Layne stares at Kate. “Thank God I didn’t eat balut on any of those times in front of you then.”
Kate laughs.
“What have you got against shrimps?” Kate asks.
“I don’t know, I used to enjoy them a lot when I was a little boy. But when I grew up, I just don’t like them anymore. I’m not allergic, it doesn’t make me gag. I just - I just don’t like them anymore.”
“Okay, same with me and tinola. I just suddenly stopped liking it. Must be because I ate a bad batch once and I couldn’t get myself to try it again,” Kate relates.
“I do remember shrimps were my father’s favorite, and we had them in abundance before... before he left us,” Layne says, his voice trailing away.
“Maybe...,” Kate leaves it unsaid.
“Yeah,” Layne agrees softly.
“I love Cheetos too! The very spicy one is my favorite!” Kate shrieks.
“Mine too!” Layne says and they do a high five.
“Too bad we don’t have those in this trip,” Layne says wistfully.
“Yeah, the others couldn’t eat it. Ha ha ha!”
“Once we do a convenience store stop, let’s get some!”
“Yup!” Kate agrees happily.
“You watch rom coms?” Kate asks incredulously.
“I live in a house with four women, what do you think?”
“But I mean, really watch them, and enjoy them?”
“Well...,” Layne stammers.
“C’mon admit it, I won’t tell,” Kate says as she bumps her shoulder against his muscled shoulder.
“Okay, fine! Yes! I’m a softie, okay? I may not believe in love myself, but I like seeing the fantasy of it played out on the screen,” Layne says resignedly.
“You don’t believe in love?” Kate is serious when she asks this question.
“Broken home, heart broken by girl early on. No, I don’t really believe in love...,” Layne says softly.
“Up until now?” Kate asks.
“I...” Layne stops and stares at Kate, then looks at her ring. He smiles sadly.
Kate shuts up.
After three bathroom pit stops, a convenience store run where they get spicy Cheetos, and several hours of bumpy sleep, the van arrives at the destination resort in Pagudpud, at the northernmost part of the Philippines. Everyone is tired, hungry, and eager to stretch. Dinner is served at almost 10:00 PM and the food, though tasteless, is consumed quickly.
Kate, Jane, and the two single girls, Rhina and Irene, share a room. The boys share another room. They all share a terrace balcony.
Jane, Irene, and Rhina take quick showers and go directly to sleep. Kate can’t sleep. After a call to Rob to let him know they made it—Rob had to shout because of the music and people screaming in the background. Typical Boracay.
“I miss you so much!”
“I miss you too!” Kate answers. Kate really does. She wants Rob with her. Layne’s presence is unsettling her. She is glad Layne is here there but she can’t help feeling Layne is her ”trial” or “penance” this Holy Week. He is a distraction. A good-looking distraction. And he is her guilt. She never told anyone completely about him and what happened.
Kate also feels shady pretending she and Layne had only just met. Jane suspects something was off already, but Kate and Layne just play it cool. They didn’t have to talk about it. They both just went with the flow.
Kate also did not tell Rob her Number Six was on the road trip with her. She is sure Rob would raise a fit. And she knows it is wrong to not tell him. But for some reason, Kate cannot bring herself to tell Rob.
Not yet.
4
The Test
Maundy Thursday
As soon as Kate wakes up in the morning, she takes a quick shower, dresses up for the day, and steps out with her camera, Clunk. It is a glorious day and Kate just wants to take lots and lots of pictures. First stop is the row of souvenir stalls lining the path going to the beach. She takes some shots of the merchandise, the stall keepers, and the buyers. Then she chances upon fishermen coming in with their catch. There are also buyers milling around. She then walks on the beach and takes picture of the windmills in the distance, the children frolicking in the sand and the water, and lovers strolling on the beach.
When she walks back to the resort area, the group is already having their breakfast.
“There you are, Kate!” Jane exclaims, “I was looking all over for you.”
“Why?” Kate asks, as she sits breathlessly beside her sister. Unconsciously, she is looking around the area for Layne and she spots him seated with Kev in a separate table. She notices he is also giving her surreptitious glances.
“Rob called. You forgot your cellphone in the room.”
“Oh, yeah. Crap. I was in a hurry to take pictures while the sun wasn’t too high up yet,” Kate explains. She is sweating and famished.
“Here you go,” Jane says, handing Kate her phone. “Rob says to call him back when you’re able.”
Kate orders food and drinks and while waiting, she stands up, walks a little distance away and calls Rob.
“Good morning, beautiful!” Rob answers.
“Good morning, gorgeous!” Kate says with a giggle.
For a few minutes they catch up. Then...
“Guess who I bumped into last night at a party,” Rob asks.
“Who?” Kate asks, while looking out at the beach.
“Pinky,” Rob says softly.
Kate’s world suddenly stops moving.
“Kate, are you there?”
Kate slowly comes back to earth. “Yes, I’m here, Rob.”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Rob, I’m thousands of miles away, what do you want me to say?”
“You’re mad.”
“Should I be?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not.”
