Happy Endings??!

PROLOGUE: THE CHOICE

GIEZLE THOUGHT SHE’S GONNA BURST. Saying YES was chicken; making the decision was easy; packing her things had been too easy; tiptoeing out of her room in the middle of the night while her parents is asleep just opposite her bedroom door was way easier; but leaving the farewell note in the fridge’s door is one thing she hesitates to do.

She looks around the kitchen taking in her surroundings: the familiar leafy wallpaper, the dimly-lit ambience, her favorite waist-high stool, the smell of chocolates and her mother’s pizza special.

She grip the counter’s edge forcefully, nausea coming to her senses. It’s like watching her life unfold like a movie--the slideshows of her life, the worst, the best, everything:

She remembers all too well her childhood years: she and her twin sister Reizle chasing all around the house, bouncing, budging and clawing at each other; the sound of her mother’s mock chagrin and laughter and her father’s deep resonating voice warning them to stop.

Gie grabs the only picture frame in the room that’s most significant to her. Rei’s bouncing blonde curls that framed her heart-shaped face, her light azurean eyes full of innocence and life looked back at her. They look alike; of course they’re identical twins, except their north and south attitudes. Gie’s always been associated by menace and mischief, Rei on the other hand, was the more cautious, the thinker as what all the people who knew them said. Gie also has her father’s pool of black eyes, a characteristic that’s been too rare for a blonde.

She thought back about their first day in grade school, when they stand side by side facing bullies. The endless giggles that followed their own crush’s revelations. The gossip they shared and made. Their game of fooling everyone else to think Rei is Gie or Gie is Rei. They’re afternoon walks and moonlight hours in the beach. They’re late night snacks and movies. Rei’s death……

Gie blames herself so much. Rei had been adamant about not going to the zoo that day, Gie on the other hand was too stubborn not to go. At the end, their mother consented to Gie’s wishes, she drop them in the zoo’s gate since they’re 10-year-old-girls, capable enough to call the police or to go home by themselves. Suddenly, Gie saw a lost puppy in the middle of the road, without thinking and without looking, she crossed the street and carried the puppy in her hands. She even had the time to look back to Rei who push her to the other side of the road. The next thing Gie saw was the bloody face of Rei smiling back at her. She remained frozen to the ground while people surrounded her dying sister. She felt hopeless and deserted as they put Rei in the stretcher, her lifeless form vanishing away from her. The ambulance was too late…, that day Rei died and so was Gie.

Gie shook her head and fought back the tears that are threatening to make her breakdown. It’s not the time to reminisce her past, it’s the time to make her future come true. She has to go. She has to leave everything behind; her childhood, her sister, her family, her life---well, she’s going to give them up just to be with the one she loves.

“Gosh…, mom.., dad.., Rei…………….., I’m so sorry, sorry!, I really have to do this. You won’t understand what I have found now, and I’m not going to let it go”.

With trembling hands, she silently put the magnet back in place, by sealing it, she sealed her fate. She prayed and hoped that someday, her family will understand what she needs to do for now.

She takes a deep calming breath and steps out in the road. She didn’t look back at her home. She doesn’t want the sight of it, she doesn’t want it to make her stop and go home. Even though it killed her to left them, she must risk everything if it means finding her true love.