Someday Soon, With You

Victoria Miranda Alontte Bernandino, 23 years old, is an actuarial analyst for three years in an insurance firm. Her family and friends used to call her Mira, or at least when she still has friends or a family. She is an only child and her parents died in a car crash when she was in second year college, they were not exactly rich but not poor either. The savings her parents left her is what she used to get through college with the help of her DOST scholarship. Her co-workers call her Ms. Miranda or sometimes if there are newly hired staffs in the office, they would call her Ma’am Miranda. She talks and laughs with her officemates, eat lunch with them but not to the point where they will spend time together outside work. That’s the closest friend she currently has. Mira automatically opened her eyes at 5:28, that’s when she usually starts her day. She’ll wake up at most five minutes earlier or later than 5:30, cook and eat her breakfast, take a bath and get ready for work. She spends most of her time at work, when she comes home, she’ll do a ten-minute clean-up at her apartment, cook and eat her dinner, wash the dishes, half bath and read a book until she feels sleepy. Every Friday afternoon she’ll go to a laundry shop and leave her laundry which she will pick up every Sunday noon after the mass and then take out two meals in her favorite fast-food chain for lunch and dinner. She spends her weekends eating, sleeping, watching movies or TV programs and then sleeps again. That’s how her life usually is, a routine. She just got home from attending the mass and picking up her laundry when she realized she doesn’t have her cellular phone. She checked her bag three times just in case she only missed it in the small pockets although she was sure she didn’t put it in there. It wasn’t there, or anywhere. She used her other phone and called it; the call was kind of expensive since the SIM cards are from two different telecommunication companies. It was ringing for seven or eight times now but no one was answering it, and the next time she called it didn’t ring anymore, she only heard a long beeping sound. Number busy! She thought. Now it’s lost, she felt a little jolt in her chest. She has two phones, an android phone she bought six months ago, still new and a keypad phone she had for almost seven years now. She had it when she still was in college and doesn’t want to let it go. It would have been better if she lost the android phone. She felt sad about losing the old one. It’s like losing an old friend. She doesn’t like this feeling, feeling like losing something, or someone. But somehow, she’s used to it, it’s a familiar feeling for her, losing things you love, or people you love that she doesn’t over react about it anymore. She doesn’t even know how to react, she just sat there looking at nothing and adjusting herself to this another loss. After almost two hours of mourning over her lost phone, she opened the plastic bag containing the two meals she ordered. It’s one-piece chicken with spaghetti and a chocolate float, that’s for lunch. The other meal is two-piece chicken. After eating, she just rest for another hour and get herself ready to go out. She’ll buy another phone, one with a keypad and a SIM card obviously. It was a change of plan; at this time, she would usually sleep or watch movies or anime until it’s time for dinner again. Sometimes she enjoys the ‘change of plans’ especially when she felt like she wants to buy new books or second-hand clothes, but not this time. She took a tricycle and went to the nearest mall. Keypad phones are a lot cheaper than android phones, after she bought a new phone and a SIM card she immediately heads back home. Normally, it felt like she’s having burns in her body when she’s outside and will only be relieved once she’s at home, like now. As a child, her mother would threaten her that if she would not go out in the sun, mushroom would grow in her body which, according to her mother is good, so that they’ll have dish every day. Horrified, she would bathe in the sun for ten minutes before going to school and ten minutes after school. She believed that threat most of her childhood, she just realized it was only a threat when she started college. She assembled her new phone, inserted the new SIM card and texted her officemates and immediate supervisor to inform them she had a new phone number. She had dinner, took a half bath, went to bed and opened a book. Its 10:47 and she’s feeling a little sleepy so she closed the book and turned off one of the lights. She already closed her eyes when her phone beeped. The number was unknown. She felt confused as she read the message: it doesn’t matter how long it takes; I will still wait for you. I know you will still come back to me. Hmm. Wrong number, she thought. She ignored it and went to sleep. Days passed as fast as she can remember, everything is just as how it was aside from the addition in her routine. The messages she received didn’t stopped even though she replied multiple times that she/he got the wrong number, it’s still coming. But she got used to it now, sometimes she would smile at the messages because it’s so sweet or sometimes she would feel the pain the messages brought. It’s almost ten months when she bought the phone, it’s starting to fit in now, or at least that’s how she felt. The little phone is starting to have a place in her life, like when it got lost again, she would feel a little sad about it. And so were the messages, it feels like a part of her daily routine, when she wakes up every morning, she will read a message sent more or less 30 minutes before she wake up, every lunch, dinner and 10PM which is more or less 30 minutes before she sleeps. Its 10PM Friday evening and she closed the book she was reading. It’s called The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, she felt the urge to buy the book and read it after watching the movie adaptation. It’s quite satisfying because there is so much in the book that was not included in the movie. Her phone beeped. Ah. Just in time, she thought. Meeting you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, spending my time with you, laughing