Four Basic Principles

GELO

4. Alignment
Nothing should be placed arbitrarily. Every visual element should connect with another.

Although there was still enough sinigang na hipon to bathe a small child, I was done with lunch. I stood and stretched. Tim, Janna, Ran and Brix were still plowing through the spread they'd ordered, but Cass had wandered off to the restaurant's verandah, staring at the sardine run spot.

I took my place next to her. No boats were anchored there now; the sun was high and merciless as the boatmen took their midday breaks.

"How are you holding up?" I asked.

She smiled a slow, loopy smile that seemed to grow hands, reaching in to squeeze my heart.

"I'm exhausted," she said. "But it was worth it."

"Really? Swimming over The Abyss to chase a turtle?"

"Wonderful."

"Risking death by a million sardine kisses?"

"Fantastic." Her shades slipped down her nose, and those sharp, dark eyes met mine. "You're a lot more talkative than you were last night."

So last night was on the table, then.

"Am I?"

"Yes. Last night, you hardly said a word. You walked me to our room. Then you jumped me."

"Excuse me, Cassandra. You kissed me."

"Because you had your hand on my waist the whole night. Don't think I didn't notice you trying to cop a feel."

"It was your dress. That strapless thing. It made me kind of witless."

"Did it?" Her smile was wicked and full of promise. "I hoped it would."

I had to laugh. "You have to know what a heartbreaker you are, Cassandra Divina Vidal."

Something in the air between us seemed to freeze, like an arctic snap.

"If I remember correctly, you were the one who broke my heart, Angelo Vicente Torrejon IV." She pulled off her shades and slipped them inside her pouch.

I glanced behind me—our friends all had the glazed looks of an impending food coma, but still they kept eating.

"Can we talk about this?" I whispered to her. She nodded.

There was a lounge of sorts in front of the restaurant, a bamboo bench where overflowing customers could sit while waiting for tables to free up. I led Cass there and ordered us two mango shakes.

They arrived while I tried figuring out the best approach to talk about the past. Then I sipped the cold, sweet, milky goodness and just went for it.

"What happened to us, Cass? Why did we stop talking?"

She twisted the bracelet on her wrist, setting her shake between us. She looked up with watery eyes. The sight shook me. Cass never cried.

"You told me—the day after we first slept together—that you liked someone else."

I wanted to hug her, hold her, make the tears go away. I wanted to go back in time and punch some sense into younger me. But what came out of my mouth was:

"I only said that because you said we shouldn't do that again."

She shut her eyes and let out a burst of air. "I was afraid. I started having boyfriends much younger than advisable, and not surprisingly, all those 'relationships' were giant fiascoes. Then I met you and suddenly I had a guy friend who was smart and cute and had fucking goals and—and I felt I ruined it, sleeping with you like that."

"It wasn't all on you. I mean, I did participate."

My pulse raced as I remembered that long-ago night. Her laptop had broken, eating half of the ten-page paper she needed to pass the next day. She showed up to my apartment, begging to use my PC. My roommate was stuck in the province so I said she could rant and clack at the keyboard for as long as she wanted. I remember making her a gazillion cups of coffee. Then I fell asleep and only stirred when she climbed into bed with me. She had smiled, lazily, sleepily, in the half light and kissed the tip of my nose. I groaned and reached for her, and before I knew it, we were kissing—kissing like we had forever to do it, kissing like we invented it and were testing out all its possible permutations. Then our clothes were off and--

"All I wanted was a reset," she said softly, the rawness of her voice breaking into my memory. "To rewind to what we were and forget what had happened. I'd thought that maybe, later on, when I'd figured things out, I'd make another go of it with you. But you said you liked someone else. If you liked someone else, then what was it that we shared? A meaningless fuck." Her breath shuddered. "It just felt like another stupid mistake, a classic Cass screw-up, sleeping with her friend because she assumed he liked her."

"But I did like you." My own voice was thick and unwieldy. "I'm so sorry for what I said, Cass. When we saw each other after that unforgettable night...and you were unsure about everything, I just--I was hurt. In a boneheaded way, I wanted to save face."

A wrinkle appeared between her brows. "What do you mean?"

"You were my first, Cass." My hands shook as I took another sip of the shake. "I liked you so much—I mean, I should've said something, I know that now, but I was young and dumb and I was hoping we'd develop naturally...and that night, when you climbed into my bed, I was so happy because I thought this was it. This was finally happening, and with the girl I was waiting for. Then the next day, when you said what you said—I was crushed."

She shook her head and took a long sip of her shake. "God, we were such stupid kids."

I wet my lips and glanced at her. It was now or never.

"I wasn't being stupid last night."

I reached for the fingers that were worrying and twisting at her red string bracelet, and I brought them to my lips. A flash of emotion stormed through her eyes.

"These last few days, Cass—I've been fighting it, telling myself it was just a college infatuation, that it's natural to never forget your first. But I can't help it. I still like you. And I want you. And it's never changed."

"Oh my God."

"Is that a good 'oh my God' or the bad kind?"

"It's the shocked kind."

I tilted her chin and sipped on her mango-flavored lips. She sighed into the kiss and gripped my shirt, her fluttering fingers brushing against my chest. One of her hands twined in my hair. A rush of heat flooded through me.

"You're impossible, Gelo," she murmured, a whisper from my mouth. "And don't ever cut this."

My lips curved in a smile against hers.

"I feel the same way about you," she scowled, as though liking me was such a huge inconvenience. Which it probably was. "But how's this going to work? You're there—I'm here—"

"I've got two more weeks in Manila. How about we take it from there?"

She pushed me back, looking at me with her trademark dark, shrewd gaze. The Cass Vidal BS Detector. "No bullshit?"

"Absolutely none."

"This isn't just a casual fuck?"

I winced, but I shook my head, hoping she could read the sincerity in my eyes.

"You're really serious. We'll spend the next few days trying to figure this out," she scowled again.

"Why not? We should have a better chance this time than as dumb kids."

Still she wavered, looking every bit as hesitant as when we looked at the turtle or swam over those freaky sardines. "I want this too, Gelo. I haven't forgotten about you either. But I don't really know."

I interlaced my fingers in hers and held them against my heart.

"I got you, Cass."

She smiled and kissed me again.