THE WRITER

XIII: Stories End, New Ones Begin

"In that moment fate has decided to whisper a chant in my ear over and over hoping that one day it will get to me and I'd do what it says, 'Let go. Let go.' I hope it was as simple as that."
-Fate, Allie Santos

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Epilogue

"Come back! Come back!" all this while that is all I am dreaming about. I always find myself trying to bring him back. Through prayers. Through wishes. Through hopes. Through dreams. But he does not appear in any of it.

"Come back! Even as a dream!" was my last feeble attempt of trying to bring him back. But fate has been so selfish. He will never come back anyway.

I have come to the point when I wished I hadn't written any of it, you know. I had come to the point where I wish I can undo everything.

"There's no story without love." That's what my mother used to say. All of them are about love. You cannot possibly build a story without it. You cannot build another life without it. You cannot live without it.

Stories, even those who end tragically, is powered by love.

It was hard writing things I did not know. It was hard writing things that eventually becomes your reality. It was hard being the one who can write what happens in your life and in the life of others. Your decisions should not always be about you. If there is anything writing taught me. If there is anything Aiden taught me, it is, love does not always mean happiness, somehow it also means pain and sacrifice.

I know he will never return in my life again. And I will never probably see him again in my lifetime. There is a part of me that wanted to forget everything. But a greater part of me wanted, or is hoping, that if ever fate decided to have us meet again he will remember me.

He will remember not my face or how I look in general but how he felt every time we were together. I wanted to hope that much. That all this, all this craziness is not a dream. I am not going to write about how sad I am to have lost him.

Happy endings. Happy endings. Happy endings. When I was little I used to write these words over and over. At some point in my life, despite everything that happened, I honestly thought I'll be having a happy ending.

The last time I hoped for a happy ending was when I saw him standing just a few inches away my sanctuary. He was there. Standing stiffly, his arms folded as if trying to stop them from moving. I gazed at him fondly, hoping he'd somehow remember. Remember that day when the sun was dropping behind that farthest mountain. Remember that place that has once held a world carpeted of different colors. That place that was once filled with the songs of the birds. The creek. The waving green trees. But he walked away almost as immediately as I let out a plea to the heavens.

That last conversation is eternally etched in my mind and my answers has been the words that I whisper myself over and over making myself get used to it.

"Do you know me?"

"No." Lie.

"By any chance, do you have any feelings for me?"

"None."

In the silence of the night I whispered the words I've been wanting to tell him but I ended up masking them with a lie. "I love you." it was a soft, soft whisper but I hope he heard every word.

In this last hope of him being able to remember me I had decided to leave him a letter. Words that are put together in a way that only he will understand.

Aiden,

You were once lost, Aiden. I found you. This is our story. If you read this, somewhere, sometime, I hope that somehow there will be a part of you that will remember. That tiny part that will at least feel a slight tingling sensation, all of this, all of this is about you and not a mere coincidence that you have the same name as the lead. Because Aiden, even if I wanted you to forget, a huge part of me still wants you to remember. Please remember me.

You wanted to stay in the world that I created but I couldn't do that. Even if I could. When you left the last thing that was etched in my mind was your eyes. Your eyes telling me that even before this I already left you.

I want you to be here. Of course I wanted you to be with me. Whoever wants someone they want to leave? But what can I do? How can you hold on to someone who is not meant to stay?

You have to remember me, Aiden. Because I was the one who found you when you were lost.

It is going to be absurd but it is true. We met. We met in a place where fiction is nothing but a mere word. It was true, Aiden. Those you dream about being lost. Those you dream about meeting a strange girl with a pen that suddenly lights. Those you dream about creeks and parks and carnivals and picnics. They were real.

Aiden you were once there. You were with me. Please.

Everything that you try to forget, everything. All of it that you remember about that place. It is not a dream.

Allie

I blinked hard while typing this. Even I don't know how to disconnect myself from this story I had written. I am, all the while, confused if I was just inventing this or really experiencing it. Fate was elusive because in neither fiction nor reality did I get the happy ending I had always dreamed of.

Our story wasn't a happy ending. But somehow I know, deep down, I feel happy. Relieved. For once in my life I felt love that is surreal. Love that is beyond everyone's imagination. People will think that it isn't real. That it is just mere fiction. But it is real for me.

It was.

at least for me it was.

-End-

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