REGRETS
By: A. J. Mendoza
(1) They thought it a privilege for him to be studying in the country’s premier state university; he found it a curse to have passed the UPCAT.
(2) Slumped on the grimy floor of his dormitory room, Miguel found himself surrounded by the pieces of papers he’d gone through during his freshman year in UP Diliman: readings in his Kasaysayan 1 class, all crumpled and creased; pages from his notebooks, ripped from their binding to serve as valuable scratch paper in his Math 17 classes; reaction papers in Sociology 10, some he had to cram overnight, while on others he had to rely on copy and paste to finish; bluebooks, some containing long exams in Social Science 2, others ripped to shreds in frustration; and doodle papers, lots and lots of them. Doodling’s the only thing that’s keeping him sane right now. That, and his mother’s voice.
(3) Oh God, how he missed his mother. How he longed to be back home, to be in the presence of his mother again. If only she could see him now. See how miserable he was. How wretched it felt, being away from her and from all that is familiar to him.
(4) But she mustn’t know. He didn’t want to burden her. He knew she has enough going on for her, trying to keep him in school and all. Besides, they can’t afford it; they can’t spare her a plane ticket just so she could catch a glimpse what he goes through every single day. They’re poor. That’s why he’s in UP. That’s why he’s in this hellhole.
(5) He couldn’t take it anymore. A heavy sigh escaped him, a sigh that summarized the months of pain and loneliness. He has tried to endure it all, tried to go through all of it in silence. But who’s he to kid himself? He knew he didn’t belong here, knew that he didn’t fit in. He, your typical probinsyano, knows that he can never belong to this society.
(6) Passing UPCAT was just a lucky strike; he was never that smart, and he knows it. He shouldn’t have pushed his luck by getting in; now he’s paying for his overconfidence. I should have gone to the local college, he thought, and then maybe things would have been better. No use now. He’s here; it’s too late to turn back.
(7) Slowly, he heaved himself and sat on his unmade bed. It was warm, way past midnight; he felt his sweat tracing his brows. Wiping his forehead, he beheld the dismal state of his room, shook his head, closed his eyes, and collapsed. He heard a thud, groped at the back of his head, and pulled out something his head had butt with. His ballpen.
(8) He’d always wanted to be a writer, not an engineer. Sure, he was good in math. Proficient, you might say. And buildings, especially the old, historical ones, did hold his interest for quite some time. But that wasn’t his forte. Writing was. He enjoyed writing stories twice as much as reading them, and a hundred times more than solving equations. But writing’s such a wuss, his mother said. You should take up engineering; it’s a much more profitable course. He should have known better than to let his mother decide. Just look at him now.
(9) He sighed again. No point bitching over it. He got through a year of engineering; what’s four, fix, six more years? It’ll be no day at the beach, but he doesn’t have much choice now, does he?
(10) Something moved on the table. He reached for his phone and read the word Inay. Calling. He pressed answer.
(11) “Nay?”
(12) “Miggoy. It’s way past midnight. Why are you still up?”
(13) “I should be asking you the same thing. I’m fixing my things. Why are you still awake? Is something wrong?”
(14) “I, uh, couldn’t sleep. Something keeps on bothering me, and you keep on popping into my mind. Son, is everything all right there? How are you doing?”
(15) Miguel paused. He knows he’ll regret saying it, but in the end, he doesn’t have anything better to say. He smiled at himself, closed his eyes again, and braced himself for the biggest lie.
(16) “Inay, I’m doing fine.”
(700 words)
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