Every Girl's Guide to Heartache

by Marla Miniano

  Of course, the operative word in “try to concentrate” is “try,” and so most of my time in class is spent daydreaming about The Next Guy and how The Ex would pale in comparison to him. I come up with a rough picture of what I want—you know, nothing too specific. This is what I’m thinking: he will be taller and smarter and definitely cuter. He will be more athletic, have nicer clothes, and be better with kids. He will be caring and charming and consistent. He will give me a warm hug at the end of a stressful day, and make my birthday and all major holidays special for me. He will never make me feel like I am a hassle, or that I don’t deserve to be treated like a princess. I will never fall short of his expectations because he will accommodate my many imperfections and accept me in spite of them. When he tells me he loves me, he will always mean it, and I will never have reason to doubt him. I will never have to settle for less, or make excuses for his behavior, or apologize for loving him, because he will never stop loving me back. He will be happy and steady and sure—in other words, he will be perfect. We will be perfect. (The thing is, for one year and three months, I thought The Ex was this guy. In my head, I made him into this guy. How do I proceed to un-make that now?)

  When I get home from school that day, Miguel is perched at the edge of our couch, waiting for me. Oh good, I think. Someone cute and harmless to distract me. I do not feel guilty for thinking this. Miguel has lived a few houses away since the fifth grade, and we’ve always been clear that the kind of relationship we have does not cross the boundaries of platonic friendship. Although I can see how objectively attractive he is (great skin for a guy, and a bright CloseUp smile), I would never in a million years even think of thinking of him In That Way. There’s just too much familiarity between us and too many instances when he has heard me burp or seen me in my ratty teddy bear PJs. Besides, he has Vanessa, his hot, supermodel-in-the-making girlfriend who has always been nice to me but would definitely kick my lame-o little butt if I ever came between them. ‘Nuff said.

  And I actually say it out loud: “Oh good, someone cute and harmless to distract me.” To which he grins and says, “Yep, today’s your lucky day.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “My mom told you.”

  He laughs. “Close. Your mom told my mom.” He hands me a DVD of Love Actually, a big bag of potato chips, and a pack of chocolate-covered marshmallows.

  I fold my arms over my chest. “And these are supposed to make me feel better because...?”

  “Isn’t that what you girls do after a breakup?” he looks so clueless I almost burst out laughing. “Watch chick flicks and binge on junk food?”

  “That’s what we do with each other,” I tell him. “Not with dudes.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Okay. Should I leave?”

  How adorable is he? I plop down on the couch. “Arte mo. Sit.”

  He sits. “So you broke up.” I nod, and he looks away. “What happened, exactly?” I wait for him to go all gangsta and start cracking his knuckles, threatening to beat The Ex up the way most guy friends would, but he doesn’t, and I am grateful. I can’t quite imagine Miguel beating anyone up, come to think of it. He just doesn’t strike me as the pa-macho frat boy type.

  “Gory details or quick run-through?”

  “I dunno. Gory run-through?”

  It is not difficult to explain things to him, mostly because when The Ex told me it was over, he was very succinct. “He said he wanted to explore his other options.”

  “Are you serious? And then that was it?”

  “That was a direct quote,” I said. “And no, he did not explain further. Or maybe he did, to himself, after I slammed the phone down on him.”

  “He did this over the phone?!” He looks positively murderous.

  “Yep. Right after coming back from his Davao weekend with his stupid friends and his skank queen ex-girlfriend.” I put my feet up on the coffee table. “He is Dora the Explorer. Get it? Dora the EX-plorer.” I giggle at my own joke.

  Miguel does not laugh. In fact, for almost a minute, he does not say anything at all. Finally, he mutters, “Your feet are gross.”

  “Thank you,” I reply smugly. I have no idea what I’m being smug about. I am considering how drastically my recent loss of appetite would affect my chances of winning a Stuff As Many Potato Chips As Humanly Possible Into Your Mouth Contest, when I hear my mom’s voice in the hallway. She peeks in seconds later.

  “Hello, Miguel,” she says warmly. My mom loves Miguel. When I’m not wondering how sorry she is that he’s not her son, I’m wondering how grateful she is that her crazy daughter at least has a responsible, mature, completely sane friend like him.

  He gets up to give her a peck on the cheek. “Hi, Tita.” He pauses, looks at me, then grabs his hoodie and heads out the door. “Bye, Tita.” What was that about? What am I, invisible?

  I am majorly annoyed. “What’s going on, Mom?”

  She sits beside me and pats my shoulder awkwardly. “I’m glad you two understand each other. I know it’s not easy for you, but please try to be there for him as well.”

  I imagine a huge neon sign sprouting from my forehead, with flashing letters that read, What the heck are you talking about? Okay, now I am annoyed AND confused.

  My mom sighs and gives me another awkward pat, on the head this time, before standing up. “He and Vanessa were perfect for each other.”

