Chapter Text
I'll be late, eat your dinner na love ko. Huwag mona ako hintayin.
I love you.
Stacey stares at her phone right after receiving her wife's message. She returns to the table where the food is laying, two plates ready for each other. It has been like this for the past four weeks; Aiah leaving early in the morning that Stacey couldn't even say goodbye, always coming home late at night, and there was one time that she didn't come home and Stacey waited in the salas until the other day began. Aiah told her that she worked overtime because of lots of workloads in the office and she couldn't leave them, it's important. Stacey assures it was alright, but deep down she is upset at the fact that she literally waited for her to come home to have dinner, so she ends up not eating at all and falling asleep on the couch.
The thing is for Stacey; her wife should've informed her, telling her that she will be late or rather possibly returning in the morning. An update would be appreciated. If work is important, what about her? Is she not important too?
At first, it wasn't a problem since they both work at the same time, though, the difference is Stacey is working at home while Aiah is out there.
Maybe the truth of a sudden change of the heart is true. Stacey starts to loathe the idea of being alone—having breakfast in the morning alone, having lunch without someone to chat, and a supper without her wife beside her talking about how her day turned out.
They have been string attached for one year and six months. The day Stacey walked down that aisle and saw Aiah crying while waiting for her, she felt above the clouds. Despite how many years of hiding their intimacy from each other, two of them break the loss and take the risk.
Aiah loves someone as much as she loves herself. (her type of love) She met Stacey when she was in the process of loving herself more than anybody else, giving herself a reward when anything positive happened in her day, or buying a journey to another country to spend alone time for peace of mind in a hectic world. Until she meets her, the world spins around. She wants to love. It's as if a foreign feeling she's been attempting to identify begins to unravel—being attacked by the vision of love lasts longer than hatred. Stacey demonstrated to her that she did not have to be alone forever, and that she is not the only person who can love her. Love is inevitable; once you enter, you can never leave.
As if it's the missing pillow on your bed, and you've been trying to find the best place to put your head without worrying that you'll break your neck or can't sleep because you're missing something. Finding tranquility is enjoyable, but having them come closer to you is more riveting.
The latter is the contrary; Stacey wishes to be loved. It feels a little personal, but she can't seem to articulate how she feels about all the love she's shared with her loved ones. She frequently wonders if she loves them because she truly wants to, or if she is simply missing love and loves them in order to obtain it in return. Even though she felt that way, she longed for someone to adore her. Owning your own solace is similar to owning a t-shirt that you can't stop wearing every time it comes out of the wash. Addiction to over-wear means that you don't mind if the color fades because it's a high-quality garment, therefore you'll keep wearing it.
Stacey genuinely wants to fill the emptiness, but if it is not reciprocated, she will sit in the corner, wondering how people can be so dense. However, Aiah assured her and led to all of her previous insecurities having vanished and been healed. Love can be mended, but it is more enjoyable when it can flourish.
She got up from her seat after she finished eating dinner unappetizingly. Her eyes landed on the table opposite of hers where there should be a person there telling her that they will wash the dishes together before getting ready to bed. Stacey missed it.
Stacey misses her wife.
A familiar sound of the doorknob clicks right after she gets into the faucet, opening it to go through the plate she used. Door closes, steps becoming more distant. Stacey did not bother to look, she knows who just arrived.
“Hey,” a voice whispered in whisper, inserting her ears. Still, Stacey couldn't care less. The latter walks around the counter to go at her wife's back and slither her arms into her waist. “I'm home.”
Stacey takes a pause from cleaning the plate while the water runs down, she takes a subtle deep breath and continues. She ignores the arrival.
Aiah felt that. She places her chin on Stacey's shoulder and closes her eyes, scooting her head there like a cat, “I'm sorry, love. I thought gagabihin na naman ako ng uwi kaya I messaged you agad. Turns out, there's someone to replace me to overtime.”
The younger one is still on her default emotion, not having a reaction nor a response. She places the plate on the side for it to dry itself—trying to carry her body to walk towards the towel to dry her hands as Aiah is still hugging her from her back, resisting not to let go.
“No welcome home kisses?” Aiah starts again.
Stacey couldn't help herself to ponder, she wants to stay peaceful. She's avoiding the tantrum she's been attempting to not pay attention to but she can't. It hurts.
It hurts getting used to the feeling that she hates.
“Go eat, love. Kanina ko pa nilagay plato mo sa table.” she now responded. Her hands touch Aiah's hand embracing around her as she slowly removes it from her waist.
Aiah did not protest, she understood the room. As soon as she lets go, she walks towards the dining table and there's her plate, the blue one. Stacey has the pink that she just finished cleaning. It's endearing how some of their things are coded into their favorite color.
