All This Time

Twenty Years

"Oh, you think this is funny?" She crossed her arms across her chest, while the new guy was still laughing.

"It is funny! Hahahahah Come on, that was twenty years ago, MengMeng! Patawarin mo na ko!" The new guy teased, stressing the two syllables of the childhood nickname he gave her when he was five.

She winced. "Eww. No one has called me that in forever! Don't call me that, please!" She said, remembering the chubby cheeked boy with thick hair and a missing front tooth who started calling her that when their parents met at a clubhouse and eventually introduced them and encouraged them to play together while they chatted about costs of properties over overpriced coffee. She remembered the boy who laughed at her real nickname-- Menggay, saying that it didn't sound like her and that from then on he'd call her MengMeng instead. Nobody else called her that but him.

Being two years older, he was the one who approached her first to ask her to play. She just nodded and they spent the time together playing tag, hide and seek, and then just sitting together drinking Chocolait, while their nannies wiped their sweat and fanned them.

Six months later, his parents bought the house across from her's, so naturally they became daily playmates, and eventually bestfriends. As the only children of two wealthy, albeit extremely busy, couples, they became each other's only company, with only their nannies-- Yaya Pearl and Yaya Virgie, to watch them everyday.

It easily became routine. He would eat his breakfast, then go to pre-school until 12 pm, go home, eat, and change, then Yaya Virgie would take him to her house and stay there until before dinner time or when his parents get home, whichever was earlier. Sometimes, he even stayed there for dinner when his parents were out of town.

When he started grade school at 6, their playdates started getting shorter because of his homework. Some days, they would just wave at each other in the morning-- her from their gate and him from the car window. Some days, they didn't see each other at all. They always got excited for weekends because at least one of their parents would be out of town and they would be allowed to spend the entire weekend together. He would tell her the things he did in school and proudly show her his projects. They would play, color, and watch cartoons until they get dead tired and fall asleep on the couch, with her leaning on his shoulder and him leaning on her head.

Their nannies found this really cute so they would just watch them and let them sleep like that until one of them would move and fall off the couch.

At their very young age, they bonded like two old souls who were probably intertwined in their past lives, and although their innocence shielded them from the harshness of the outside world's reality, they both knew and understood each other's struggles in their very young lives inside the corners of their huge homes. She had always craved the attention of her parents, especially her father. He did too, but being a boy, he was taught to not be so malambing or iyakin, so he would only cry when he's sure nobody would see him. So when she would throw a random tantrum, Yaya Pearl would either take her to the house across the street or call Yaya Virgie to bring him to the house, and instantly she would stop crying and everything would be right in the world again.

On her fifth birthday, one of the games the clowns made them play was blow the biggest bubble using Bazooka Bubble Gum. They were standing next to each other and everyone was cheering. When he realized he was winning, he turned to her and moved closer to show off, but the gum popped and all the residue went to her hair. The entire pink decorated pavilion went dead silent for a second, then only the wails of the birthday girl were heard. Her mother had to cut her hair the shortest she could to get rid of the gum that night, ending up with the ugliest bowl cut in the history of mankind.

He remembered crying in his room as soon as he got home at making his only friend cry on her birthday and at the thought that she'd hate him forever. Of course, she did not know his remorse, because being a kid who wanted to show off, he joined the other kids at laughing at her sticky pink blotched hair earlier.

"Well, like I said, it has been twenty years, MengMeng. Cute ka pa rin naman," he said with a wink.

"Uggh." She angrily turned around again and started walking back to her office but he easily caught up with her in two strides, grabbing her right elbow.

"Will you please stop walking away from me," he said, tightly holding on to her elbow, with a slightly more serious face now.

She slowly turned her head and looked at his hand tightly wrapped around her elbow, then moved her fiery gaze straight into his eyes.

"Well, if I remember correctly, you were the one who walked away first," she said quite bluntly, before forcefully pulling her elbow from his hand and walking away.

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