  The past tense of are perfect for each other echoes throughout the room, and I notice that despite my earlier protests, Miguel had left the chocolate, chips, and Love Actually on the table for me.

  I’m guessing the message I should be receiving from the universe is this: Get over yourself, you selfish brat. Miguel needs you. Forget about your own broken heart and help him mend his. Or maybe even this: Love does not last. Even perfect couples like Miguel and Vanessa break up; what chances do mere mortals like yourself have at getting a happy ending? Give up, honey. Be single and lonely and miserable forever. But right now, all I can think is that Jaime and I were not just perfect for each other, we still are. We have tons in common—a love for indie films and local art, an obsession with Pushing Daisies, Mystery Jets, and Haruki Murakami, and an aversion to pointless high school parties, peanuts in ice cream, and the crowded malls during weekends. Our insights and passions and pet peeves and sense of humor are basically the same. Nobody else laughs at his jokes as much as I do. Nobody else understands my quirks and mood swings better. He gets why I’m usually so sarcastic and unaffected—he understands that it’s not because I can’t be bothered to care, it’s just because that’s how I’m wired. He is always the last person on my mind at the end of the day, and I am always thankful when I remember him.

  Our lives have intersected in more points than I can imagine, and I no longer know where he ends and where I begin. Our lives have intertwined in more ways than I can take in, and I don’t know how to go back to being myself anymore without being reminded of him—everything reminds me of him. I don’t know how to get used to not loving him; suddenly, it doesn’t make much sense to stop thinking about him. Jaime and I, we fit into one another’s hours and minutes and seconds. The loss of all these things we had—have, still—is not something I am willing to step aside for just like that. I cannot allow everything to end without a good hard fight.

  And maybe what it all boils down to, at this moment, is that I miss him terribly.

  When I pick up the phone to call him and try to change his mind, I am fully aware that I should be letting this go, letting him go. But the second I hear him say hello, all the shoulds and shouldn’ts fly out the window. I take a deep breath. “Hi. What are you doing tonight?”

  Rule number 4:

  When in doubt, procrastinate.

  So this is The Plan: I put off making a decision until the very last minute. And when is the very last minute? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’ll recognize it when it comes knocking. And even when it does come knocking, I will put off facing it until it threatens to demolish the door and eat me
alive. Yes, that is The Plan. Clearly, I am being quite “responsible” and “mature” and “level-headed” about this.

  The thing about procrastination is that it cannot be carried out successfully without the aid of distractions. Have you ever tried staring at a blank computer screen for hours when you should be finishing a paper due the next day? Not fun, right? So instead, you log on to Facebook, stalk your crush on Multiply, post random messages on TeenTalk, brush up on Perez Hilton’s latest showbiz offerings, or answer stupid surveys on LJ (I don’t even know why they’re called surveys; who’s keeping track of them?). You do everything you can to forget about that deadline looming over your head—but of course you don’t completely forget. Because at three AM, panic starts creeping in and you have no choice but to confront that blank computer screen again. At three AM, you know the distractions are useless and that you cannot procrastinate any longer. You know that any more attempts at evading the task will be futile, because That Thing You’re Supposed to be Done With has landed right smack in the middle of your bedroom, purposely set up camp, and refused to go back to its home planet until it is transformed to That Thing You Are Already Done With.

  But it is not yet three AM. For now, the distractions will take center stage.

  Distraction number one, evidently, is the advice column.

  Dear Chrissy,

  Last year, I missed my chance with this girl. We both knew there was something there, but we never acknowledged it. I think she was waiting for me to make a move, while I was waiting for her to reassure me that it was okay to make a move. I think she got tired of waiting, and she started believing I was intentionally trying to hurt her. She got mad at me, there was a huge fight, and we stopped seeing each other.

  And now, I think she wants to get back at me by dating a new guy and parading him all over town. What sucks is that recently, she seems to be making a suspicious amount of effort to be friends with me again. I don’t know what she’s trying to do here, but I don’t want to be her friend. I can’t be her friend—not when she’s dating someone else. She won’t stop texting or calling me. I’ve been trying to move on, but she won’t let me. How do you deal with the pain that keeps following you around?

  Sincerely,

  Romeo

  Dear Romeo (okay, I can’t believe I just wrote that),

  This will sound harsh, but I speak the truth. Like you’ve mentioned, you already missed your chance. Sometimes, life sets certain deadlines for you to do or say something, and when the moment has already passed, there’s not much you can do about it. You don’t want to be friends with her because you think you can still be something more in the near future. But this is what I think: the reason she’s trying to rebuild the friendship is that she has finally moved on. Hasn’t it occurred to you that perhaps she just misses being your friend, and you are turning it into this whole telenovela scenario where she’s the villain trying to waltz back into the picture and you’re the poor guy who just wants to be left alone? You don’t deal with the pain that keeps following you around—you just let go of it. And maybe when you do, you can learn your lesson and take your leaps of faith sooner.

