Page 107 of The Fallacy of True Love
“Good luck. See you later.”
After we hung up, I splashed water on my face and blew out a breath.
Then I squared my shoulders and headed back outside.
Cam
I’d planned to spend my free time getting a head start on a new gig I landed. Instead, I was in a cramped jeepney heading for the coffee shop where Alonzo worked. He’d said he didn’t need help, but the tightness in his voice told me he did. As much as I’d already exceeded my capacity for peopling this week, something compelled me to go to Alonzo anyway.
At first, I tried to pass it off as my way of paying him back for everything he had done for me the past couple of days.
But the truth of the matter was I wanted to be there for him. I thought I didn’t have the capacity to care about anyone else other than Nikki, Jo, Eric, and Inang. Trust Alonzo to be the one to prove me wrong.
The realization made my stomach churn because caring for another person meant adding one more risk of getting hurt. But when I walked into the coffee shop and saw the moment Alonzo spotted me, I knew the risk was worth it if only to see that surprise flash across his face and the joy that followed.
Alonzo
She came.
Even when I told her she didn’t need to, even though she knew people would be around, she showed up for me. She’d walked in, joined me and Fred behind the counter, and asked how she could help. When I told her we were okay, she grabbed the dirty dishes that had piled up at the end of the counter and brought them inside the kitchen. Fred had given me a look that was equal parts teasing and relieved, and then a customer called me over and I had no choice but to leave Maya at it.
Soon after, one of Jason’s security team arrived and helped manage the crowd. Good thing too, because Fred and I would have struggled to get people out at ten. They hung around hoping to see Jason, never mind how many times I told them he wasn’t coming.
Maya manned the sink until we closed the register and Fred told me to “go thank your girl.”
Maya looked my way as I entered the kitchen, and I crossed the space in three big steps. As if reading my expression, she put the dish she’d been washing in the sink just before I placed my hands on either side of her head and kissed her.
Everything inside me seemed to light up as her lips merged with mine and returned my urgency with equal fervor. She kissed me like she’d been anticipating it as long as I had. She gripped my shoulders, and I didn’t care that her hands were wet. Someone could pour a bucket of ice water on us and still I’d keep my lips and hands on her because she was here and she was everything I never imagined I’d find.
Someone cleared their throat, but I ignored it until Maya drew away from me.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Fred said from behind us. “We’re done outside. Your bodyguard helped me clean up.”
Maya huffed out a breath. “Your bodyguard?”
“He’s one of the guys Jason hired when people started showing up at our house after his and Tala’s engagement got leaked,” I explained.
It amazed me how normal I sounded when it seemed that everything inside me was rearranging.
All my life, I’d believed that love happened over a period of time—a product of proximity, familiarity, and easy companionship. Maya defied that. Aside from her living hours away, I’d only known her for two months and there was still so much more I wanted to learn about her.
She was the most contrary person I knew, far from the textbook definition of easy company. Her what-you-see-is-what-you-get personality went against the norms of diplomacy, but it worked for me. I didn’t have to watch what I said around her, didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. In fact, she pushed me to be my most genuine self.
It didn’t matter if other people didn’t consider her easy company—she was for me.
Maya was teaching me that love didn’t depend on the length and constancy of exposure to one person. That it could come despite the lack of physical closeness and knowledge, even despite the unideal timing and circumstances.
Maybe love wasn’t a clear point you reached—that eureka moment when you just knew that this was it. Instead, maybe it was a journey through places that had you guessing, and winding roads that had you reeling, and sudden dips and peaks that whipped you through a range of emotions.
And maybe it was the discovery that the person you wanted beside you didn’t have to be the one you’d always pictured. That it might just be the stranger who’d knocked you with her words and then her surfboard. The one who shunned the trappings of social conventions and turned out to be perfectly imperfect for you.
Maybe love came in various shades of truth. And maybe I was lucky enough to find it with two different people who suited different periods of my life.
If so, wasn’t I the lucky one?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Cam