“Kate.”
“Rob, I—you know what I went through because of her. You of all people know that. So... I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I’m sorry,” Rob says.
“Sorry for what?”
“For bringing her up now, but I just wanted to be transparent with you. She’s here in Boracay. I saw her, said hi. But that’s it. I just want to you to know,” Rob says.
Kate sighs. Then suddenly she realizes she has an opening.
“Well, since we’re confessing and all, guess who I bumped into that’s part of the tour?”
“Who, Anton?”
Kate laughs. “No.”
“Vince, Chuck, Ben, Toby... aaah... Mike?” Rob asks.
“You—“ Kate stops, because Rob just recited the names of all the guys she had more than one date with.
“You keep track, don’t you?”
“Yes, so who is it?”
“Number Six,” Kate answers.
Rob is silent.
Kate feels bad springing this on Rob, but he mentioned Pinky first.
“I see,” Rob says.
“I am behaving, just like you are. So,” Kate says.
“I guess it is inevitable. This is going to be our trust test, Katie,” Rob says.
“I guess so,” Kate answers.
Silence.
“Well, then, I have to go, breakfast awaits,” Kate says.
“Okay, have a good day,” Rob answers.
The line goes dead.
The rest of the day is spent hopping from one tourist spot to another in and around Pagudpud. All throughout, Kate just keeps to herself and takes pictures. This enables her to keep her mind away from thinking of Rob and Pinky together in the same island, thousands of miles from her. Jane would try to shepherd her back to the group when group shots are required and when they had to eat, but for the most part, Kate avoids everyone.
Who is she kidding? She is avoiding one person. In fairness to Layne, he seems to know Kate needs him to be far away from her, so he keeps his distance.
But Kate notices him
anyway. She sees the way he interacts with the other members of the tour. She sees how like a gentleman he always extends a helping hand to anyone who needs it. She sees him looking at her as well, and she knows he must be thinking the same thing she’s thinking.
Why now?
In the middle of the day, Kate receives a text message from Rob.
Is Number Six the same as KL guy?
Kate closes her eyes. Rob is not stupid.
And she is tired of lying.
Yes.
They are at the Bangui Windmills when the group decides to brave the waves and take a dip in the beach. Kate keeps to herself once again and just snaps pictures. The gigantic wind turbines all in a row are magnificent. She is engrossed in taking shots at different angles she didn’t notice it when someone snatches the camera away from her hands. She looks around and sees Jane running away with her camera in tow. As she starts to run after her sister, she feels herself being carried and being taken to the water.
She looks up at her captor and her heart skips a beat.
“They ordered me to. I seem to be the strongest one, they said, who would be able to carry you and run and drop you in the water without breaking a sweat,” Layne whispers. He is still running, his strong arms around Kate, and she is pressed to his naked torso.
“No, don’t drop me in the water please,” Kate pleads.
“Are you wearing your ring?” Layne asks.
“No,” Kate answers.
“Is there anything on your person that can’t get wet or lost?”
“Um... my hair?” Kate tries humor. They are near the water now. Layne holds her tight.
“It’ll dry out.”
“Don’t drop me, please. If I have to get wet, I want to go in with some dignity, please?”
Layne looks into Kate’s eyes.
“Hold on to me.”
“What?”
“Hold on to me, or I’ll drop you like they said.”
Kate didn’t need any more prodding. She had wanted to put her arms around Layne since the day before, so she put her arms around his neck and holds him tight. They are at the water and she anticipates the act of dropping. But Layne keeps on moving, their arms around each other, until they were both submerged in salt water. The ocean floor has a steep drop and the water is suddenly deep. Kate holds on to Layne for dear life and Layne holds on to her. Her eyes are closed but she feels Layne embracing her tight. When they break the surface, she is face to face with Layne, who looks at her sadly and with so much angst. Then he holds her hand and they swim together to shore. They are greeted by the laughing group.
“I thought you were going to throw her into the water, Layne!” Kev shouts.
“She didn’t let go! I think she knew what the plan was!” Layne says laughing.
“You guys! I hate you! Where’s my camera?” Kate says laughing.
“Safe and dry with Ariel,” Jane says.
The group spends a few more minutes in the water.
The group makes it to Laoag in the afternoon and spends a few hours at the Sta. Clara Sand Dunes. Jane pulls Kate to queue for a four-wheel drive rental that would go up and down the dunes. Kate laughingly agrees.
Irene and Rhina beg off from the ride, and Terence opts to sit beside the attractive driver inside the vehicle. The rest of them stand at the back, holding on for dear life. Kate notices Kev taking this opportunity to have some physical contact with Jane, who looks happy with the attention. At some point, they are arranged, Titanic-style for minimum impact of the bumpy ride. Kate smiles and is suddenly jolted by a bump and she hits her shoulder on the side of the vehicle.
“Careful. Come here, it’s safer,” Layne says. He motions for a space right beside him where he will be able to ward off most of the impact. Kate hesitates.