Stacey watches her wife in her peripheral vision looking at her. It's so weird for them that it's quieter than usual. Aiah would've prefer a voices inside the house,
“Love, alam mo ba, I got complimented sa designs ko kanina. It can hook the gen z's daw ngayon.” Aiah spills. The spoon and fork clattering from her plate with rice on it and adobo as her ulam.
It remains quiet.
And then,
“Good night.” Stacey preferred the silent inside the house.
The older one now clicks the hint, she looks at Stacey coming closer at the staircase. She got up from the chair and stopped her from stepping forward on the first stair.
“Love, may problema ba?”
Stacey looks at her wrist as Aiah's hand holds her. Then she gazes at her wife.
“Maliligo ako.” she replies nonchalantly. She pretends.
Aiah did not buy it, so when Stacey was about to take a step, she walked around and blocked her way. “You're bad at lying.”
“I'm not lying.”
“Your hair is wet,” Aiah points out.
“Aiah, please…” she pleaded, trying to get out of the situation she revealed unintentionally.
Oh, it's first name basis now. Aiah thought.
“Love, tell me,” The raven-haired tighten the grip of intertwining their hands. “Please?”
Home; defining a more broad explanation of how to emphasize home in life. Have you ever been lost? Like entering a forest full of greenery, tall gardens with a brown soil on the ground giving you a way to walk. But you got lost on the track that you've been following so you got to the point where there are two diverging paths in front of you, waiting to be picked.
Parade A — a messier leaves on the ground that might have been left months ago, slowly blocking its way to enter and to travel back home.
Parade B — a much cleaner place than the opposite one that everyone would love to enter because of how easy it would be to get home.
Stacey hesitates whether she will say it or not. Though, it's been lingering now. She cannot escape everything so she chooses the path A.
No matter how messy the home is—you'd still choose it. ‘Cause home is home.
Aiah is Stacey's home.
“Hindi na kita maramdaman, Aiah.” The home that once full of laughter and joy, becomes inaudible to even recognize each corner.
Aiah was taken aback from the unexpected confession.
“Love…”
“Tuwing gigising ako every morning wala kana sa tabi ko, hindi kita nakikita na umaalis papuntang work,” Stacey says, building a courage to even more spill over what she's been feeling for the past few weeks. “Sa hapon naman, naiintindihan ko pa since we're both busy by that time pero just a quick update would help me a lot,” she pauses.
“And the last thing I would hope for to end my day is having you on our table, eating, talking, and exchanging laughter katulad noon… pero ngayon, parang ang hirap na i-maintain. Alam ko namang busy ka and work related naman, para sa ‘tin din ‘yon but I don't know, Aiah.”
Aiah not breaking eye contact with Stacey. She got too comfortable with her improper schedule from work that she didn't even notice that her wife is going through something she cannot figure out and she's being the reason why she felt so lonely in their own house.
“I feel like I'm slowly losing you,” Stacey says, she breaks down her tears from her eyes. Trying to not over stimulate her sobs. “Miss na miss na kita,” her eyes become blurry as the liquids interfere with her vision.
“Miss kona asawa ko.” she adds.
Aiah immediately comes closer to her and wraps around her arms on the latter. Feeling her embrace, she missed it too. She misses her baby.
“Baby…” she whispers, feeling the warmth of each other's presence. Aiah tightens the grip of the hug. “I'm solely sorry. I'm sorry that I made you feel that way.”
Stacey nuzzles her head into Aiah's neck, sobbing really hard.
“You always say it was okay, I should've felt that it's really not,” The older one runs her hand on her wife's hair. Patting it, “I missed you too, baby… everyday.”
“Leaving you here alone is not in my favor either. Kung pwede lang umuwi agad para mayakap kita and makita kang gising tuwing uuwi ako, gagawin ko pero ang hirap, love ko.”
“You could've called me.” Stacey retorts between sobs.
“I know, love, I know.” Aiah breaks the hug, holding each side of Stacey's shoulder to make her look at her after she wipes her tears. “Starting from now on, I'll make time for you, okay? Babawi ako.”
For Stacey, that's not the case. She doesn't want to be selfish, even though they are married they have their own lives to grow. She understands that no matter how much you two share, you don't do everything together. And Stacey doesn't want to stop Aiah from working and goaling her dreams because she feels like they've been parting ways. Maybe they got too ahead of themselves and they got married too early that they are still reaching their goals and passion.
Maybe it's time to wake up and realize that there's still years ahead of them to make progress as individuals.
“Aiah.”
“Hm?”
“Should we get…” A pause, voice thick with reckless emotion. Aiah's brown eyes flicker into hers. “A divorce?”
For the second thought, Aiah chuckles thinking it was one of her wife's jokes again since she always jokes about that. But Stacey is dead ass serious, staring at her not even stuttering.
