You're Making Me Crazy, Professor [COMPLETED]

It’s our graduation day today.

And for the first time ever—my parents are here. They’re attending. They’re watching. They actually came.

I should be happy, right?

After all these years of growing up feeling invisible, today I finally get to hear them say they’re proud of me. Today, I should be celebrating—not just graduation, but also my birthday. I just turned twenty-four. Twenty-four years of surviving everything. Of holding on.

I should be proud. I should be smiling.

But all I feel is this unbearable heaviness in my chest.

Emptiness.

“Perfect. You look absolutely gorgeous, anak,” Mama said softly, her hands gently fixing the collar of my toga. Her eyes were glassy with tears—tears of joy, but mine remained dry, hollow, detached.

I couldn't even offer her a smile. Kahit isang pilit na ngiti, hindi ko kayang ibigay.

I tried.

But how do you smile when your heart feels like it’s being scraped raw from the inside?

Everything that happened still feels like it was just yesterday. The memories won’t stop replaying in my head. It’s been 15 days—15 long, agonizing days—since Cynthia left me.

Since we broke up.

Or rather—since she broke me.

I keep begging. I kept begging. Every single day, at every single graduation practice, I didn't care about the flow, the speeches, or the steps. Wala akong pake. All I could think about was her. I followed her around like a ghost that couldn’t find peace.

I begged. Over and over. Desperate. Pathetic. Tanga.

Flashbacks

“Cynthia. Please, don’t do this. Please give me another chance. I promise—I'll be a better person,” I whispered, chasing after her footsteps down the empty hallway outside her office.

Buti na lang walang estudyante. Only silence. Only the sound of my voice echoing against the white walls and her heels clicking further and further away from me.

She didn't look back. Not even once.

“Please…” I pleaded again, finally catching up and grabbing her hand.

For a split second, she paused.

But then she yanked her hand away as if my touch burned her. Without a word, she entered her office and locked the door—leaving me out in the hallway.

Outside. Always outside.

---

“Please take this,” I said one afternoon, handing her a sandwich and a cold bottle of water. “You haven’t eaten anything since earlier…”

She didn’t even glance at it. She just stood there, looking straight ahead, ignoring me completely. It was break time during practice. I thought maybe she’d be more human, more open, even just for a moment. But she didn’t even acknowledge I existed.

“Please…” I mumbled again, lowering my hand.

“Cynthia! Let’s buy food, we haven’t eaten yet!” tawag ng isang co-professor niya, laughing as she waved.

Without hesitation, Cynthia turned toward them and left me there, sandwich still in my hand.

---