Songs to Get Over You (Playlist #2) Read online

  “Were you waiting in the wings?”

  Miki answered Kim’s wry, taunting smile with a bark of a laugh. But inside, he wanted to cry. Kim could mope all he wanted, but he had the easier end of the moving on scenario. He had loved the girl, and had been loved by the girl until love wasn’t enough anymore.

  It’s harder to get over someone who was never really yours. You see that person smiling and it breaks your heart two-fold. Once because seeing her happy makes you happy. The second time because you know she’s oblivious to how you feel. And it hits you that you are suffering alone, while basking in her warm light, and it makes it all the more difficult to ignore the pinpricks of pain on your fissured heart.

  “Well you’ve got Ana now,” Kim was saying. “So I’m not worried about you either.”

  “Yeah.”

  Miki must have been silent for too long after that. Or he stretched the word out on his lips for too long. In any case, Kim had turned his head, squinting at him. He heaved out a breath that came from the pit of his stomach. Kim had a tendency to be intuitive, and also to be quite melodramatic.

  “Mikhail.” Kim tore through his hair in frustration, his grim mind probably concocting the worst. “What did you do?”

  Miki dared not look at him. The concrete between his sneakers and the baby cockroach crawling up the sidewalk offered a better view. “About Ana…”

  May 29, Friday, night

  The guy on the screen was rambling while his best friend focused on wolfing down his bacon. He must have been saying something relevant to the plot of this movie; he was the lead guy after all. But the actor had grown a thick sandpaper beard to match his stringy hair that he kept raking away with his hand. And Miki was distracted.

  Ana was leaning forward in her chair beside him, a cluster of wasabi-cheddar popcorn frozen in her mouth. Her palm was cupping her chin, eyes intent on the screen. At least one of them was enjoying the price of admission. There was a smidgen of salt dangling on the corner of her lip. Heaven, make me understand why girls bother with lip gloss, he thought as his thumb moved to de-salt her skin.

  Ana’s head jerked towards him, but her lips curved into a smile under his thumb.

  “Sorry,” Miki muttered, a little too loudly. He moved his hand back to the safety of his lap. “Salt.”

  Ana’s eyes seemed to be laughing. She thrust the popcorn bag at him. “So I can return the favor,” she murmured.

  Miki’s mouth inched into a small smile, glad that the darkness of the movie theater hid his rising blush. He took a large scoop of the greasy fluffs of popcorn just as his phone vibrated in his pocket. Finally. He stuffed the popcorn into his mouth and chewed as he read Jill’s reply, exactly thirty-two minutes since his last text.

  “Where are you?” Miki texted back.

  “Airport.”

  “What time is your flight?”

  “Wait. Immigration.”

  Two minutes. Four.

  “Done with immigration?”

  “Yes but now running to”

  Jill had left the text hanging, which Miki thought could only mean she was sprinting to the gate to catch her flight. Miki blamed Shinta. Wasn’t he usually prompt to the last minute? He probably exhausted the final second of Jill’s company before he drove her to the airport, or maybe they were mauled by his rabid fans at the terminal. In any case, he was sure it was Shinta’s fault that Jill was running to meet her boarding time, and if—worst case scenario—she missed her plane.

  Miki growled under his breath. I’m on to you, you selfish god of a human.

  Ana turned to him again. Apparently, Miki didn’t just make that sound in his head.

  “You’re not liking like this movie very much, are you?” she whispered.

  “Ah no, it’s not that,” he muttered, plunging his phone into the depths of his jeans pocket. He gestured at the screen with pursed lips. “I think that guy is a jerk.”

  “He is,” Ana agreed. She took the popcorn bag from Miki and dunked her hand in for another handful, her attention back on the big screen.

  Miki pulled his phone out again, placing his faith on auto-correct as he typed in the dark. “Did you make it? What time do you land?”

  His phone lay still in his hand for an entire scene and a half of the movie. In his mind, Miki was already strangling Shinta Mori.

  The phone’s vibration tickled his thigh.

