Longing
It was during those nights when she couldn’t sleep that Marina usually felt the old familiar longing she’d come to know as a child and teenager. Longing, for her, was experiencing something you thought you loved and was finally yours, only to have it slip or snatched away from your fingers, disappearing from your life before you could enjoy it longer.
One was a secluded beach in Antique, at the northern regions of Panay province. Instead of sand, the beach had pebbles—smooth, gray, clean, yet scalding under her feet. She and her parents had been brought here on the invitation of another family in their town, a richer family, one who lived in a clean-cut bungalow in the main street. They had a meticulously-landscaped garden at the back, replete with violet orchids.
Her parents did not have such thing.
Marina slept through the five-hour journey. She awoke to clear blue skies and a sudden quiet; they’d arrived at the most beautiful beach she’d ever seen. She had followed everyone and waded in only to realize that she been in a beach made of pebbles, have never been in water so clear. They had gone back before the sunset, and though Marina had tried to search for that beach’s name, she couldn’t find it.
The other time had been about a boy. “Someone wants to dance with you,” an older cousin had told her, during one of those nights she was out with her friends. Marina was fifteen, and last minute decision to attend an outdoor dance was common and often done.
Her older cousin had thrust a boy who wasn’t very tall, but who had large round eyes, pale and creamy skin like a girl, and thick black hair that fell into a side fringe on his forehead. Marina could still remember how she had gaped for a full second—and then wanted him. They had danced awkwardly to an upbeat song, and once it ended, the boy smiled and disappeared into the other side of the floor.
She had tried to find him, even as an adult, when she was bored and was on Facebook. She never did.
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