with you and crying with you. You are my home, you just are. You laugh, you smile, you cry and frown and I’m home. I will do all my best to be a good person, so that I can meet you in our next life. So I will have the privilege to feel you again, to hear you call my name and to love you again. I will do it again and again, through all the lives we could ever live. I will love you always, because you have my heart, I found it in you and now, it’s lost with you. I love you tonight. And tomorrow, I will love you again. Goodnight. What’s this, she thought. She felt like her heart just fell in the ground, like there was a drum beating in her ears. It’s been ten months and this message is different from all the others, it was always good mornings, and good nights, or hellos, or eat your meal on time messages. Sometimes it’s accompanied with come back to me, or I’ll wait for you, or I will always be here or sweet little I love yous. This message is sweet and painful and full of longing. She sat up in her bed and read the message again for the second time, for the third and fourth. I love you tonight. And tomorrow, I will love you again. She read it over and over again until she’s satisfied. For the first time in a very long time, she felt pain. It doesn’t matter to her, whatever she felt, as long as she feels. She sat there and stared blankly in the walls of her room, and then smiled bitterly. She realized how empty she has been feeling all this time. She talks and laughs and all every day with her friends at work and yet when she comes home, she would feel all the emptiness again. And the thing is, she’s so used to it. Sometimes she’s asking herself whether she was acting it all up or not. When she acts very happy when her friends announced that they will get married because that’s how you would normally react to those kinds of announcements, or act sad when she gives them her condolences when they lose loved ones, because that’s how it usually is. When she thought about it, she’d ask herself, was I just acting? Because when she looks at how she really felt, she felt nothing. She doesn’t feel happy, she doesn’t feel sad, just nothing. And now, after a long time, she is amazed that there’s still a heart hiding in her body somewhere. She started typing, where are you. I’ll come to you. Message sent, she smiled again. Just before she fell asleep, she heard a soft beep in her phone and smiled as she read the address written in it. She found herself in an apartment unit one jeepney-ride away from her residence. She rang the doorbell three times before a tanned man opened the door. It’s a boy, she thought. “Hi”, she reluctantly said. The man looked a little confused but managed to answer. “Hi, can I help you?” He looks so strong, he sounds strong. But the way he talked, it’s like he’s not interested at all. “Yes, about that, hmm, are you the owner of this number?” she showed him her phone with his contact number. “Yes”, he answered looking straight at her. His eyes were not just cold; it’s like dead, lifeless, like it doesn’t have any sparkle in it or any emotion. “Well, you see I was receiving messages from you, I tried to—” “Those were not for you”, he said interrupting her. “I-I know, I just want you to know that to whomever your messages are for, she’s not getting it. Your messages lost its way to her, because”, she paused “I was the one receiving them. For ten months. Straight”. He looked at her still emotionless. He sighed before he answered, “You went here just for that?” She nodded. He sighed again, “Didn’t your parents taught you not to talk to strangers? I see you didn’t only talk to them you even went here at my house just for that.” “Just for THAT? Well, it didn’t feel that way to me” she exclaimed. He was looking straight in her eyes the whole conversation, not missing any of her expressions. “Then how does it feel like? Does it feel pathetic?” “No, not pathetic. It just felt sad, and I don’t know, tragic I guess”, her voice is soft, trying to hide the pain she felt over those wrong sent messages. “What do you want me to do now?” His voice is also starting to soften. “I don’t know; maybe invite me inside for a coffee?” she said hinting how they are talking the whole time outside. He scratched his head, “uhm, yeah, I was talking about the messages but your right, do you want to go inside for a coffee.” She giggled quietly, feeling shy about how shameless she sounds. “Yes” As she was walking inside the apartment, she remembered something, “by the way, I’m Miranda. It’s actually Victoria Miranda, but you can call me Miranda or Mira if you want”. She was in the living room while the man went straight to the kitchen. She could hear the clanking of the spoon to a glass, probably it was the mug. Her eyes were scanning the whole room, it is so neat inside. Like it was being cleaned every hour, no picture of her? She thought. There were few picture frames decorated in the living room, but it was just him alone, two were with the family, she guessed, and the rest were him with his brother. Or best friend maybe, she saw several pictures of them together since they were still little. He came out in the kitchen holding two mugs, one each hand, “are you usually talkative?” She was standing staring at the pictures, “No, I just don’t have anyone I can talk to, I think. Maybe that’s why I have so much to talk about now”, she smiled. “You still didn’t tell me your name” and yet I am here, inside a stranger’s home, she thought. “It’s Alpha” “Sounds like a girl’s name”, she giggled. “I know, Its Alpha Archibald, actually. Or Archi, that’s what my friends from work call me” “So, are you going to stop now? Sending the messages, I mean”, she asked. He was walking towards her, “No” he quickly answered. “What the! How are you going to make it up to her if you would not send the messages directly to her?” She’s really confused at the moment. He was already a few steps away from her, “who said anything about ‘her’?” She looked again to the picture frames hanging in the wall. All those messages were for him? She thought. He stepped closer to her looking at her eyes now enlarged, surprised obviously, and handed her the mug. “Your coffee”