Taking the wheel

I knew what Good Guy wrote about me after our first meeting many years ago. I read his full-length blog post about that dinner we had that lasted all the way up until midnight. My imagination told me how that smile never faded away since then each time he’d think of me. I certainly did remind him of a bunch of things – Ripley’s Believe It or Not, that cartoon movie we saw together which turned out to be the first movie I ever saw with a guy (yeah, really), bootleg DVD copies we bought in Quiapo and the pancit we shared for dinner.

And some more. Those MRT rides where we were seated so close to each other I could actually smell his breath and tell what he had just eaten. Our shared interest in the arts. And the early mornings we spent jogging together made my friends wish they could borrow him too.

My girl friends envied me for having a close male friend I could count on when my desktop suffers memory loss or when I need an instant movie date. He may not be aware of the fact that aside from being my personal mechanic, he was also my savior when boredom strikes the hardest.

But since I was busy investing emotionally on this other guy, I didn’t see Good Guy for all his worth. Any romantic thoughts about him I regarded as an incestual desire worthy of hell that made me wince and go “yuck”. Not that he’s “yucky”. He was my boyfriend’s best friend.

Apparently, this turned out to be one of the biggest regrets in my history book. Lately, he’s been out making a name for himself and meeting more girls while I dug myself deep in my new-found career and rescuing my already doomed relationship. We hardly had time to see each other. Like all the tragic stories of those people who came in late, I’ve missed out on his growth years. By the time I forced myself back into the scene, it was a little too late. Things had changed.

I found myself wishing I should have been attentive enough to see him not just as a well-meaning friend but a potential mate whose lousy pick-up lines had actually melted me into water. I wish I have not wasted those years in a relationship with his best friend that ended up in a bin. I wish I have spent those times just getting to know Good Guy more – the other things he does, the other books he reads, the kind of music he listens to, and decipher the mystery why girls with long hair are so special to him. (Although every time I asked him about the hair thing, he’d shrug it off and call me silly.)

This time, you won’t find me sitting idly by the wishing well, or waiting for the next planetary alignment. I do really like him. And it’s time to put my imagination to work and do something.