Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Cholo Valiente

The name of the representative meeting you later is Mikayla Co, the assistant brand manager for Exonerate. She’ll be in Katipunan. I’ll text you which coffee shop to go to once she replies.

T he text came just before our BA 161 class the following week. It sounded like his texts on the first week of me joining his team—formal, concise, and had no references to inside jokes or fandom shenanigans. I stared at it for a long time and just sent back a thumbs-up emoji.

This time yesterday I would have been bothered over the tone of this text. I would have been getting torn between being snarky to get a rise out of Cholo and properly talking to him like an adult. Instead, my head felt waterlogged and had no bandwidth to worry about anything. I was tempted to cut this class and have a nap in the library but I remembered Professor Villafranca was giving out the exam results today and I did not want to miss that.

I showered early this morning and then found myself anxious about leaving the room when I heard Liana’s footsteps in the hallway. Guilt was back in full force, eating at my insides. My thoughts were all overwhelming, making it worse by taunting me that I was getting a taste of my own medicine. I could not help but think if this w as how Liana felt each time we fought.

Knowing myself, I had probably made her feel worse.

I thought if I had the guts to pick fights and make her feel bad, I should have enough guts to own up to it and say I was sorry. When I was younger, I always thought being tough to the point of being nasty was being brave but I was wrong. It took more guts to admit to my own shortcomings.

It hit me like a full bucket of ice to the head—the realization that the hard part was not making the mistakes. The much scarier bit was when you finally had to take accountability for it.

I was not able to apologize during breakfast, though, as I could not even muster the strength to look at any of my family’s faces. I nearly even ran Liana over when I tried to get to the cereal cabinet. I had said a small, probably inaudible “Sorry” and it was not the kind I needed to give her.

So here I was, in my last class of the day, overthinking that instead. I had barely kept myself present in all of today’s activities and the thought of having to represent the club in a sponsorship meeting was giving me anxiety. I told myself to take it one hour at a time.

That resolve nearly disappeared when I saw Professor Villafranca’s annoyed face when he entered the classroom. Everyone hushed, all eyes on the stack of blue books he had been holding.

“Afternoon, kids,” he said, eyes roving around the classroom and relishing the scared looks on our faces.

“Exam results are out. Our highest scorer, surprisingly, is Miss Exconde.” He walked towards me with my blue book and set it gently on my desk. “I liked your insight on question four. If you could keep it up, you might just get a 1.25.”

I managed to exhale at last. Written in red on my blue book was ‘92.5%.’

“Second place is Mr. Valiente, who is…not here,” our professor continued, staring at the seat beside me like he just noticed it was empty. “Can you give this to him, please?” he said, and I just nodded. Professor Villafranca handed me Cholo’s blue book and then he handed the rest of the blue books to the person in front of Cholo’s chair. “Anyway. You all did well, I’m just surprised with the two topnotchers that I felt the need to make this whole deal out of it. Mr. Santos, please distribute the rest.”

I heard a collective sigh of relief. I stared at Cholo’s blue book, which said ‘91%.’

Gosh. The universe probably just turned on a different axis. I beat Cholo in BA 161 and I would not have to keep from swearing for a week.

Thank you, universe!

Cholo Valiente

5:30 p.m. @ Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Pls arrive early if you can.

Cholo’s text came just as I was leaving the BA 161 classroom. I stared at my phone screen again, wondering what to say.

Ok. Are you in the area? Because strangers. I can’t I can’t I CANNOT! PLS HELP.

What? I sounded silly. I highlighted the entire selection and deleted it.

Ok. BTW, I have your 161 result. You lost our bet, BLEH

Wait! Did I want him to hate me more? I deleted the whole thing again, took a deep breath, and typed in a proper, civilized response.

Ok. I’ll be there at 5. I have all the materials ready but feel free to send anything else you want me to bring up.

SENT .

I jumped into the first jeepney to Katipunan and paid my fare, sighing. No one-upping or teasing was going to happen just yet. Sure, Cholo needed to be called out on his earlier bullying days but besides that, we had been getting along. Winning the bet was such a relief as I had started to miss his company. The constant nagging over academics, teasing, even his incessant fanboying over Era of Maidens. I missed him, in general, but I would rather shave all the hair on my head before I admitted to any of that.

