And in the next life?

Louie is sweet: sweeter than anything I'd deserve. She'd scold, whine, and cry at my deprecating thoughts, but it's true. Sweeter than yema, that girl. With a round, soft face framed by shaggy hair grown out of a terrible buzzcut and full, perpetually chapped lips. My teeth ache at the sight of her.


Five years living into the closest urban city made bitter spinsters of us both. The corporate office has made me sick of work politics. Always dodging questions like, "ah, Maya, why don't you grow out your hair?" or, "when will we get to meet that boyfriend of yours?"


Louie caught onto the edge of my energy every time I came home. Despite her own exhaustion (far more than mine, considering she always preferred physical, hands on jobs), she received me like an excitable dog at the door when her boss released her early. Most of the time, I thought it was cute. Not enough to curb the pointed beating in my head, but I could smile again. A fragile, soft thing.


Yesterday, however, proved different. Louie still sat at our small dinner table, in her bright neon yellow collared t-shirt, still slightly sweaty and fresh out of work. She brightened even more, something I thought was impossible, as I stepped through the door.


Louie would not say it, but I knew the state I was in: eyebags hollowed and heavy, and posture slumped. Combed hair turned into a ruffled mess. My dress shirt, lovingly ironed by the woman in front of me earlier this morning, was rumpled and unbuttoned at the top. I was surprised that the button managed to stay intact, considering how roughly I pulled at it just to finally breathe.


She was too good to let her smile fall, but I saw how her eyebrows pinched. Her aborted move to reach out. I almost missed it from how I felt my stomach drop. Never once did seeing Louie fail to settle me— never once, until now.


I thought to give voice to my sudden dread— especially since Louie demanded honesty from both of us— but she beat me to it.


"Let's go back home," she said. It was the most sure I have ever heard of her.


I brought my palms to my eyes and pressed them hard. After a few seconds of harshly sucking in lost air, I felt calloused hands wrap around my wrists and gently pull. I blink away the fuzz to see Louie's worried face. She scanned me, her expression reminding me of a baby deer, before she stood on her toes and planted a peck on my nose.


Despite myself, I giggled. Louie's expression cleared and it was like the sun peeking out the horizon.


"Are you with me?" She asked.


I smile.


Later on the bus ride, Louie asked me about work. I knew what she meant. So, I told her in a disjointed manner of a pushy co-worker, one I had always wished would finally switch departments or just plain retire, and questions about boyfriends, kids, settling down, and marriage. By the end, I was again frustrated, but not as much as before. I turned to look at Louie, who at this point would always have a joke to crack about my straight-laced co-workers. Other times, she would become worked up in my stead, detailing how exactly she would deal with them if she was there with me. It was endearing. However, after my rant, she just looked pensive. Thoughtful.


I didn't mind. The sound from the bus television and the chatter of fellow passengers began to make me drowsy. I was equally fine falling asleep right there, but then I felt a weight on my shoulder, and fine hair tickled the skin of my neck. In return, I rested my own head on her crown.


"Maya," Louie whispered. I hummed.


"If I am reborn as a man in the next life, will you marry me then?"


I am silent for a while; thinking. Louie waited.


Without opening my eyes, I said, "Ask me again, when we are back at the flower fields."


Louie grumbled at my reply. It was a clear deflection. Procrastination, we both knew. But still, Louie said nothing else.


The journey passed quickly in our slumber. In a blink, we are back in our home province. We set to place belongings in a motel, the same one we had a secret rendezvous when we were still in high school. Anita's Motel, it was called, and it was run by an old woman we thought was blind until she told us to bring our PDA somewhere private when we sat together in its small, plant-decorated lobby. Louie and I were spooked enough to try and beg her to not tell anyone else, but she just scoffed.


"I don't care what you youngsters do nowadays. Girl, boy; two boys or two girls. I barely understand any of it—but still! Have some sense! Spare others of your tomfoolery."


Thoroughly chastised, we scrambled back to our room. Finding that we were never outright banned from the place, however, the place then became one of our usual haunts. And as long as we kept our hands to ourselves, lola Anita kept her stern eyes on the monthly magazines she held in her spindly hands.


Checking into the motel was an old instinct. We were half-expecting to see lola Anita's unimpressed stare to greet us behind the reception desk. Instead, a far more youthful face looked back. She was wholly unfamiliar, with dark, braided hair, straight posture, and a strong, tall nose. Yet, when we drew closer—


"Is your lola doing alright?" Louie asked the woman, tone soft. I, in turn, brace myself for bad news.


The woman blinks. "You know lola Anita?" At the question, she relaxed. "Yes, she's doing fine. She lost most of her hearing some years ago and had to give up overseeing this place. But she's comfortable at home, even if her face doesn't show it."


The three of us laugh, and a knot unravels in my stomach. After we received the room keys (to room 54, Louie kept snickering. I had to smack her as Annalyn, the receptionist, looked at us curiously), we settled our belongings near the bed.


Louie turned to me. I knew what she was going to ask, and she already knew my answer. Yet, we moved through the familiar motions all the same.


To the flower fields? Yes. To the flower fields.


In truth, the overgrown side of the hill that once was part of the old abandoned elementary school could barely be called a flower field. Instead, it was mainly of lush verdant grass, with the occasional white flower sprouting from the ground. As teenagers, we argued about the kind of flowers they were. Louie claimed they were sampaguitas and I told her that it was impossible: sampaguitas don't grow like that. Our words repeated so much when we came here, that arguing felt like mere recitation.


It smelled of mildew. I could hear insects buzz in my ear as Louie pointed to a spot where there was a higher concentration of those white flowers with yellow centers. We trudged through the untamed, wild landscape, until the small patch was before us. Conveniently, the surrounded grass stayed short, as if they remembered the indent of two rowdy teenagers who laid on them every lunchtime.


Louie spared no time flopping onto the grass and flowers, even wiggling in place to settle comfortably. She held my gaze; appalled onto cheekiness. Eventually, I caved, sighing as Louie flashed her teeth in victory. Mine felt a dull ache.


The short grass poked and tickled my back and arms, and I could not help but think about how many flowers I had crushed beneath me. Yet, I found myself settling. We said nothing for a while, staring at the blue vastness above us, before I turned to Louie.


"Ask me."


A confused hum sounded beside me.


"The question you asked on the bus," I said, adjusting my whole body to face her. "Say it."


Her eyebrows furrowed at first, before the memory turns. A blush painted her whole face, along with her small ears. She clears her throat.


"Maya," she begins. "If I am reborn as a man in the next life, will you marry me then?"


I let silence fill.


"No."


Her doe-like eyes widened. But I do not wait to see what emotions power it: hurt, confusion, or embarrassment, because—


"I want you as you are. As Louie. As my girl."


I watched the brilliant blush intensify, something I thought was impossible at first.


"Oh," she said, rather stupidly. I laugh and she laughs and we both laugh in the once-silent garden of ours. She shuffled closer to me, still giggling, and placed a kiss on the tip of my nose.


"Then," Louie exhaled as the laughter tapered off.


"Then?" I stared at her; a challenge and a goad.


I knew what she was going to ask, and she already knew my answer.



Written by by K. Lana
Art by Ma. Colene Encarnado