September is the first of what all the Filipinos known
to be as “Ber” Months, referring to the last syllable of each name of the
remaining months of the year. It’s also
known as “Brr” months, for compared to the rest which are as scorching hot as
summer, September to December are traditionally rainy and thus colder.
But some of my hottest memories happened in
September, like the ones I had with a former classmate whom I would simply refer
here as “Mitch,” who was not just a classmate, but, well, a regular seatmate
in, of all subjects, my then most dreaded Statistics. This was the beauty of my being irregular
student after I decided to go back to San Ag to finish a degree in Commerce, in
all of my nine subjects one semester in ‘98, I had different sets of classmates
from seniors down to freshies, hence, I learned different tricks.
Okay, Commerce was never my childhood dream, or a
burning desire for a to-die-for degree, to be candid. Ever since, I have always known myself to
have definitely no heart nor passion for any kind of business and trade.
It just happened that when I sought what department
to transfer to after I found courses in Techno to be difficult to hurdle because
of its subject called the impassable Analytic Geometry, I saw it during one
enrollment day that of all snake-like queues of various courses in payment windows,
the girls taking the long lines of College of Commerce were the most stunning
and pretty.
And that was the exact moment when I firmly decided
I would definitely graduate as one of the Commerce men. Besides, I was in awe of then President Erap
Estrada’s business so I presumed loving girls was a true commerce of men.
“Mitch” was not the brightest in our Stat class but
aside from her being one of the adorable, she was a very dependable
classmate. On Day One when she sat next to
my right after coming in late, I quickly tricked her into believing she’d be my
permanent seatmate. I said dependable
because after I humbled myself before her, she would let me take a peek at her
answers right on our first quiz. I let
her know I didn’t survive Techno for I had troubles with numbers so she guaranteed me that with
her I would regain peace.
We were classmates only in Stat but we
grew close to each other so fast that a little later she would comfortably stroll and take snacks with me in the cafeteria when our professor would be absent. So close there were instances that while I
peeped through her yellow answer booklet she opened for me across her chest, I
would accidentally see as well the swells covered by her undergarment.
She would say, “Hey, naka bonus ka ba!” and I’d
reply, “Wala ako nakita,” knowing she showed not on purpose those things she
meant, only the answers did I see, I’d swear to her, betting my conscience. She trusted me because she once let me guard
the door in a lock-less male cubicle when female CRs were all engaged, assuming
it’s a matter of honor to me to help out a friend regardless of inconvenience.
However, I told her later not to repeat what she did
because after all I’m a man and a man will always be a man especially when
provoked whether or not it’s a friend he’s helping. As Ken Follett concluded, there’s no Prince
Charming, only a bunch of more or less flawed men who sometimes wear shining
armours but there are always rusty spots in them.
To be honest again, after a couple of struggling years
of being a heartbreak kid, that was as close to love as I had ever come. That was September, the closing stage of the
semester, where I suppressed the matter after she told me, “I have a husband.”
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