  “Made it,” read Jill’s text. Miki released a sigh through gritted teeth. “Never again am I going to let myself be escorted to the departure area by a frigging celebrity. Girls screaming everywhere.”

  So it was the rabid fans after all. Miki scowled, thinking she should have known better, and he told her so.

  “Answer my question, woman!” he demanded next. “What time does your plane land?”

  “Will be back in Manila by the time you wake up from your cranky mood. Sheesh. Plane is taxiing. Have to go. Later.”

  Miki glared at her message until the screen blinked off, the phone in his hand melting into the darkness.

  He wasn’t being cranky. He was just being a friend. Wasn’t it normal to ask for the details of a friend’s flight? Wasn’t it normal to want to pick up a friend from the airport? To make sure she doesn’t get harassed by a lawless taxi driver? Especially since he had not seen and had hardly spoken to said friend for a week now?

  Not when you’re on a date, you idiot. Nino’s voice in his head called him out. Miki ignored it, the same way he ignored Nino when he spoke the words to him—albeit a longer, more aggressive version—earlier today. Since his breakup with Suze, Nino had been running around like he knew every life hack in love. As if having been in a failed relationship and living to tell the tale made him a relationship expert.

  Miki told Nino that wasn’t really the way expertise worked, but Nino swatted the argument away like an irksome fly. And now Miki was left with Nino’s words circling inside his head. He sunk deep into his seat, thinking his intentions to pick up Jill from the airport were perfectly justified, thank you very much.

  “So the lead guy just died,” Ana said, her breath on his ear.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, a guy with an electric axe came and sliced his head off, and his limbs too for good measure in case he could resurrect. Now the girl is crying because she just found out about the morbid death of her one true love.”

  Miki stared in horror at the screen. True enough, the girl was sniffing, tears flooding down her cheeks, her pretty head on the shoulder of another girl that Miki assumed was her best friend. Wasn’t this supposed to be some light, girly movie? The pink cursive font on the movie poster was cruelly misleading.

  He turned to Ana as the cogs in his brain started working.

  “Maybe a horror movie next time?” she said as realization dawned on his face. “It seems that would keep your attention for much longer.”

  Miki wanted to punch his own face in. “I’m sorry Ana, I—”

  Ana reached over and squeezed his hand, then shushed him as she returned her attention to the movie. The lead guy was not beheaded after all, his now clean, shaven face reappearing on the screen. The girl had stopped crying.

  Miki’s heart took its slow time to skip a beat at Ana’s touch. Her hand was cold; no surprise there as the theater was built like an icebox. He thought about his own numbing hands as his head registered her words, the promise of next time. He wondered if linking his fingers with Ana’s would make them both feel warmer.

  Ana shifted closer and dipped her head to fit between his chin and his shoulder.

  Miki sighed as his heart stuttered to an uneven beat. Ana’s arm was snug against his, but he decided against taking her hand. For one, recent history would show he didn’t deserve it.

  Their first “date” constituted of him meeting up with her at Commute Bar. It was bad enough that Miki didn’t even offer to pick her up, that he only gave her directions, and those directions led her to an old, cramped watering hole tucked in the hidden recesses o
f Makati’s residential area. A place drowning in noise and feedback and filled to the brim with yuppies drunk on cheap beer. Miki offered Ana no semblance of privacy, making her share a table with his bandmates, only to leave her there to chase after Jill.

  But Jill needed me. He said the words in his brain as if he were still defending himself to Nino. That was the night Kim had brought a date to the bar, and Jill had sat there looking like she was trying very hard not to cry, or vomit. She soon ran off and did both. What kind of friend would Miki be if he hadn’t gone after her?

  Besides, Miki didn’t even know that night counted as his first date with Ana.

  Anyway, he tried to make up for that. Their second date was a bit better. She had insisted it was still his choice, and so he took her to The Mind Museum at Fort Bonifacio. He figured she might as well find out the extent of his dorkiness while she could still run away.

  Ana was thrilled though. Her favorite part was lying down in that small, cramped, dome-shaped tent in the dark, surrounded by noisy children, watching the short clip of stars imploding to be the universe as the world knew it. Miki liked that show too, but the sight of stars reminded him of someone else.

