Love Letter

“Yieeeehhh!”

Zai-zai and Merry shrieked, jumping while holding each other’s hands, when Airi told them what happened early that morning. Jiro allowed her to go out with her friends, reminding her that he would pick her up after work.

“It feels weird,” she said. “He seemed cold and professional when you were with us. But when it was just the two of us, he was the same old Jiro I knew from high school.”

The two exchanged meaningful glances at each other. And that didn’t go overlooked. Airi noticed that. ‘What are those glances for?’

She kept typing until Zai-zai approached her from behind and said, “Do you think he has already remembered the girl he wants to remember?”

She shrugged. “You know what, I really feel that his amnesia is all a sham. He’s just doing it to torment me.”

“Or maybe he’s doing it to get closer to you again,” Merry said. “You’re one step away from healing.”

**

It was the fifth of February, in our math class. I sat with my seatmate Jaypee and chatted. But I was just doing that to distract myself. The truth was, I was calming the butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t know if my plan would work.

I couldn’t stop glancing at the door, checking if the girl I admired was already in the room. My heart just wouldn’t stop beating erratically.

“Calm down, dude,” Jaypee said. “I’ll let you know once she’s here.”

“Do you think this will work?” I asked. My hands were as cold as ice. I really couldn’t think about how she would react to what I would do. She had always been aloof despite my conspicuous and deliberate expression of my feelings for her.

Who would’ve thought that getting all the attention from the other girls could be frustrating, especially when you couldn’t be your favorite girl’s cup of tea?

Sometimes, I even loathed looking at the mirror. It made me hate myself, thinking I was not that attractive for her. She had never stared at me with admiration. Her eyes were always fixated on whatever book she was reading. It might sound stupid, but there were times when I wished I were the books she read. I even got green-eyed with the books she held, wishing those were my hands!

In fact, there was a time I got so jealous of her books that I ordered our school library’s temporary closure “for renovation” just so she couldn’t go there to spend time reading books. Unfortunately, that plan failed. She started bringing her books, reading them under the shades of mabolo trees.

“It’s for you to find out.” Jaypee’s teasing grin almost annoyed me. Then he whispered, “Here they come.”

I momentarily froze. My mind went blank. “How do I give it to her?” I asked Jaypee, shaking as I held the letter I wrote for her.

“Leave it to me.”

I exhaled like doing so could lessen the tension I felt. I wrote a specific song’s lyrics in the letter, hoping she could get the message. Well, she was intelligent; she would definitely get it.

Our math teacher discussed that day’s lesson and excused herself afterwards as the principal called for her.

When our teacher stepped out of the room, Jaypee took the letter from me. Hearing the soles of his shoes tapping on the floor with every step drummed my chest.

“Jiro wants you to have this,” Jaypee said. I could hear him from our seat. I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t dare to take a look.

In no time, Jaypee was back, taking his seat. “She accepted it,” he whispered.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Nothing. She just took it.” He chuckled. “Nervousness was all over her face. She squinted her chinky eyes in confusion, and her lips turned pale.”

My heart sank when I realized I might’ve made her feel uncomfortable. But I wrote the second letter anyway… still shaking. I gave it to Jaypee afterwards.

I couldn’t wait for him to return, so I looked behind me to check what was going on. And what I saw broke my heart in two. I didn’t even know what to feel. I was torn between feeling broken and angry.

The girl I loved crumpled the letter—my letter—that Jaypee gave to her.

“Impressive! ” Jiro let go of the mouse after reading the chapter Airi wrote that day. “You wrote it as if you were there. As if you were the girl who I gave the letter to.”

Airi averted his thawing gaze. “I—I kind of had a similar experience when I was in second-year high school.”

“What a coincidence! ” He stood up, still lovingly staring at her. He leaned forward and whispered to her, “This scene also happened when I was a sophomore.”

She took a few steps backward and forced a smile to hide her nervousness. “Although you want the book to be in first-person POV, I think it would be better if we had the female protagonist’s point of view as well.”

He gave her a quizzical look.

She didn’t wait for his verbal response and continued. “Don’t you want to know what could’ve been her reaction? ” She teased and was happy she did because of the sudden switch in his expression. His cold, trying-hard-to-be-stiff demeanor melted when his cheeks turned light red. Seeing his reaction justified her hunch that he might’ve indeed been faking his memory loss.

“I—it’s up to you,” he said, stuttering. “I think it’s okay.”

“That’s just for a dramatic effect. Since we have the same experience, I’ll just add mine. It will be more relatable for the readers since it’s a retelling from a personal experience.”

Of course, it was a lie. She knew she was the girl he was trying to remember. She just made that as a reason to explain herself and low-key tell him what she really felt back then. For some reason she felt the urge to protect herself from being misinterpreted.

“Should I add that there was also a Valentine’s Day fair on campus the day you tried to confess? ” she asked. And that question stunned him in a nice way.

“What made you think that there was a school fair?” he asked, after he had recovered from shock.

“It took place in February. Most schools have activities like that. They even have the junior and senior prom, right? ”

“Sure.” His expression darkened once more. “Add that I paid for the chain and marriage booth, but she ditched me.”

That answer felt like a slap on her face, urging her to indeed explain her side in the next chapter of the novel.