“Girl, if you’re not going, I will!” Ariel laughingly says. Layne smiles widely. Kate laughs and uses the relatively flat expanse of road they were passing through to shift her position next to Layne.
The rest of the ride is exhilarating, and Kate doesn’t know whether it is the actual ride itself or the fact Layne’s arms and torso and legs are helping her keep her balance. At some point they even bump heads.
“Ow!” Layne says.
“Sorry!” Kate says looking at him and the vehicle takes a plunge that hurtles Kate right smack into Layne.
“Sorry again,” Kate says, as she rearranges herself away from him.
“No, that one was nice,” Layne whispers with a smile.
Kate laughs.
The vehicle then goes into a deep ravine and everyone screams at the top of their lungs.
That night, the group checks into a new hotel. Same arrangement—girls in one room, the boys in another.
The hotel has a small bar. So small that just their group made it crowded. Kate keeps to herself still, watching Jane in her element with Kevin.
Aaah... what I would give to be that young and problem-free.
She does realize though she had never been that young and problem-free because as soon as Rob had walked into her life, she was already deep in shit.
When will this all end?
“Hi,” a voice behind her says.
She knows the voice like the back of her hand.
“Hi,” Kate answers.
“Mind if I sit with you, just for a while?”
“Go ahead,” Kate says.
Face to face with Layne, she realizes she really is in deep, deep shit. That moment in the water was so vivid in her mind. For an instant, she hoped she could just stay submerged in Layne’s arms forever. Then that moment at the dunes. But she’s getting married to a guy she truly loves, who is now in the same area as his ex who made him give her up. And now she’s looking at the guy she fell in love with but never had the chance to really get to know because... because...
“If I had asked you out in Vietnam, would you have said yes?” Layne asks, his eyes staring at her intently.
“Yes,” Kate answers truthfully.
“Oh,” Layne says with a sigh.
“Why didn’t you?” Kate asks.
Layne smiles, then he looks embarrassed.
“I don’t usually ask women out on dates, so you could say, I didn’t really know how?”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I’m serious. People may brand me a player, but I actually don’t do the dating scene that much, and I don’t have much practice in the normal ask-the-girl-out-on-a-date kind of scenario.”
“Oh, but if people brand you a player, then I’m sure you go out?”
“I do, but most of the time, the women ask me, or we’re together in a group and we are just left alone for some reason, that kind of thing. Or it’s the kind of ‘ask,’ which is not really a date but more a hook up?”
“Torpe much?”
“Yes, guilty,” Layne says with a smile. Torpe was a Tagalog word for a guy who just doesn’t have the guts to approach the girl he likes. “Plus, you scared me. You left without any goodbye in Sydney. I thought you were this woman of the world and you would just laugh in my face.”
Kate smiles.
“I didn’t know then I was your Number Six!”
They laugh together. Then they are silent.
“You know, it hurt every time I woke up and you weren’t there. It hurt being left behind,” Layne says softly.
Kate realizes Layne also needed a lot of answers himself. “It was always your hotel room, so it had to be me that left, and I didn’t want to expect anything, so it was just better to leave while I still had my pride intact. Plus I always had an early flight, so I really had to go.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly.”
“If I had asked you out in China would you have said yes?”
“Yes.”
“In Mumbai?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“In KL?”
Kate hesitates. “Um... yes.”
“In Singapore?”
“No,”
Kate says sadly.
“KL was my last chance, right? And I screwed it up?”
“Pretty much.”
“So what was Singapore?”
“A goodbye.”
“And you got engaged—“
“The night of the day I arrived in Manila from Singapore.”
Layne stares at Kate. She stares back.
“If I had asked you out before and we had seen each other in Manila before your fiancé proposed to you, would you have gotten engaged?”
Kate smiles. “I honestly don’t know. And I think, we’ll never know, right?”
Layne sighs. “Yes, we will never really know.”
After a while, Jane pulls Kate into a conversation with Kevin and Layne is engaged by one of the single girls in a flirtatious discussion.
The night winds down and everyone goes back to their rooms to sleep. There will be more sight-seeing in the morning.
Kate checks her phone and sees a text message from Rob.
Should I be worried?
Kate frowns. She stops to think very carefully before she answers. Then she sighs and types.
No. No reason to be worried. I love you, gorgeous.
I love you more, beautiful.
Before she sleeps, Kate thinks of her day, of the two men in her life, and how the night is ending. Regardless of what she told Rob, she suddenly wishes she was still free. Because now she knows the real Layne, she realizes he is the type of person she could probably spend the rest of her life with. But the universe has other plans for her, so here she was.
She doesn’t sleep well that night.
Good Friday
First thing in the morning, Kate hears the news Layne had left the tour.
“What happened?” she asks.
“He got a call very early that there was an emergency at home, so he took the first bus back,” Jane says.
“I hope it’s not serious,” Kate says.
“Kev told me Layne would keep him updated. Kev said Layne’s mom had an episode. She has high blood pressure, and Layne is just worried about her, especially when he’s not there to take care of her.”
Kate, Finally Page 11
