I posted photos of myself on social media as I bathed in the delusion that everybody likes me.

"Do you still like me?" I asked Avi a week after the pageant.

Hindi naman mawawala yun eh, she said. "It will never fade away,"

And here I thought I've learned my lesson. I had lost sight of what I should value again.

The setback was, with all the popularity, I became entitled. I asked her to date me again and used her to wash away those circulating rumors about me. The same questions that to them must be as shallow as asking me if I had a haircut.

"Aren't you gay?"

It always sounded like they could obviously see it and they only needed my confirmation. But to me, it burned me, it exposed me. I wanted to tell them as I've always told everyone, what my mother taught me to say. Just say No. Because those people are pitiful, who will live alone when they're old. People would make fun of them, ridicule them, and compare them to animals like they have some kind of disease.

"No, I'm not," I'd say, "I even have a girlfriend."

Nonetheless, we chatted every night and before we slept, she would always tell me to rest my eyes. Yet in those moments, I would look at my ceiling and sometimes ponder, "Is that why actors and actresses or love teams end up together in a real life? But because it originated from make-believe love, they didn't always last?" 

I hoped if we act, we would develop feelings for each other, I could develop feelings for her. But in the long run, would we still be happy?

All my life I had been constantly aiming to prove myself because my parents might disown me if they knew. In her comfort, I sought validation.

The building for the Senior high school was finally complete. My teachers persuaded me to enroll there but I wanted to go far away from the place. Where it reminded me of my mistakes, reminded me of him. I wanted to smile without hiding any pain again. I wanted to start with a clean slate.

But at the end of the school year, I did it again, I broke up with Avi. As though a bride walking down an aisle then running away, without contemplating, Will I regret it if I stay? Will I regret it if I leave?

"After ten years, I will come back to you," I said to her, "if we can't find someone we love after ten years, it means we're meant to be."

Perhaps I was a soldier making a promise to marry his woman. But I ain't going to no war, I only treated her as a warranty, as a reserve because I didn't want to die alone. How dare I? 

To me, those were just empty promises. I was a liar and a cheat, a man who's never true to his words. Even so, I will come back, I promised, I just have to find myself.

I didn't want to wait for her response but she replied, I'm setting you free.

It moved me and I wanted to apologize for being such a horrible person. Instead, I made another promise, I promise you, I will marry you someday.

"Sure, Uly," she replied, "I'll be waiting."

It's not that I didn't care for her feelings. I just didn't care if I was making another big mistake. I had no idea that it would only continue, all throughout it would continue. Until I've learned my lesson, until I get what I deserve.

To be punished. I also thought there was a bigger world out there for me. I kept wondering, what else is there?

What else?

Sometimes, you seek something you don't even have to. I guess it's just part of human nature. At some point in our lives, we yearn for escape, reinvention, a new identity. You think nobody would care if you disappear just like that. 

Isn't that bit selfish of us? But I guess we are also human to be selfish. We are human to think for ourselves.

If this was a television show, I'd be the director, I said when I enrolled in a private catholic school for my senior high. It was in the nearby city, Monte Ferro, which was two towns past Santa Villeta. 

It's where I had my first monthly allowance, my first night out, first taste of alcohol, and many other firsts. I was happily looking forward to it, even though we rented a smaller house. "Here's to new beginnings," I toasted to myself.

While waiting for the bus at the station, a few days earlier before the start of classes, I overheard a conversation of a group of girls.

"How nice would it be to go someplace else," one girl said, "where no one knows you."

"Then starting a new life," the other said.

They sighed and I sighed as well. That was the state I'm in, I thought, I was very lucky.

Secretly, I wanted to imitate Mix, a boy with a little bit of mystery. I rebonded my hair that covered my wide forehead just like his. But on second thought I brushed it up.

In my new school, I recreated the things that I'm used to. Find a spot, eat alone and be quiet. I even tried to resemble my old classmates to my new ones. One girl always expected to compliment her if she compliments you like Francine. There's another who was always hysterical about schoolwork like Blinkey, one who's only looking for girls like Marcus. 

It's not that I missed them it's my coping mechanism for what they call "culture shock." The school was very strict with haircuts and uniforms as though we're in the military. They offered many courses in sports, chorale, journalism but the dance troupe piqued my interest most. 

"As long as you have money, you could join all of them," said Angela, our overall chairperson when she was giving me a tour.

The vicinity of the school was huge, bigger than the Annex and Main Campus combined. A chapel where we took a mass every Tuesday, a gym where programs were held, a grandstand where cars were parked, and there's even restaurants inside the school!

But I chose the canteen where I could overlook the beach far beyond the residential areas. Then I ended up just more of an outsider. You see people but they don't see you. It's like I died and came back to life but instead of celebrating it seemed better that I should have stayed dead. Worse yet, I'd been reincarnated into the same person I was, with the same mistakes and the same regrets.

And I thought I already messed up my new life.

It was as if seeing farmers in the rice fields. It gave me a positive feeling to see them but you don't want to be in the scorching sun, planting rice, plowing soil. That's what it meant to me to socialize. No one would come having friends with you if you just stayed in the shade. I realized if I didn't plant rice, I wouldn't harvest anything.

"Can I go have lunch with you? I asked one of my classmates, Ryan, whom I associated with Marcus. 

"Of course, you can," he said, "transferees stick together." Ryan was only alike to Marcus with the homework thing and the girls. He introduced me to other transferees in a carinderia near the school.

"We should try the other, the food sucks here."

I just nodded and followed them around.

The next day, I knew from that day on, we were going to be regulars and the other customers would leave that spot for us that we seated. We made a new group called Demons which was funny and rebellious because we're in a catholic school.

I turned seventeen at the end of the year. Although I made friends, everything seemed so dull and bland. We could only afford a small cake and as I blew the candle, I wished that one day, fate would be in my favor again. But that was just a stroke of one-time luck.