It was a lazy Tuesday afternoon. At least for me, it felt like a Tuesday. One of those Tuesdays. The sun was struggling to stay up, but dusk was already pushing its way over the orange horizon. I could see its majestic red rays peep from the gray clouds above the city skyline. I look back inside the room where I was sitting on my working desk, anxiously waiting for 5 o'clock. There you are, seated across where I am, busily writing something with your fountain pen on sheets of loose white paper. Your forehead almost kissing the ink, I could see from behind your rimless glasses that your eyes were glinting with whatever you were writing. Or were you sketching? I didn't really bother. I wanted to offer to turn the room lights on for you since you looked really pathetic while forcing each blot on the now messy canvas. But I didn't. I just wanted the darkness to force you in turn to finally stand up and tell me you've had enough. For the day, at least. I don't even know why I'm waiting for you, aside from the fact that it's only the two of us left in that cramped office, aside from the decade-old tables and dust-covered swivel chairs. Always been the case --- we go home later than the others do. But for some reason, I've always looked forward to get off at 5 o'clock with you.
It was still sunnier from outside the building than I thought. In the city where we live and work, there aren't really much residents, and walking to and from our apartments was more of a given rather than a choice. That afternoon was perfect for a slow walk. As we started heading right along the pavement, I could see a lot of people were still strolling around. The minute we crossed the street, you stepped forward to get ahead from where I was standing. You looked back at me with an almost inconspicuous smile and asked, "Tara?" I just hate it when you do that. Not your smile of course, but the fact that I know that it simply means you're inviting me to hurry up and jog our way to the streets before the gray skies totally consume the red lights of the skyline. I didn’t tell you of course, but you just spoiled my walk-in-the-park dream that afternoon. But I am powerless. All I know is that your energy's inevitably viral that when you start running, I end up just running too --- even though I always fear my heartbeat's going to suffer at some point. I let our distance widen by a few meters. It is just then that I noticed you actually looked prettier than usual that day --- your short hair let down, resting on the plain white sleeveless knee-length dress, in full contrast against your favorite dirty black Chucks. I have always envied your sense of style. How can you wear something like that with such effortless confidence? "Artist ka nga," I smilingly thought to myself. To put a halt to my envious admiration I just tried to run faster to close our gap.
As soon as I caught up with your pace, tremendously catching my breath by the way, you abruptly stopped and picked up your phone from the right pocket of your white dress. I never got used to listening to people's conversations over the phone so I brought my eyes to linger on top of the buildings, watching the city birds do their last V-shaped formation above us before calling it a day. Slipping back your phone inside your pocket, you just said "Si Sharon. I have to go." Oh, Sharon. I thought to myself. Sharon also worked in the same company where we used to. I met her two years before we actually met, remember? Without even looking at me, you started heading forward. Actually, you started running. Again. But I didn’t ask why --- and you didn’t stop me from following you either. We ran at a pace that has always been familiar to us, racing against the last drops of red shimmers across the gray skies. I don't even know where we're running to, but all I know is that we're not going back. At the sound of every hurried step that we took against the concrete pavement, we just know. #
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