Chapter 10 - Best Of Friends

Ten years later…

“Ben?” I heard Elaine called from the living room. I was at the kitchen, baking a cake. Believe it or not Elaine doesn’t cook at all, can’t even crack an egg right. During my off duty, I bake cakes for our bake shop and Elaine was the one who stays at the shop. We have a baker actually, but I’m a better baker than him, though his pastries aren’t that bad. Elaine entered the kitchen and gave me a kiss on my lips. “I told you not to bake here; we have ovens of the bake shop.” She just came from the bake shop.

“I know, but I’m trying to bake a new one and I don’t want to do an experiment on the bakeshop, we only have a tiny space on the kitchen at the bakeshop.”

Elaine survived the delivery of the baby. Of course we’re so happy when our little Lily came. My sweet Lily, such a beautiful girl and I’m not saying that because I’m her father. At six, Elaine enrolled her to a ballet class and at eight Lily asked me if she can have a piano lesson. Now that she’s ten years old she wants to learn how to play violin and guitar.

I took my apron off and washed my hands after I covered the cake with icing and sprinkles.

The phone rang. I heard Elaine picking up the receiver.

“Hello,” she greeted the caller. “Who is this? Jeremy? Wait, I’ll give the phone to Kyle.”

I was actually shocked with that. Jeremy hasn’t called me for quite some time, maybe a year or two. Elaine met Amanda and Jeremy on our wedding day, and since our wedding, Jeremy always invites us for dinner or an out of town and considering the fact that Lily and Harold, Amanda and Jeremy’s son, are entering the same school.

“Jeremy’s on the phone,” Elaine told me. “I think it’s urgent,” She mouthed.

I took the receiver from her, “Hello,” and my whole body shook as the words come rapidly from Jeremy.

*     *     *

 I came as soon as I can with Elaine at the hospital where Amanda was admitted. I don’t know what to think. Jeremy’s words keeps on repeating inside my head. I need you to come here, Amanda’s dying. I don’t know what exactly did he say after that, my knees weakened and I heard nothing but the slow and shallow breaths.

“Jer!” I called Jeremy as soon as we saw him on the hall. He smiled at us, he look older than the last time I saw him, dark circles around his eyes and thickening beard and mustache on his face.“What happened?”

“Let’s sit down,” he said. We sat on the bench beside the hall and Elaine gestured to enter Amanda’s room to give us privacy.

“What happened?” I asked again.

“Amanda’s sick,” he said. “She was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. We could have done something it was diagnosed during it’s early stage but… but it was too late.”

I didn’t say something. I just stared at him, my brows almost meeting at the center of my forehead.

“She told me not to tell anyone about this. ‘If I’m going to die then I don’t want anyone to know my sufferings,’ she said. So we never told you or anyone. But during last Christmas, Amanda fainted at her Aunt and Uncle’s house. They freaked out. Thus I have no choice but to tell them what happened.

“Since then, the doctor never let Amanda to get out of this hospital,” Jeremy said. They spent ten months here at the hospital? “When I go to work, her aunt will take care of her and uncle will take care of Harold. We spent all our savings, and now Dad’s saying for our hospital bills.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help during your darkest days,” I said.

“It’s okay, you couldn’t have done anything to change her situation anyway,” he said. “Yesterday, her doctor was very frank with me and told me that it will take a miracle for her to live until January. I’m so afraid to lose her. I don’t want to lose her.”

I don’t know what to say.

“And I want to tell you something,” he said. “Something I already knew but I didn’t want to give a damn with it. I know that it’s you… its y-you whom she really loves. She never looked at me the same way she looks at you. I know that after all this years she kept a special place for you in her heart.

“Sometimes, during her sleep, I can hear her calling your name very softly. It was killing me, you see, but after sometime I learned how to let that go. I called you to come here for a reason,” he said. “I want to ask you if you feel something for Amanda too.”

I stared at him with wide eyes. My mouth opened itself and my tongue said the words involuntarily, “What are you saying? Of c-course I don’t.”

“It’s useless to lie to me,” Jeremy said. “I know you do.”

I closed my eyes and put my hands on my face, trying to compose myself.

“When you enter that room and find yourself alone with her, I want you to tell her what you feel,” he said. 

