Now that I knowhewill be there, I meditate positivity into my body.
For when it comes to Marlon Salvador, I will always need to brace for my own sanity.
Two
Have you ever wished you’ve known someone since birth?
A best friend perhaps, a partner-in-crime? I’m sure most people wish they had someone they’ve known from the beginning. Well, aren’t I lucky?I’veknown someone since birth. Since the womb even.
Marlon Salvador.
Though, plot twist! I know him against my own free will, and if it were up to me, I’d choose to never have met him at all.
That’s what happens when both your Mums are best friends.Thebest of friends.
Saralyn and Regina, inseparable since the moment they first met in primary school. Both of them had just moved to Sydney from Manila, and since starting life in a foreign country was no doubt terrifying, they clutched to each other desperately. Their friendship can be equated to sisterhood, the type where their families became instantly close. They would dream about having joint marriages andevensyncing up their pregnancies so their children could grow up to be best friends like them.
Imagine their surprise when they found out that my Mum was having a girl, and Tita Regina was having a boy.
I wasbetrothedbefore my brain was even formed.
God, if only Tita Regina hadn’t birthed the literal spawn of the devil.
For as long as I could remember, Marlon has always been there in my life. Lurking in the background, in the shadows.
He was there playing withmyfavourite toys, stealingmytoy cars and pulling the hairs frommyBarbie dolls. So, in return, I stole his Transformer figurines, which to this day, I have hidden in my storage trunk. He was there hiding my tsinelas[2] , forcing me to walk barefoot on my ice-cold tiles. So, I’d hide his favourite shoes.
It was a constant back and forth, a Tom and Jerry fiasco, an exhausting battle that ended in both of us running to our Mums and dobbing each other in.
And things didn’t get better as we grew older. Maturity was obviously a foreign concept when it came to Marlon.
Why don’t you just say you don’t like him?You may be wondering. Honestly, it isn’t that easy. I wish it was.
Obviously I’d already voiced my great distate, voiced it as young as 8-years-old when Marlon and I were paired for a dance number to perform for a Filipino fiesta.
I told Mum that I didn’t want to hold hands with Marlon and that I wanted to hold hands with another boy instead (he was half Filipino-half Italian and gorgeous to 8-year-old me). Mum laughed, telling me that I didn’t know it yet, but Marlon was the one for me.
She promised me, that in the future, I’d see what she meant. 10-years-later, and the only thing I see in Marlon are horns that continue to protrude from his brain and a special place for him in Hell. By the way, Marlon had stepped on my foot during that dance number, and made me fall. Yet, even with our incompatibility, our Mums, and now our entirefamiliesare convinced we’re meant to be.
God, how could I possibly ever love someone like him?
He is loud, he is abrasive, and always wants to be the centre of attention.
The very thought of him sends ice running through my veins.
I may not be experienced in romance, but if there’s one thing I’m certain of in my love life, it’s that Marlon Salvador is the furthest from my happy-ever-after.
Three
Like all of our family gatherings,it’s the smell of the food that greets me first, before my relatives. As soon as we step through the entrance of Tita Lucillia’s house, the aroma of freshly cooked dishes tackles my nose violently and saliva begins to build ungracefully on my tongue. There’s never a shortage in food at my family gatherings.
Last time Tita Lucillia hosted a party, it was for New Year’s lunch. She’d cooked her signaturepalabok, my favourite Filipino dish of all time.
God, just thinking aboutpalabok, of it’s rich shrimp sauce coating the noodles, of the pork cracklings scattered thoughtfully atop, has my knees buckling and stomach churning.
Maybe I should’ve had more than just a toast for breakfast.
“Ah,finally!”
