Four Basic Principles

Cass

"What the fuck, Cass. What the fuck what the fuck."

Behind giant sunglasses, I could make out Ran's eyes, wide and disbelieving. "You said you were never going to sleep with him again."

"I know."

"The last time this happened—"

"I know."

"--you almost dropped out of college!"

"Keep it down, will you?" Despite the loud engine and the combined roar of the wind and the waves, I worried about Ran's shriek. "And I did not threaten to leave school because of some guy. You're exaggerating!"

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes, pursing her perfectly lined mouth. "I don't think they can hear us anyway." She shot a dirty look at our old friends Janna and Tim, whose engagement we were celebrating with this trip to southern Cebu, and whose tongues were shoved down each other's throats.

"I liked them much better when she was threatening him with a bottle of Red Horse," she said, with a toss of her ash blonde hair.

I squirmed in my seat. A banca flying through the sapphire waters of Tañon Strait wasn't a conducive place for squirming, but I managed it.

At the other end of the outrigger boat sat the object of my confession. Angelo Vicente Torrejon IV. Gelo. Twice my one-night-stand-partner. (Is it still called that if it's happened twice?) Once upon a time, my best friend.

Well..."best friend" is a subjective term. What do you call the guy you meet in the freshman orientation for your useless liberal arts course and then spend the next entire semester with, since your class schedules and breaks matched, filling your time with passionate, drawn-out arguments about the future and your respective world views, arguments that spill over to the evenings and social media messages on the weekends?

Whatever the right term, he and I were once it. Until...well, the first one-night stand.

Gelo gripped the bow as the boat rose and dipped in the water, but otherwise remained still, as though deep in meditation. He'd shed his shirt; the early morning sun glinted off his sculpted shoulders like white gold.

Just last night I gripped those very same muscles so tightly, resisting the urge to run my nails down them because I didn't want to leave marks. Drunk as I was, I remembered not to do that.

His back was turned to me, so I kept staring, until Brix, who'd been lying half asleep on one of the benches, stood and took a selfie with Gelo.

Ran sighed. "Fucking Brix. This is all his fault."

**

Gelo

"Say cheese, Gelo!"

Brix draped an arm around me and angled his iPhone so that the sun created hollows and contours in his face. He snapped a few more shots and then turned the camera to the island we were now approaching.

"It's so lovely!" he cried.

It was a grass-covered rock in the sea, but yeah, sure. Lovely. I scooted forward on the bow, out of reach of more enforced selfies. The ocean spray doused me: nature's cold shower.

"Pescador Island," pointed the boatman, Jimmy. "Good snorkeling. Many divers. Many fish."

I should have been thinking of more of the wonders that this vacation, which had already taken us to fairytale waterfalls and pristine beaches, would offer. Instead, I thought of an old graphic design lecture. It ran in my head, throughout this trip; my mentor's voice intoning like a centering mantra.