We were both eighteen, gangly, still growing into our bodies. He had braces, I had frizzy hair and never gotten my brows threaded before, but we jabbed back and forth as we entered college together. It was funny, picking on each other, the teasing. We were the only ones in our group that shared a science class together and he jokingly said he was glad to have somebody to copy notes off of. He never brought pens to class. I always had one for him.
It was lunches together, him studying for science with my notes as he taught me math. The rest of our group noticed how close we were but it was always brushed off. We both had crushes on other people. We harvested the details of each other’s crushes so intimately, planning next moves and strategies for each other. “You should sit closer to him in class,” he told me. “I already sit beside him,” I told him. “No, I mean move your chair closer.”
We spoke every day. When we weren’t in class together, we were chatting away on Messenger. Memes, kwento, all-caps laughter. Our inside jokes ranged from our favorite cafeteria food to how I never wore pants to school to how I was a pest–but I knew he secretly enjoyed how much I texted (he told me this later). In class, we’d keep tabs on who earned the most “points” and who’d win for the day. “I got 200 points today,” I’d declare after reciting and he’d just make a face at me. “I win.” When I got home, my phone would ping with a message from him, challenging those points.
When my grandfather died, he found me slumped over the table alone. He leaned over, tried to make a joke, but stopped himself mid-sentence. “Are you okay?” He asked, taking his usual seat in the study hall beside me. I burst into tears and he touched my hair as he comforted me.
I loved being near him. Hovering around, prodding, poking, asking. It made us both laugh, how he’d feign anger while trying to stop himself from smiling. “Leave me alone!” He’d say and then trail after me anyway as we made our way to our next class beside each other, falling in-step with an ease that I’d never felt before.
Our first semester ended and we no longer had science together. I’d been stuck in a different schedule altogether. But still, we found ways to see each other. I gravitated towards him naturally, beginnings and ends of days spent talking. It was then I started to think about how little I spoke to my actual “crush” and how much more I was looking forward to speaking to him. He saved me seats. I would watch his stuff as he napped in the library. He walked with me to my classes. I befriended his dogs. He’d drive me to Jollibee dinners. I’d buy him extra fries. He hated his birthday. But I remembered it every year. We did pinky promises.
I’d had countless crushes in the past. Intense, passing, all kinds. But it always felt like a surge of heat in the body, not this slow, swirling warmth. I didn’t want to place it and our first year of college eclipsed with us joining different organisations at school. I thought about him all summer, the way he had to get his hair cut, the size of his hands when I’d draw on them, his beat-up Converse shoes. Dread pooled in my stomach at how he still looked for me despite the break because I’d finally placed it after a little less than a year: I had fallen for him.
When second year began, we were both busier with our organizations and clubs. Still, we insisted we eat and study together whenever we could. Â I sought him out or he’d wait for me and I slowly grew more and more mindful of how we touched. If he put his arm on my back while pulling me to the side as someone was meeting us in the hallway or how I’d hug him instinctively. I grew awkward and jumbled and he laughed at how weird I was being, my ease giving way to anxiety that I’d been reading everything wrong.
I knew I had to tell him. So I went looking for him after his class one day, knowing how he liked to linger in campus for a bit before heading home. He was long gone by the time I arrived at the hallway. I thought it strange but decided it could wait until the week after–knowing I’d waited a year, a weekend wouldn’t make much difference.
On Monday, our friends were patting him on the back and he was smiling so big, I thought his teeth would pop out. I slowed my steps, hands on my backpack, heart thundering against my ribcage. “Congrats, dude,” they said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I knew she’d say yes.”
I became fast friends with his girlfriend. She was sweet and kind and I loved her, treasured her friendship. They held hands, he would text her when we were together, after class, he’d go pick her up. He let her celebrate his birthday with him. I felt something shrivel inside me. But still, the way he smiled when she was around only ever made me happy. I buried my feelings with all my might until I felt it suffocate me. I stopped drawing on his hands. I drew imaginary lines between us instead. To this day, I still call that girlfriend my friend.
