The Stranger From Facebook

"Are you ready?" He asked.

"I am."

Anyway that was a lazy day after all, I might as well hear what he has to say, er, read what he has to type.

"It's gonna be a long one." He further added.

"That's fine, I can take it." I replied.

"My boyfriend and I were together for three and a half years. We do almost everything together. I love him and he knows how much I love him too. We couldn't stray away from each other. We have to be with each other most, if not, all of the time. He even transferred schools just for me. He transferred during sophomore year, from CSB to UST because as I said we couldn't be apart. "

"And?" I butted in.

"And it was wonderful. I mean, here was a guy I was truly in love with, a guy who even transferred schools just to be with me, and we do everything together, even studying."

"Then what happened?"

"Then med school came, and, and it just crumbled, what we had just crumbled down..."

"How come med school came into the scene of your relationship?" I guiltlessly asked.

"Well that, plus the fact that I met someone interesting at med school." He quickly added.

"Oh..."

"He is a Filipino-American and he is currently studying medicine here. We were classmates. At first, of course, I paid no attention to him, after all I am committed and when I do a commitment, I stick to it."

"So what made you, uh, attracted to this Fil-Am?"

"Well...I guess it was a process. I was not initially smitten but along the way, there was something in him. I don't know. Then we became friends and before you know it I was making excuses to my boyfriend because we became study buddies."

"Didn't your boyfriend even wonder why he wasn't your study buddy anymore?"

"Of course he did! And my boyfriend is the typical boyfriend who gets really jealous and starts getting suspicious. But I kept it from him that I had a new friend. Well, as for the Fil-Am, initially, being his study buddy was something different. Me being friends and study buddies with him feels different."

"I see."

"And then before I know it, I started hanging-out with him."

"And then it gets juicier."

"What do you mean? Anyway, yeah, we started hanging-out more often and then..."

He stopped mid-way.

"And then I slept with him"

"I see. How interesting."

"But don't get me wrong." He immediately added. "I slept with him but we didn't have sex. It was literally hugs and kisses. And that continued for some time."

"And how did it feel?" Okay, so I was excited to know.

"Electrifying. Yeah, that's the word for it, electrifying."

"And your boyfriend?"

"At first he was just speculating but he already knew the guy. After all, I do tell him of friends and school. Then one day, he went into my phone and he looked up the guy's phone number and e-mail address. And before I know it he was threatening him and sending him profane messages, trying to blackmail him. Well you know gut feelings, someway or another, your hunches become facts."

"And then?"

"And then everything just started to fall apart - relationship, the Fil-Am, med school - everything seems to get out of hand. And before I knew it, I was out of med school, out of my boyfriend's shadow, out of the Fil-Am's life, and out of the country."

"Wow." 

"What's so wow about that?"

"Nothing. It's just that I never had a boyfriend as madly in love as yours."

"Well you have a point but the thing is, what drove me away was how he got so controlling that even if I want to just study alone in a coffee shop, he said we have to study together. As in everytime. It was sweet at first but sooner or later, you will get tired from it."

Honestly, I don't know what to say to him after. It's not that he was just ranting, but it's because I cannot relate. True, I had boyfriends that were bordering paranoid but none compared to his.

"I told you it's long."

"Yeah, it is long."

And our conversation ended just like that.

Part 2