From childhood, I already had a clear understanding of love. My mother did her job in making it known to me since I was just knee-high. It was all about intimacy, of laying bare your whole being to another, whether it was your body or the painful trauma you collected throughout your life. She said it was knowing and accepting. If I laid bare in front of him, with all my callouses and blunders echoing from the past, accompanying me to that perfect timing of confession, would he shun me away? Or would he, in his own volition, kiss me with ease, making every pain and guilt I carried pale in comparison with his love?
Like a magisterial priest during Sunday’s mass, she made sure to ingrain that scripture in my head, and I, being young and foolish, was her willing disciple. I recalled her saying every time she got the chance, “Marry a man similar to your father,” to which he would just laugh off, appearing too meek to wear the honor. It was one of the rare times I would catch a glimpse of gentleness from my father who was naturally a stern man, opposite to the demeanor of my mother.
And then inquisitively, I would always gaze at them from across the dining table, hoping to gauge the concept of love at the age of seven. Looking back at me, my mother would extend her hand to my father’s and smile with the same softness she exuded so greatly I used to think I inherited it to this day. Then, my father’s face would be lighted up with a tinge of red hue as if he was glowing. I understood love back then. But I was yet to feel it.
Until Damien came.
Love meant having my cherry lips puckered in front of the mirror, eyes done in a haste, and unkempt hair tied up just enough to expose my bare neck, ready for his kisses. Or his hands. Whether he wanted to fondle it or grip it, I had no protest. Everything he did made me feel loved anyway.
As he stepped out of the shower, the smell of St. Ives body wash permeated the bathroom. I looked at him in the mirror, hoping he would meet my gaze, hoping he would say a word, or just return my smile, hoping he would notice me. He slinked through the space beside me, his bulk person almost hitting my right shoulder still sore from our intimate moments earlier.
“I’m going out,” he said between brushing his teeth, his mouth frothy from his frantic movement. By the time he was already done, I found myself still in the previous position of checking him out. Only now, in a much sharper lens. The cowlick of his chin-length hair, as if made from the earth’s soil, cascaded gently down his forehead, giving his sharp features a soft contrast if not for his eyebrows forever furrowed. The mere sight of him aroused my yearning so fondly that intensified with his every move; my flesh was a barren land craving to melt in his presence between those tough arms.
In one swift turn, he hurtled toward the bathroom door. His body was evidently agitated and his mind preoccupied that he had not returned any of my gazes. And I knew I had grown used to his passive air that feeling a pang of pain in my chest no longer prompted me to grow resentful but to accept it with ease and familiarity.
“This late?” I almost mumbled incoherently as I struggled to find a word that would not tick him off but failed miserably as he turned around, darting those blank eyes toward me. Although his eyes spoke nothing but displeasure, my heart was irrationally leaping out of joy. He looked at me. It was the first time he looked at me tonight.
I had familiarized that dead stare all too well. It taught me how to nod my head in acquiescence, how to say “yes” to all his requests, how to pluck my eyes out at every sneaky message I accidentally read, how to become deaf whenever he raised his voice with the slightest mistake I committed. It taught me how to let him leave and welcome him again when he came back home to me. So, as I heard the melody of our front door slamming, I just heaved out a sigh.
Love might mean undoing my makeup at midnight, wiping the mascara off my eyes leaving a tinted black smudge under them from the micellar water, or from the tears slowly forming around the corners. It was painting patches of concealer on my neck, right where the contusion from his grip flourished because I still gave tact to what he would feel once he took notice.
I revered him too much to clothe the marks as his mere parlance and tell myself, “It’s just the way he loves.” The bruises were the unborn offspring from our nights together, seeking refuge all over my body because he was just too cold to offer them warmth. Each night, I stroked wherever they resided – on my neck, shoulders, and thighs – hoping my silent lullabies would appease their cries.
I learned that from my mother.
Love, as she routinely nagged me when I was little, involves knowing and accepting. Strip yourself naked in front of him and watch whether he would scowl or give you pity. For who would marry a woman whose chastity has been marred by the thuggish hands of men she never knew? Only my father would.
I trudged outside the bathroom, dragging my wobbly legs toward the bed. Snuggling a pillow, I found myself curled up in a ball, a position I always did when waiting for him to come home. I pictured him tonight with the same woman from before, the bespectacled volunteer at a charity event we attended two weeks ago. I did not know her that much except for her birthday being on February 13, she lived downtown just across from the gasoline station, and she taught in a nursery. Oh, and her middle name’s Merced.
She was younger than me, perhaps more interesting. Perhaps wild enough to stimulate his potency.
My eyes were becoming hazier every minute of this cruel rumination that I could no longer tell if it was because of the mascara or the river of tears flowing incessantly. Still, no sound escaped from my mouth except for the shuddering of breath rhyming congruently with my shoulders heaving. This hit home every time, a scene I had memorized since childhood, back when the muffled cries of the ghost haunting at midnight echoed throughout the hallway, finding their way to my room where I could hear them sensibly.
On nights like this when silence was my only companion, I still contrived to long for his touch. My heart, my body, and my very soul are all conspiring to commit a crime against me, so vacuous that I was both the perpetrator and the willing victim.
My mother taught me well. With the softness emanating from her, I wondered why she still failed to warm the stern heart of my father. And all the love she offered at the table, hoping to be requited with the same intensity, was harrowed with something so damning, so heart-wrenching that I wondered how she managed to stifle her cries the moment she was no longer kept in the dark.
As I grew older with age, I realized why my father was quick to shut off the idea of me marrying a man like him. Was he guilty that I would go on and love a man whom I expected to kiss the pain and guilt away, like how my mother expected him to but instead met with such futility when she caught him embracing another woman in their own bed? And his sin would forever imprison him in a high-strung belief that I would also suffer in the hands of a man disposed towards intemperate outbursts.
Perhaps, he was right.
I was just my mother’s daughter, an extension of her damned life, destined to mirror her mistake of marrying a man whose hands were too rough to hold our fragile hearts. The kisses we craved turned into a rock hurtling toward our frail bodies that we received with a smile. Caress me or hurt me, it did not matter; love stayed the same painful thing far from its flowery promise of knowing and accepting.
And among the countless attempts to make sense of love, one thing dominated above all. Love meant straddling between losing sleep and losing sanity, eyes puffed from long hours of silent wailing and waiting for him to come home. Because even if the bruises dated back to my mother’s skin, the only way to pacify my aching heart was his touch. 𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒚. 𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒆𝒍.
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In light of Valentine’s Day, Centro Dalumat is celebrating the month of love through a series of stories.
Anticipate more as we welcome the warmth of February!