Before I could react he continued, “Before she dies, I want her to know that the man she truly loves feels the same way for her.”

*     *     *

Jeremy and I entered Amanda’s room. Amanda look at me, she’s pale and looks very sick. She gave me a weak smile and she reached for my hand with hers. “I’m so happy to see you again.”

I sat beside her and we just stared at each other, both smiling.

“Hey, look at the time, it’s almost eleven o’clock. I bet you guys haven’t eaten lunch yet,” Jeremy said cheerfully. “Elaine, let’s eat lunch while Ben watch over Amanda? He hasn’t done his role as our best friend yet here at the hospital!”

Elaine grinned and I told her to go. Amanda’s Aunt and Uncle told her to come too and she obediently followed them.

When we’re alone, Amanda gripped my hand. “How are you?”

“I should be the one to ask you that,” I reminded her. “How are you?”

Amanda laughed. “As you can see, I’m not feeling well. But in general, I’m okay.”

I gave her a weak smile and I took her hand and held it firmly between mine. For a while, we just stayed like that – we’re looking at each other’s eyes, weak smiles, and listening to the silence that surrounded us.

“Do you want to say something?” I asked her.

“I have a lot of things to say…” Amanda said; her voice almost inaudible. She closed her eyes, when I didn’t say anything, she continued. “I have regrets in life, Ben. There are nights that I ask myself what if you’re the one who sits with me at the porch every afternoon instead of Jeremy? What if you feel the same way that I feel for you? There are nights that I can’t stop thinking about you.

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t love Jeremy. I love him. And I love you, too. There’s a huge space in my heart that no one can fill in but you and only you.”

A tear fell from my eye and she snorted. “You’re crying? Did you know that when a woman can make a man laugh it means that the man likes him, but when a woman makes a man cry it—”

“—it means that he loves her. More than anything,” I continued. “Amanda, I, too, has something to tell you. Something I should have said when we’re younger, something I should have said that night.” The smile faded from her lips, she looked at me with curious gaze.

“I…” I can’t even say what I want to say. “I… I really don’t know where to start.”

“When you don’t know where to start, it’s always best to try to begin from the beginning,” she said.

I took a deep breath and tried to think where to start. “That morning, when your bike fell as I park my bike beside it, something other than bike fell. I did. For you.

“I love you since the day I first laid my eyes on you. I love you for no reason at all. I like everything about you, I love everything about you. But I was so stupid that I never grabbed the chance of having you. And I still do. I still love you.”

Tears fell from Amanda’s eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Because he loves you, too. And because I was so afraid.”

“You’re too sheepish,” she said.

“I guess so.”

“I know so.”

“I have regrets too,” I said. “I wish I never let him out of our house without even telling him that I like you too, and I am ready to compete with him to win your heart. You don’t know how it feels when I see him kiss you, when everyone talks about you being such a perfect couple. You don’t know how it killed me when you told me that you said yes to Jeremy when he asked you if you could be her girl friend.

“But when you told me that night what you feel towards me, I wanted to take you away. I wanted to take you from him, and I wanted to tell you how much I love you. And I wish I did.”

Despite her weakness, she exerted all her effort and reach for me. She held me and I embraced her tightly. 

“You’re my dream,” she said.

“And you we’re mine.”

We let go of each other and let our hearts take over our body. We kissed for the first time. And that too, was my last kiss for the girl I love the most.

Friendship was the foundation of our relationship, the three of us. But when we graduated and tried to establish our lives and reach for our goals, it seems that we never really worked out to re-establish our relationship. After that first visit, I and my wife visited often to the hospital. Whenever I’m with them, I feel so young again and it seemed that all the experience I had in the world faces away for awhile. But it only lasted for a short while.

Amanda died after three months. After her death, Jeremy had a rough time dealing with the fact that her wife is gone. He worked himself out, trying not to think of Amanda’s absence. Whenever I ask him if he’s okay, he always says “Yes, I have to, for Harold. He lost a mother, and I don’t want him to lose a father.”

No one expected him to be okay soon, and it was a good sign that he’s trying to get through the day for his son. Harold is all that he’s got from Amanda. It’s never impossible to move on, no matter how hard it is for everyone. The grief will lessen in the right time and it may never go away completely, but at least the pain will lessen and it won’t be so overwhelming.