MEComposing

Back in college, the top of the class was T, L and me. T and L were best friends while I was in a different peer group. I only really had a civil relationship with them till around the second sem of our fourth year.

It's not really because we were competing for top marks that we weren't close. It was more like our personalities clashed. They were studious, serious, even a little nerdy and bookish. T came from Manila Science High School, L came from Parañaque Science. I came from a Catholic school and didn't quite act like it.

I was loud, I really didn't do libraries, I was very outspoken. L was always quite sensitive and moody while T came off like Sharon Cuneta (you know, when Sharon's pretending as if nothing's wrong and she likes everyone so much?).

Anyway... we came from different planets and there was no point to really mingle. Until second sem of fourth year, that is, when L got depressed (as in literally skipping school depressed) and T fell in unrequited love... and I was the only one willing to comfort her. See, being half of the leader of their peer group (, of course, is the other half), her friends couldn't understand how affected she was, that she was human and could be weak... and hurt. And I reached out to her when I was giving away my customary quotations sharing (Oh, I was also the only one it seemed who could get her hands on the correct song lyrics of all those mushy songs we liked back then).

That was how friendship bloomed between us... and it bloomed very slowly. Through pen and paper, in fact, for we never really hung out in school. Then we found ourselves hanging out during the LET review. And then I found myself attending masteral subjects with them after college.

That's when we became friends really, when school was no more. But through time, most of those in our peer group vanished from our lives. But T and I, we just got all the more closer.

She was at my wedding, and I was at hers eventhough that was my husband's birthday and i've only given birth a month before. A week after, she was at my son's christening. And that's why I rushed to her side today and spent the afternoon just gabbing away, making her forget her worries for a while.

See, she found out she's pregnant yesterday... but the happiness was speedily overshadowed by fear because she also started spotting yesterday. She's been put on bedrest and the next two days are very critical for her, a diabetic, and her baby (who is around 5 weeks old).

I lent her my copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting book... and gave her many tips. I told her that the worst that can happen is she will miscarry this baby, but I made her promise that she won't forget how blessed she still has been.

Leaving her, I sort of wanted to cry, knowing how scared she must be, having been there before... and I just felt so much love for her. She has been one of the more constant things in life I could count on, and i'm really praying she will get to keep this baby.

Love you, T.