--0--
"...and maybe, just maybe, there will be happy accidents
--- serendipities which might earn spaces on this blog in the days to come. ..."
--0--

the above words graced the last line of an entry i wrote before my iloilo vacation. probably, the stars were starting to align the moment i typed in the keys that spelled those words, because eight nights ago, it happened.

it wasn't isaw that brought me to that hole-in-the-wall store that friday. perhaps my feet can take the blame, they ushered me back home. while perching on the wooden bench outside the sari-sari store, i looked at the children eating hotdogs nearby, their laughter drowning me in restropect. i pulled back, then the past came gushing and flooding i cannot return to the surface anymore.

it was him, in a cyanotic windbreaker and khaki shorts. i haven't seen the windbreaker before, or the shorts. even his hair have grown longer than i imagined.

i almost didn't recognize him.

except that, he still has the same pair of eyes-- the very reservoir of a seven-year worth of stories untold to the world.

i stood up and walked away from the looming confrontation that the encounter could have potentially caused. but in the next minutes, i found myself pacing back and forth the room i purposefully jailed myself in.

i thought of what transpired earlier, legs still trembling from hurried steps, strands of hair still moist from the afternoon drizzle i nonchalantly mixed my tears with. amidst the storm in my head, a soft knock in my heart told me to take a halt, turn back, and hug him until the world runs out of time.

the sequel of the dawn conversation one christmas night, THAT was supposedly IT, and i blew it up.

or so i thought i did...

---
on second chances.

the arrow points backward. whom from your past will you go home to?