The Golden Age Of Puppy Love (First Part)

The months rolled by without us ever feeling its passing. It was the middle of February and Valentines was fast approaching. Her arrival was never expected. After years of trial and error - and then finally accepting that I'd never have a girlfriend before leaving the university, my first relationship would turn out to be with a best friend.

A best friend.

But the Faculty thought ours was a mere publicity stunt. She belonged to a rival alliance of political parties while I was a Secretary General of the ruling party. Our affiliates welcomed the untimely union with hushed sighs. The student council elections will be held in a month and elders like us were needed by the party to herd their younger members. There was no time to fall in love. Though words of protestations never fell on our sensitive ears, our guts tell that to be seen in public - together - was a security risk. Each party keeps a hidden agenda to sway the undecided voters, and they feared it might be leaked - carelessly - to its arch-rival through our cheesy encounters.

Meanwhile, the class saw us as a celebrity couple. I was their class president, while she ran for office as a society president and got lost. You see, she never got a single vote from the seniors - not even from me. Her rival was more credible and the person behind her coalition reeked of dishonesty. Had I known the depth of distrust my class felt against their leader, I would have urged her to run for the vice-presidency instead. But it was too late. Hurtful words flew as one of their intoxicated candidate laid unconscious in the emergency room. Divisions among classmates were settled, but the verbal clash triggered our month-long bitter feud.

The events of that night happened three months before we became us.

The love-hate relationship with my best friend was well documented, annotated and sometimes even recycled to feed the starving grapevine. With her conniving bff covering our tracks, the distinguished members of the rumor mill (which were all loveless) deciphered our every move as a milestone leading to a "development." It meant that the movie hang-outs we did during summer were seen as dates, the harmless telebabad nights (including a week she allayed my fears after blasting Miriam Defensor Santiago on a smut tabloid) as hints of extraordinary closeness, and my visits to her house in Lagro being an obvious crossing of the line. The news spreading around didn't alarm me. My tropa didn't even believe I was capable of such moves, but she got affected by our growing attachment. The more I showed sweetness, the more she paid attention to my needs. We were sending text messages to each other - as friends - but I never thought she will see every word I said laced with meanings. Now that I truly understand what happened, it was peer pressure which lead to our first confrontation.

The events were too embarrassing to recall, but this is what I remember. We were in a beach resort in Cavite for a faculty-sponsored leadership training. She thought I wouldn't come, but last minute changes meant a replacement of political party representatives. Her eyes glowed the moment she saw me. Despite the overcast skies, her entire afternoon was full of sunshine. When evening came, she thought we would have our time together. But I had other plans. I went to the leadership training to do business. Ignoring her became the burning fuse that would lead to her growing frustration.

I remember being excused from the dinner table; the meeting on the beach; the sudden drizzle which forced us to find shelter under the awnings of a cottage; the pitch black horizon; the madness in the clouds; the furious waves ravaging the shore; and a council meeting being held in the clubhouse while we were arguing about the future of our friendship.

"Eh kung sa tingin mo eh higit pa tayo sa mag-kaibigan, eh ano tayo?" She asked in a crackled voice.

"Hindi ko alam..." I was confused. Truth was, my feelings for her never went beyond friendship.

She decided not to push the issue further. After briefly holding each other's hand, we returned to our respective parties with feelings unresolved. It was the stormy month of June.

Five months before we became a couple.

-tobecontinued-