  “One day, very, very soon, I am going to punch some sense into you,” Nino had said when Miki made the mistake of sharing. Nino did look like he meant it.

  Miki grunted, shifting his weight on his lumpy seat. The shoulder of his shirt felt hot and wet, and he realized Ana was crying. Oh dear Lord, what is happening? He had been staring at the same scene, but apparently Ana was seeing something worth sobbing over.

  This third date was Ana’s idea, obviously, and Miki was happy to go along. He had been to enough romantic comedies with Jill; those outings had built his endurance to chick flicks. Still, he never knew what to do when girls cried over fictional beings.

  “There, there,” he muttered, patting Ana’s arm.

  Ana’s throaty laugh mixed with a quick sniff as the screen faded to black. She sat up, her cheek parting from his shoulder, her gaze intent on the rolling credits. When the lights flicked back on, she turned a sober gaze to Miki. “What a crappy movie.”

  “What?”

  Ana was pulling out wads of tissue from her bag. “How could they go through all of that and not end up together?” she huffed, dabbing at her face and throwing the soiled tissue back into her bag. “I want a refund.”

  Miki was at the dangling end of confused. “I thought you liked it,” he stammered. “Don’t girls cry when they like the movie?”

  “Oh, look at you, knowing some things about life.” Ana grinned, but she was not done ranting. “I was crying because the ending was horrible,” she said, wringing her hands. “There the guy was, coming back to the girl as a changed man, and really trying his damnest for her. And she couldn’t let it go and take him back. What kind of message are they sending out to the world? That love is just as real as Santa? Yup, crappy movie.”

  Miki shot her a panicked look. Their theater seat neighbors were starting to stare at them. “Let’s get out of here before you start throwing rocks.”

  Ana laughed. “Yeah, we should.”

  She took his hand just as easily as she gripped the strap of her bag, leading the way out the theater, past other disgruntled moviegoers. Miki stared at the simple knot of their fingers. He really thought he needed rocket science to get there.

  “At least you managed to stay awake,” Ana said as they inched their way through the thick crowd.

  Miki had suggested they catch the movie at this mall as it was usually spared from the after-office mob, even on Friday nights. But tonight seemed to be the exception. It looked like a lot of people were also there to see the crappy movie.

  He shot Ana a sheepish look. “I’m normally good company in these kinds of movies, trust me.”

  “What’s not normal about tonight then?”

  How to say he was thinking about another girl while on a date without sounding like an ass? Mumbling was usually good recourse. “Jillisflyingback.”

  Ana’s eyebrows flew up her forehead, but her eyes seemed to be laughing at him again. “Ah. She’s been in Japan right? How long has she been gone?”

  “A week.” Seven days and about two hours. And counting.

  “I looked up her boyfriend’s name on the Internet,” Ana went on. “I’m not that familiar with Japanese cinema. But Shinta Mori is … I mean, just. Wow. You go, girl.”

  “Yeah, that would be him.” Miki worked his jaw to release the next words, deciding to plow on. “Anyway, Jill is being difficult as usual. Won’t tell me something as simple as her time of arrival.”

  “Well a Tokyo flight is about four hours. If you know what time her plane left, your huge brain can figure out the rest.” Ana’s fingers squeezed his. She slid in front of him, walking backwards so she could hold his gaze.

  “Um. What are you doing?”

  “My huge brain, on the other hand,” Ana cut him off with a small smile, continuing her backward stroll, “is telling me you’d like to take me home now.”

  The crowd was pressing around them, shoulder upon shoulder bumping into Miki on either side. He wondered if Ana felt the clamminess spreading down his fingers, but there was nowhere to look now but into her frank brown eyes.

  “Yes.” Miki sighed. “But not because the movie is crappy.”

  “No, of course not. It’s not the movie, it’s you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not even past my curfew yet.” Ana punched his shoulder with a light fist. “I thought we’d be lawless tonight!”