  Peace,

  Chrissy

  Distraction number two is supposed to be a tall glass of full cream milk and a thick slice of white chocolate cheesecake. But I go downstairs to find Daddy sitting at the dining table, tinkering with his laptop, and distraction number two becomes a very strange father-daughter conversation.

  “Hi, honey,” he says, smiling. Very few teen girls can say this—or maybe it’s just that very few teen girls actually care enough to notice—but every time my dad sees me, his whole face lights up. He may be having a bad day, he may be busy running a million little errands for the restaurant, he may be worrying about an article he’s writing or a troublesome chapter in his novel, but it never fails: every single time his only daughter walks into the room, his day turns right around. And it never matters if I’m being crabby or bratty (which, thankfully, I rarely am) or if I just want to rant his ear off over the silliest setbacks; the mere fact that I exist makes him undeniably happy. I think this is how you would define unconditional love.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say, plunking myself down beside him and pushing the slice of cake towards him. He makes a face at me, a face that translates to I want to but your mom will kill me if she finds out I’ve broken my strict, no-sugar diet. I smile sympathetically and shove a forkful into my mouth.

  “Why are you up?” he asks.

  “Why are you up?” I shoot back. This is how we usually speak to each other. Sometimes I’d be on the phone with him and people would think I was just talking to a friend, or someone my age. It’s not that I haven’t tried using the traditional po and opo on him and my mom, it’s just that every time I did, it felt funny and forced. The way we saw it, I was doing my part—following curfew (nine PM on weekdays and eleven-thirty PM on weekends, unless there’s a special occasion or a really good reason to stay out), respecting their rules about boys (I can only go on unsupervised dates with guys they know, and I was to tell them immediately if things were getting serious), and being drug-free, alcohol-free, and nicotine-free—enough to grant me access to something other people only experience from their parents when they’re already working or married: being treated as an equal.

  “This Jurassic laptop needs to be fixed,” he tells me. He sighs, sets it aside, and catches me off-guard by asking, “How was the date with Nico?”

  “Daaaaaaaaaaad,” I protest, drawing the word out the way I do when he’s embarrassing me.

  “What,” he says, shrugging. “It was a date, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “I guess it was. This is so awkward, Dad. I’d rather talk about this with Mom. No offense.”

  He pretends to be hurt. And then he grins and says, “So do you like him?”

  “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!”

  “Okay, okay,” he holds up his hands in mock surrender. He goes back to attacking his laptop and I go back to demolishing my cake. We sit in silence until he asks, “So why don’t you like him?”

  There is no correct answer to “Why don’t you like him?” Unless you say, “Because he’s a serial murderer,” or “Because he texts like this: elow poh. d2 n me. wer n u?” in which case these might be considered slightly acceptable replies but you’d still have to back them up with some sort of elaborate explanation. There is never a correct answer to this question, in the same way that there is no correct answer to “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” or, “Why can’t you be more like your cousin?” The only answer that will come to your mind is a loud, obnoxious “duh,” and you’re smart enough to know that’s not a very good answer to give your dad. Nor is it a very good sign that you have nothing more coherent than “duh,” for that matter.

  I glare at him and say, “I never said I didn’t like him.” He chuckles, makes me promise not to stay up too late (I grunt a grumpy “okay”), and retreats upstairs, muttering to himself. I am left alone with a second distraction cut short and a gazillion calories. You see what depression does to women? It makes them stuff their faces with chocolate. And then they forget temporarily about their depression, egged on by the endorphins and the sugar high. And then the calories start settling into their tummy and thighs, and they get depressed all over again. So they stuff their faces again. And then, of course, they get even fatter. And then they think “nobody’s ever going to love me.” So they eat some more, because they’re already blimps anyway. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle. I shake my head at my empty plate, almost expecting it to point out, “Hey, you ate that cake out of your own free will, so don’t you dare look at me like that, Missy.” I sigh and trudge back to my room.

  I come in expecting to find distraction number three. Instead, three AM finally finds me—or rather, climbs in through the window, clutching a round tin container and wearing a key I had long forgotten about on a chain around his neck.

  “What the hell do you think this i
s, Nico, Dawson’s Creek?” I am trying to be angry. I’m not sure if I really am. “Why do you still have that key? Hand it over right now.”

  He hands me the tin container instead. The glorious smell of butterscotch toffee chip cookies fills the room. He smiles at me and says, “You’re welcome. I slaved over the oven for hours.” He is wearing a leather jacket that would probably look ridiculous on everybody else but looks cool and dangerous on him, and his long hair is falling into his eyes. He swipes the stray strands away and looks right at me. I set the cookies down on my dresser, waiting for him to explain why he is standing in my bedroom in the middle of the night, why he hasn’t asked to see me since our Tagaytay dinner, and why I haven’t heard a single word from him since that day I found out he was back for good. Waiting for him to tell me that he is the obvious choice and that he is the one I should be with.