Page 123 of The Fallacy of True Love
X Alonzo
I cursed myself for not checking the bag earlier. If I had, I wouldn’t have left. Now it was too late to turn back and demand that Alonzo give me that speech in person. I’d felt him gearing up to say something in the car, and I’d halted it with my confession. I did it because he needed to know the truth to understand why I am the way that I am, but also because part of me recognized that him talking first would have made it harder to say goodbye.
Maybe it was for the best that I hadn’t read this note until now. We both needed space to think things through without getting bogged up in the novelty of the situation and each other.
Instead of texting him like I wanted to, I ate the sandwich—extra cheese, the way I liked it—and finished the buko shake, which was more liquid than ice at that point. Then I spent the rest of the ride alternating between shallow bouts of sleep and replaying memories of Alonzo.
When we arrived in Juana, I walked past the wall that had witnessed our first kiss. The poster for Ed’s plumbing services had faded, but I felt the tension that had crackled between Alonzo and me like it happened yesterday. As I swung the gate open, I remembered the night I came home and found Alonzo drinking by the front door.
I went in to swap my backpack for my beach bag, then paused outside the room where he’d stayed. It had just been a night, but I couldn’t look at it and not immediately think of him. Tiptoeing out the door, I recalled that moment we’d snuck out of the house together and the first real conversation we had on the way to the beach.
The sound of the water swooshing over the sand grew louder the further I walked, and the scent of the sea filled my nose. My legs went faster until concrete gave way to sand, pulling my feet deeper. Grounding me into the here and now.
As I waded into the chilly water, the chaos in my mind seemed to settle. This—this was what I needed. For a moment, I let myself float on the surfboard, content to simply be one with the sea again.
I was finally home. And yet, it felt like something was missing.
When I looked back at the shore, Nikki was sitting beside my bag. I smiled for the first time since leaving Alonzo.
“Aren’t you supposed to be having breakfast with your daughter?” I called out.
“I missed you too—eek!” Her voice went up a few notches as I ran toward her with my arms stretched wide. “You’re wet!”
Laughing, I hugged her anyway. “This is what you get for ambushing me.”
“Now I need to change clothes again.” She sighed. “I guess I should be thankful you’re hugging me without being forced to.”
“The pollution obviously messed up my brain.”
She pulled away, giving me a skeptical look. “Uh huh. Was it the pollution or was it one of the hottest bachelors in Manila?”
I rolled my eyes and bent to grab my towel. “Alonzo is not one of the hottest.” He was the hottest, period.
“So it’s Alonzo now, huh?”
Even as I focused on drying myself, I could tell that she had a sappy smile on her face. “It wouldn’t make sense to say Manila, right?”
“Sure. Go ahead and lie to yourself if it makes you feel better.”
“It’s the overexposure,” I said, reaching for my tumbler. “He’s conditioned my brain.”
“Are we talking about him or his dick? Also, new tumbler?”
I sighed and faced my best friend. “I like him.”
Her eyes widened. Grinning, she said, “About time. Are we talking like or like like?”
“You don’t need to repeat the word.” I took a drink to delay answering.
“Oh, it is. The repetition changes the meaning.”
That could explain my feelings for Alonzo—the repeated contact, sexual and otherwise. He was the only guy I’d ever experienced that with. Maybe that didn’t necessarily mean he was special, or that we shared anything monumental.
Nikki bumped her elbow against mine. “Whatever you’re thinking now, stop it.”
“It was just supposed to be a hookup.” I flexed my hand around the tumbler.
“Did he say or do anything to make you believe he thought that too?”
