The Manila Girl

I met Caroline 3 years ago when I joined the school publication where she was the business manager. We weren't friends in the first year, so we are friends for 2 years.

She was an untidy one. She wears a pair of eyeglasses. She does not put make up on. She was unpopular. She was a very ordinary student which puzzles me why and how did we become friends. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t choose my friends, it is just that…oh never mind.

Caroline was friendly and utterly kind. Thinking about it, maybe that’s the reason why. She was kind, and I was quite not, a little naughty. She was the one who tells me to watch my words. So yeah, she was my adviser. That’s the kind of friendship we have.

Like any other friendship, we did have fights, too. Not verbally though, we just did not talk to each other and pretend we don’t see each other when we meet on the aisles; the thing is that we meet everyday. Mostly, the reason is that I said something that hurt her, practically a joke that she misinterpreted. Basically, our fights would reach MONTHS.  But the funny thing is that she’s the first one to say sorry and admits that she overreacted. I told you she was kind. Yeah, I’m the abusive friend, I know.

She is very talkative and a good listener as well. That’s why there’s no wonder why we spend hours and hours just by talking trivial things. I share my darks thoughts to her, like how I hate person, how sly I am. She tells me that I’m bad, gives me good advices, though I don’t follow them. She never shares what I told her.  

She knows when I pretend to be kind. She knows when I fake smile. I think she somehow feels special to know the dark side of me, to know that the cute and all smile Key is actually a villain. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just the type of person who always makes things even. But I’m a different person now, I guess.

So enough with the brief introduction, let me tell you that reason for this post.

So after more than a year of not seeing each other, communicating though calls and Facebook, we finally met again. She came from Manila, the capital of Philippines, which is quite far from the remote province of Negros. She is now working as a real estate agent. We native people are somehow ignorant of what is life in one of the biggest cities on the country. We only have ONE mall here in our place, and it’s a small one.

Last Sunday, she invited me to eat and have a little chit chat. We talked and talked. And I ate and ate. We walk through downtown. I told her all the bad things I have done. She shared her life in Manila. She told me that our place became small in her eyes. And one significant thing is that, she knows how to fix herself now; she even dyed her hair.  

She has a lot of friends. I was just one of them. But I was the one she contacted first. She only had two days to stay because she needs to go back Manila immediately due to her work. So you see…being a bad friend is sometimes good. She really cares what her bad friend is doing now.

Thanks for caring Caroline! Good luck!