  Miki wished she had hit him harder. Nino would have been glad. “I’m really sorry.”

  Ana continued her backward walk, leading him out of a corridor and down a wider hall. The crowd had thinned. Now they just looked like two weird kids walking like drunks. Or two kids in love who couldn’t take their eyes off each other so they were walking around like drunks. Miki wished for either situation to be his reality, right about now.

  “Anything else you’d like to say?” Ana prodded.

  “You have a very smart brain.”

  “Why, thank you.” She bowed. “But flattery won’t get you to the airport on time.”

  Miki’s free fingers moved to grip the phone in his pocket like a convulsion. His walk slowed to a crawl, the fingers on his other hand slackening around Ana’s. He could hardly meet her gaze. It was their third date and he was already past the apology quota.

  He racked his brain for something to say. Something that wasn’t, ‘I’ll call you’, or ‘I will make it up to you next time’, because he wasn’t sure he would do either. Three dates with Ana with Jill on his mind. Plus, he was long past the jerk quota.

  So he chose honesty, or some semblance of it. “I don’t think I can make it to the horror movie after all.”

  Ana pulled his hand, bringing them to a halt. A disgruntled “watch it!” came from the guy walking behind them, but Miki ignored him. The least he could do was look at Ana now.

  She had let go of his hand, but her gaze demanded that he not look away. Her fingers were gentle, though her touch cold when she cupped his face in her hand.

  “That’s too bad,” Ana murmured as her lips burned a soft mark on his cheek. “And here I thought you were getting better at dating me.”

  September 8, Tuesday, midnight

  “You imbecile.”

  Okay, that was harsh, even from Kim.

  “What?” Miki cried foul, regretting his honesty all over again.

  “Jill didn’t even ask you to pick her up.”

  Kim was so sure when he said it, his eyebrows raised in what Miki read as a taunt. His defenses sounded the alarm.

  “How do you know?” Miki burst out.

  Kim shook his head, looking like he wanted to start laughing at Miki. “She hardly ever asked me to pick her up. And that was when she was still commuting, long before she got the Beetle,” he explained like how he would to a child. “She said it made her feel like she
was being herded.”

  Miki could pretend he didn’t know, but he’d heard the same speech from Jill before. “Such a weird girl,” he conceded.

  The corners of Kim’s mouth tilted into a small smile. Miki allowed him an extended moment to stare wistfully at the brick building across from them. Then Kim shook his head again and turned to Miki with a glare.

  “Anyway. You, boy. And Ana.”

  “Ana.” Miki said her name like a sigh. He had not seen Ana since that third date that ranked among the Worst Dates in Contemporary Times (Son’s very certain proclamation, seconded by Nino). He had driven her home as he knew he should before he rushed to the airport, and he had texted her, because he hated thinking that she might hate him. Though that firm kiss on his cheek told a nicer story.

  She was nice in her replies to him too, and she was nice on the phone when Miki sometimes called her in the days and weeks that followed. Her whole, vibrant voice reminded Miki of her eyes that laughed (at him?), of the curve of her lips when she smiled, of the coolness of her fingers and the heat of her kiss when they last touched his cheek.

  I like her. The thought arrested Miki’s brain many times over. He closed his eyes, startled at how easy it was to see Ana’s face in his mind’s eye. It was like the vivid image was just waiting for him to call it out. Maybe he should have cashed in on her next time, be it a horror movie or not. But he just kept thinking he messed things up with Ana quite early on.

  He opened his eyes to see Kim shooting him a suspicious look. Miki realized he was smiling, and humming.

  “What was that?” Kim demanded.

  “Nothing. Enough about me.” Miki tapped his temple with his fist, shaking the image off. He thought he saw it tuck itself in a corner of his mind, together with other happy thoughts. “What happened to your new girl?”

  Kim took a while, as if he was trying to remember, before he smirked. “Common nouns for people? You’ve been hanging around Jill too much, you know, if you’re catching her social deficiencies.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just hard to remember a stranger’s name when I’m in full view of the color draining out of your ex-girlfriend’s face.”