It's scary to see your moldy house that, with the lack of former happiness, is now slowly falling apart. Maybe home got replaced. No matter how you want to go home, if it's falling apart, you have to accept it. You have to accept that if it's not easy anymore, make it harder.
“No, Stacey,” Aiah called her name, a hard tone of worry, watching each other's eyes, crying. “We're not divorcing.”
“Why?” Turning eyes back at the latter, and it was clear that the shutters had been firmly clamped shut, blocking Aiah and the rest of the world out. “It's not working anymore.”
“It is working,” Aiah whispers in a yell out of frustration, she wants to just jump off the cliff rather than separating.
“It's not.”
“We're not even trying to work it out yet!” The latter finally blurts out. Aiah felt a thorn in her chest that she couldn't help but lose the momentum of her breathing. “Why is it so easy for you to say that? Sa daming pwedeng gawin, bakit mag divorce?”
Stacey looks away, turns around pretending to wipe her tears. Aiah confusingly raises her eyebrows of how the sudden action occurs, as she hears a subtle laugh trying not to come out but she knows it.
“Are you laughing?” she says.
Her wife's sudden quick change of mood, she burst out laughing.
“Nagbibiro lang ako, walang maghihiwalay!” Stacey replied. While Aiah is still processing the scene, she runs upstairs so she could escape the banter.
Aiah pressed her lips together as she shouted, “Stacey!”
The latter holds the stair handle as she speed runs through their bedroom. Eleven hits the clock— the plate that Aiah's using has been left dumbfounded without assuring the food not eating them. The light from the kitchen flickers, and the leftovers from the table were left freshly skinned.
Home once again becomes lively. It's normal for them.
“Dork, don't ever joke like that again!” Aiah flanges herself into the bed where Stacey is laying, smiling at her with the tease.
“Alam mo namang lagi akong nagbibiro ng ganon?”
“I hate it now,” she grabbed Stacey's side as she snuggled her face into her.
“Okay, miss ma'am.”
A soft warmer silence fills up the room without any doubt of someone interrupting, Aiah still thinking about the conversation they had downstairs.
“I know you're lonely here, it's not included in your joke.”
Stacey sighs, clicks her tongue, as she gives up and nods. “Miss na talaga kita.”
Aiah, no longer holding her, stands with her left arm to carry her head to look at Stacey's. Right hand made its way to her wife's face and explored itself. Stacey stares at her while Aiah staring down on her lips, coming closer as they meet, feeling each other's for a span of five seconds.
“I missed you too, love ko.”
Stacey rolls her eyes, “Isa pa nga.”
Aiah grins, knowing what she meant so she grabs her wife's face placing kisses, “There,” in every corner of her face not leaving one alone, “And there.”
“Gusto ko rito.” Stacey pouted, referring to her lips again.
The latter obeyed, “Clingy mo naman.”
“Edi ‘wag!” Stacey says and covered herself in the blanket.
“Joke lang eh,” Aiah tried to fight to remove the blanket but she failed to do so. “Ang damot.”
“Mag toothbrush kana nga!”
They both fell asleep in each other's arms that night. Stacey's concerns still linger on Aiah's head, she doesn't want to see Stacey cry because of something she feels guilty about. Because everything her wife feels is valid.
She cannot just sit there and ignore what happened last night without changing what happened for the past few weeks. Because even her, she felt so alone getting drowned over her work and becoming insufficient in giving the love that she should be reciprocating to Stacey.
Aiah can't fathom living without her. She loves her no matter what happens, no matter how many silly banters, arguments, and sharing their little bubble, she would stay. Love is meant to grow not to fall.
And they're just starting to unravel the life of marriage. There is a lot more to come in the future but the important thing is, they are in the present.
Stacey woke up without her again.
Heartache began to panic her. It's a cycle again. Nothing changed.
As soon as she got up, she heard the door click open, revealing Aiah, herself. “Good morning, love.”
Stacey stares at her, still sleepy, squinting her eyes, “Nandito ka?”
Aiah just smiles at her, walking towards the near closet where there's two… suitcases.
“Aalis ka?” Stacey asked, shaking voice.
“Aalis tayo,” Aiah declares, roaming through the closet for the clothes to pack. “We're going to La Union.”
“Huh?”
“Yes, love. Our second anniversary is in two days,” The raven-haired recalls. Tailing her hair, “One week tayo ro'n, babawi ako sa ‘yo.”
“What about your work?” Stacey worries, sitting on the edge of the bed. Watching the two suitcases that were colored by them getting filled. “We're okay na, love. Dito na lang tayo mag celebrate.”
“No, Stacey,” Aiah faced her, demurred. She learned for the best.
Releasing a relief breath, she leaned in close and pressed a kiss to Stacey's forehead. Her lips brushed against her brows as she said.
“I'd rather lose it… than lose you.”
And there is one thing they couldn't change.
If Aiah wants to love, Stacey wants to be loved.