I made it to the coffee shop at 5 p.m. as promised and I had thirty minutes to spare. Thank goodness for that because Summer would never let me hear the end of it had I been late, and Cholo would have one more reason not to talk to me anymore.

I quickly ordered and secured a seat in the corner, which had just been vacated by a group of students from our neighboring school, Randall. I laid out my laptop, the printed materials, and sipped my iced Americano. My palms were sweaty and they stuck on the sponsorship printouts when I tried to align them.

I spent a good chunk of that half-hour wait telling myself that it was going to be okay as I was not going to completely wing it.

“Hi, are you Lavinia from Dresden Marketing Club?”

I looked up to see a familiar face. Miss Co was staring at me in the face with a polite smile, a high ponytail, and no glasses. Weird. Was she wearing contacts?

I stood up, about to ask her if this was her idea of a joke, when I realized that my favorite teacher did not have a mole on the tip of her nose.

“Hi, yes,” I said, trying to regain my composure and extending my hand to shake hers. “Lavinia Exconde from Team Ephemere.”

“Mikayla Co, Assistant Brand Manager from Exonerate,” she said, shaking my hand. Her expression did not give anything away.

“Pleased to meet you po.”

“Likewise, Lavinia. Shall we start?”

Yes, the brand representative I was talking to and Miss Co—shoot, I meant Patsy , because technically this one would be a Miss Co, too—looked alike and were actually siblings but the resemblance stopped there.

Miss Co was kalog and approachable while Miss Mikayla was strict, no-nonsense, and just a little bit scary. There was no warmth in her at all and she didn’t have to say a word to intimidate me.

My note-taking skills were put to the test as Mikayla laid out such a specific set of conditions that left little room to move creatively speaking. I had back-to-back pages of my notebook full of questions and notes I was to relay to our team officers next week. Even the colors I could use were limited. The attention to detail made my head spin and coupled with my nerves as well as lack of sleep, I could have just been embarrassing myself without knowing it. I just wanted it to be over.

Thirty minutes later, I had a signed contract (yay!) and a truckload of work to do. Mikayla shook my hand again, telling me that I was doing well and that she expected a lot from us.

I was tempted to brandish my notes and say “No shit, Sherlock” but ultimately settled for “Yes, we will deliver nothing but the best, as always,” blah blah blah, because that only meant that I had to do this properly. Or else .

I was so unbelievably tired when it finished. It was 6:10 p.m. before Mikayla started putting things back in her laptop bag and only then was I free to go.

We got out of the coffee shop together. I thought, for a bizarre moment, that I was so tired and sleep-deprived that I started seeing double. Miss Co, my prof, was waiting outside the door, wearing a similar hairdo, but she was smiling at me.

“Vinnie! Congrats!” she said, patting my shoulder.

I could only blink in response.

“She did great,” the other Miss Co said. “Anyway, please excuse us, Lavinia. We’re running late for another thing in Makati scheduled for 7 p.m. You take care.”

“Thank you, Miss Mikayla,” I hurriedly replied and then I only had time to wave at Miss Co before her older sister dragged her away. I then got on my way towards the main road but found a tall figure blocking the narrow passageway left between two parked cars.

My jaw dropped when I saw who it was.

“Cholo,” I said, blinking, expecting him to disappear. He still had his arms folded as he looked at me. “What are you doing here?”

“I gave Patsy a lift. You look pale. Why do you look like you saw a ghost?”

“Well, I am sleep-deprived and beyond exhausted, and half the things that happened yesterday and today do not seem real. For all I know, you could be a stranger or an apparition because last time I saw you, you wouldn’t even look at me. Or call me by my first name,” I said and the look on his face told me I was babbling. The exhaustion was loosening my tongue. I continued walking but he turned out to be solid.

Very solid, especially that chest.

“Okay, I’m not seeing things, then. Looks like it was just the guilt. Anyway. Sorry. Can I go home now?”

“I need to know about the meeting. How did that go?” he asked, looking exasperated.