I moved forward, crushed on the same type of guy, was hurt every time. And he knew all of them, could name them all, write down their names and how I met them. Sometimes, when I wasn’t careful, we would slip into that same ease. Nights out with friends and bottles of beer always helped, too. I would still pull him aside to cry. And he would still hug me all the same. I made it all up in my head, I convinced myself. So I forged ahead.
When I started to get serious with someone, he broke up with his girlfriend. And when that person left me, there was this middle ground where we were both not seeing anybody. It felt like we were tiptoeing, both of us now a little older, about to  enter senior year. Very different from what we were like as freshmen. He was more confident, liked to make people laugh. Had new shoes. I carried myself with a lightness. We’d diverged a little, pursuing different interests, but I always found myself back beside him, commenting on how far we’d made it.
Bottles of beer littered the table top that night on a clear-skied farm in Batangas. A blush of dew began to shimmer in the grass as we sat side by side on a swing, watching our organization members frolic and laugh, too drunk and too happy. It was a wordless agreement to sit with one another, him laughing with his stomach as someone dropped into the pool. My eyes were bleary, body wilting into the blur between late night and early morning, mouth numb from alcohol and joy.
I felt barely anything aside from the cool swing chains and the damp grass under my bare feet. I leaned back, sighed, feeling the breath swirl out of me in a boozy cloud. My alcohol-brain decided that, you know what, there was no better time than now under a spray of stars and the buzz of vodka.
“Hey,” I started. “This might sound dumb but in freshman year, I was in love with you.” I didn’t look at him, felt my heart in my throat, the bruises on my palm the next morning a testament to how I’d gripped the chains much too hard.
We both sat still. I felt the cold claw into my center. I didn’t know what possessed me to admit it and it washed over me in this gurgling onset of sudden self-rage. Why had I said anything?
“I didn’t know that,” he said quietly, taking a swig. Then he laughed his bright laugh. “Truth is, I was in love with you, too.”
Under a handful of constellations, I burst into tears. He promised to always be at the swing set with me. Pinky promised.
He went on to graduate before me. His new girlfriend is a good friend of mine, smart, beautiful, perfect for him. They’ve been together almost four years now, and every time they celebrate their anniversary, I chime in with a greeting. We drifted apart as I finished school and he went on to work. I missed him, but didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. Sometimes I still don’t. He had grown up. And I felt trapped in a place where I’d never be as grown-up as him. Still, when another man left me broken two years ago, he sat with me in Mini Stop to tell me I didn’t deserve to be hurt like that. And the only thing I could think was you never hurt me like that.
When we speak, I smile, think of how he used to look with uneven glasses and a metal-mouth. Of how close we were. Sometimes I push for it, other times I retract. But I know it’s long-gone. When I think of that swing set, I feel younger, emboldened by alcohol. Like I was somehow more whole back then, more worthy. And I wish, on late, starless nights, I could return to that.
A mutual friend I’d told the swing story to said that one day, in a weird way, we’d get married. And I shook my head, no. I said, “I want him to be happy.” He said, “What if you make him happy?” And I said, “I don’t anymore” with a finality and wisdom that I felt echo years into the far-flung future. We were too different. We’d paved an opportunity and lost it. He was happier now with different friends, his girlfriend (who I sincerely hope he’ll be with forever), and the life he has. And even if I’m painted in the background of his life now, I’m grateful to still be there. I’ll never marry him simply because the time has come and gone. But to have had that time at all has been more than enough.
“But it’s okay,” I told my friend. Because in my mind there will always be a swing set, a set of braces, beat-up shoes, a bottle of beer, and a pinky promise. Sometimes I dream I’m alone at the swing, waiting. And he arrives, smiling knowingly, with a joy about him I have felt flood my senses for an entire lifetime. All I say to him is “thank you.”
