Eli and Andy, we would get to be together, pero hindi. You only saw me as a younger sister lang pala at the time, and I knew by the time you told me that na I was the only one giving meaning to everything.

Nevertheless, fifteen years were wasted. You were still the center of my orbit, still the one my heart yearns for, but oddly enough I didn't feel like my soul was yearning for something until Azie came around—that made my yearning heart irrelevant, because the moment I met her, I forgot about all of you. About your feelings, about your voice, about the actions that had made me fall in love with you in the first place, nakalimutan ko lahat yon. Funny how you had dulled when she had come around—how she is now the most beautiful person in my eyes, when it was formerly you.

Sa susunod na buhay siguro, we would be given a chance. Or none at all, for we may never even meet. But in this life, you would forever be my first love, you would be the love I had failed to achieve, the love that had given me the chance to find that person that had completed me so effortlessly, the love that I had already closed a chapter on.

May you be happy with James. Seriously, uupakan namin siya nila Andy and Adrian, and even Zy or Eli might also give punches, and I'll take care of the lawsuit he might give us.

I wish you happiness, Asteria. Til next time.

-Avah.

P.S. Keep the business card, not because I know that you're in love with me (kinda conceited, I know), but if all goes to with you and James, I'll represent you in court, don't worry.