“Oh. Oh! ” I said, comprehension dawning on me. “Sorry. Here you go. Signed contract, approved materials, notes… No, no, I’m not giving you that, it’s mine, I need it. Meeting went fine. Things you need signed are duly signed. Demands, I mean, conditions for the video, I’ve noted them down. That’s for Seth and me to sort out.”

He looked over the printouts, checking each page, and then stuffed it all in a folder, looking satisfied. I dug into my bag while he was preoccupied.

“And this, too. I need to give you this.”

He looked up and saw the BA 161 blue book I was handing in his direction. Cholo slowly took it, looking at me like I was going to bite him.

“Okay na?” I asked.

“Anong score mo?”

“92.5,” I answered. Cholo frowned at his blue book.

“Okay. Let’s go,” he said oh-so-casually, tucking the blue book along with the printouts under his arm. He was wearing a crisp blue button-down shirt with a white collar and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

I gulped hard and willed myself to stop looking at his arms. “Go where?”

“Home, malamang,” he answered impatiently, gesturing towards the road. “I’m heading south today, anyway.”

“Bati na tayo, ganon?” I replied.

He shook his head and let out another dramatic sigh. “Leave it to you to play innocent just to rub it in. Yes, this is me acknowledging that I lost our bet,” he said, lifting the blue book. “And traffic will be horrendous as it’s a Friday so I’m offering you a ride. Unless of course you want to try your luck with the trains again?”

“You’re…you’re not mad at me anymore?” I asked. I was not even teasing or being a prick. I just needed to hear it.

“Well, the bet states I can’t be a jerk to you anymore, I need to treat you as I usually do and leaving you to this Friday-rush hour Katipunan traffic goes against that. Mad or not, I don’t have a choice.”

“Alam mo, ang dami mong sinabi,” I said, laughing and trying not to mind the fact that my eyes were feeling watery. He turned his back on me and led the way to a black Toyota Altis. “You could’ve just said you missed me too, you know.”

“Miss you too ? You wish. Ikaw lang ‘yon,” he quipped, taking something out of his pocket and pressing a button.

I pulled a face at him as he opened the passenger door of the car for me. “Kapal mo kahit kailan!” I retaliated as I took the seat, and he closed the door. I waited for him to get into the driver’s seat before I exacted revenge by pinching his arm.

“Aray, aray, aray! Lavinia?—”

“Namiss kitaaa!” I said, laughing before he lightly slapped my hand away and started his engine.

“Seatbelt mo,” he scolded. Still laughing, I obliged and put my seatbelt on, sitting put before he could kick me out on the road. He then reached into the back seat, took a maroon T-shirt, and removed the one he was wearing.

Talk about revenge. Now that got me to stop laughing.

“What the hell?”

“What?” he asked, looking completely puzzled, blue dress shirt now on the ends of his arms.

Good lord, those pecs were solid.

“You can’t go around flashing people and taking your shirt off like that bigla-bigla!”

“What? I’m not flashing you. Ayokong matuyuan ng pawis! Do you want me to get pneumonia?” he demanded. “And why on earth am I being told not to do stuff in my car? Did you want me to do it outside?”

“I don’t know…maybe because there’s a girl here? Because you’re attractive and it’s jarring?”

“Well, so are you, ma’am, do you see me complaining about it?”

“PUT THE SHIRT ON!”

“I’m trying to but you’re still yelling!” he said, and in a quick motion, he slipped the replacement shirt on. “Don’t worry. Next time, I’ll ask you to get out.”

I glared at him but it was so absurd we just burst out laughing till our stomachs hurt.

“God, you’re ridiculous,” he just said, shaking his head and turning on the air conditioning.

The car smelled of him and his minty cologne. For some reason, it put me at ease. I felt my shoulders relax and I leaned back into my seat comfortably as he drove out of the coffee shop’s parking lot. “The lever’s on your right, if you want to lean back further.”

“Careful. I’m starting to think you’re concerned.”

“Bumaba ka na nga,” he said and we just started laughing again. “Anyway. How was your week?”

“Oh. Holy crap. I don’t even know where to start. Has it really just been days that we weren’t talking to each other?”

“Well, we have all of the three or more hours back to Las Pi?as to catch up,” he said, looking back at me with a bit of a smile before focusing back on the road. “Humor me.”

I did not need to be told twice.