Of L.

L. is in London right now. She initiated a rather mundane YM conversation with me one evening this past week. It’s probably the most we’ve said to each other since I bailed early from her farewell party a couple of years back, somewhat uncomfortable to be in a drunken mix of exes and a current boyfriend twice her age. I saw her last Christmas around a mall in Makati. She was obviously in town visiting her father. I followed her around for a good fifteen minutes or so, making sure she wouldn’t see me. For some reason I was scared. I sent her an email a day later; she replied saying we should meet up. We never did.

I never understood why we were as close as we were. Sometimes I wonder if it was more an affair between me and her father, a chef who was amused at this young guy’s mature passion for the culinary arts. I was probably the only guy he ever liked seeing his daughter with.

When she told me she was moving away it had been months after anything. The news caught me off guard. I asked her what she was going to do. She said she found a college in San Francisco where she was going to take up sound engineering. I remember she used to love going to gigs in Malate. But I always sensed that she just needed the company of a crowd of mostly strangers. I had asked her once what she was listening to. She said she was wasn’t listening to anything.

Well, she’s still Frisco-based, but she decided to quit school, saying the sound engineering thing just wasn’t her thing. She decided to travel around Europe first before taking her next step—whatever that may be. She admitted to being confused, a little apprehensive. She insisted, though, that she’ll be okay. The fact that she’s traveling around Europe, exploring unfamiliar lands while finding herself, but being always logged onto YM says something else.