Structurally Sound
"Recovering old negatives, one story at a time."
The first time I noticed him, he wasn't looking at me.
He was practicing archery.
It was late afternoon at the beginning of my freshman year. Classes had ended, but I was still on campus when I saw him standing alone on the school grounds, drawing arrow after arrow toward a target that seemed much farther away than it probably was.
He was a third-year student.
I was a freshman.
We had attended the same schools for years, so I knew who he was, but we had never spoken.
At nearly six feet tall, he stood out immediately.
But it wasn't his height that caught my attention.
It was how quiet he was.
Most boys his age seemed determined to make as much noise as possible. They wrestled in hallways, laughed too loudly, played pranks on each other.
He simply practiced.
Focused.
Calm.
Patient.
After that afternoon, I couldn't help noticing him.
Whenever he walked past our classroom, my eyes would follow him before I realized they had.
Eventually I discovered he lived only a street away from ours and happened to be neighbors with one of my closest classmates.
That was enough for a thirteen-year-old girl to quietly build a crush.
───
Life, however, had other plans.
Freshman year swept me away before my crush ever had the chance to become anything more.
There were journalism competitions.
Girl Scout encampments.
Dance rehearsals.
My first performance with the school band singing Sk8er Boi.
And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos...
there was also a beauty pageant.
I disappeared into six-inch platform heels, Golden Peacock costumes, and endless rehearsals with Rene.
By the time I was crowned Miss MNHS 2004, I had almost forgotten about the quiet boy practicing archery after school.
Almost.
The first text arrived the very next day.
On my navy blue Nokia 3310.
I still don't know how he got my number.
I only remember staring at that tiny monochrome screen in disbelief.
It was him.
School was nearly over.
I had returned to campus to collect pageant photographs and ask when the video would be ready.
That afternoon we decided to stop texting and talk instead.
We sat on a bench overlooking the same school grounds where months earlier I had secretly watched him practice archery.
Funny how life circles back to the same places.
He told me he had watched the pageant.
"You looked beautiful."
Then he smiled.
"I've noticed you for a while."
I almost laughed.
I had spent months convincing myself he hadn't.
Then he asked if I would be his girlfriend.
I surprised both of us.
"I want to think about it."
"Let's see where this goes."
Looking back now, I think I was more cautious than most thirteen-year-olds.
We walked home together that afternoon.
Eventually the road split.
He turned toward his street.
I turned toward mine.
───
Summer arrived almost immediately.
I spent most of it in Tigao, where cellphone reception was unreliable enough that people joked you had to climb a tree just to send a text.
The joke wasn't entirely wrong.
Our relationship unfolded one SMS at a time.
Calling was expensive.
So when my Nokia suddenly rang one afternoon, I knew something unusual had happened.
"Hurry," he said.
"Turn on the radio."
Then he hung up.
A few moments later, 214 by Rivermaya filled the room.
It was his dedication.
I don't remember if I ever asked him why he chose that song.
Maybe I did.
Maybe he told me.
Twenty-two years later, the explanation is gone.
Only the song remains.
───
Somewhere before school reopened, we argued.
I wish I could tell you what it was about.
I honestly can't.
Memory has erased the argument itself.
It left only one word behind.
"Immature."
Then...
Silence.
He never texted again.
I didn't either.
Sometimes I wonder if we were both waiting for the other person to break it.
Neither of us did.
───
On the first day of my sophomore year, I looked for him without thinking.
Some habits survive the summer.
I found him almost immediately.
His arm rested comfortably around another girl.
She was his classmate.
I remember looking away before he had the chance to notice me.
Or perhaps...
before I had the chance to discover whether he would.
My friends were just as surprised as I was.
"Weren't you two..."
I only shrugged.
"We argued."
"We stopped texting."
That was all I knew.
Life kept moving.
I failed to qualify for Regionals in journalism again.
Prepared for another pageant.
Attended another Girl Scout encampment.
A kind boy—his best friend, of all people—confessed that he liked me.
I taught him how to play the guitar.
Years later he would become a much better guitarist than I ever was.
I wanted to say yes.
I couldn't.
My heart was still somewhere else.
During another encampment, the quiet archer appeared again.
He visited our camp one evening.
I learned he and the other girl had broken up.
We talked.
Then he disappeared just as quietly as he'd returned.
───
By junior year, life had become wonderfully busy again.
After three attempts, I finally qualified for the Regional Schools Press Conference.
I danced contemporary.
Learned ballroom.
Entered another pageant.
Dated another boy.
We never even kissed.
Somewhere during Regionals, I found myself talking with the senior editor who had once ridden on the back of his motorcycle.
"Are you two still together?" I asked.
She smiled.
"No."
Then she started talking excitedly about someone new—a skater.
I didn't ask anything else.
Whatever had existed between them had already become part of her past.
Mine too, I thought.
───
Senior year arrived with campaign rallies, where our dance group—the Hitmakers—earned a little money performing before politicians took the stage.
I became Student Council Vice President.
Qualified for Regionals again.
Won the Division STEP competition.
Started dating one of the boys from Carrascal—the same boy who had once helped push an overloaded tricycle years earlier.
Graduation was approaching.
For the first time in years...
I genuinely believed I had moved on.
Then February arrived.
Alumni Night.
I don't remember much about the evening anymore.
Memory has blurred it into lights and music.
I only remember dancing with him.
Somewhere during the night we exchanged phone numbers.
My old Nokia 3310 had long since been replaced by a Nokia 3220.
We started texting again.
Then meeting.
Quietly.
I don't remember who first decided we should keep it a secret.
Maybe it was him.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe neither of us ever said it aloud.
It simply became the way we were.
By then I was sixteen.
He was eighteen.
He was my first crush.
My first love.
After years of almosts and almost agains...
I honestly believed we had finally found our way back to each other.
Part of me felt guilty.
Part of me wanted it.
Those two feelings somehow managed to exist inside the same heart.
I didn't know they were allowed to.
───
March arrived.
I don't remember what class I had before lunch.
I only remember standing beside the basketball court between classes when a girl from my year level walked toward me.
We weren't friends.
She looked nervous.
"Can I ask you something?"
I nodded.
"What's your relationship with him?"
I frowned.
Then came the question that shattered everything.
"Is it true..."
"...that you're not a virgin anymore?"
For a moment I couldn't breathe.
Instead of answering, I started asking her questions.
"Why would you ask me that?"
She looked genuinely confused.
"People are saying you've been sleeping together."
Then she repeated details.
Details only two people should have known.
That was the moment I realized our secret no longer belonged to us.
I skipped my last class.
Started my motorcycle.
Drove home.
My parents weren't there.
I didn't even make it to my bedroom.
I broke down in the living room.
For the first time in my life...
I cried until there was nothing left.
That evening I sent him the last message I ever intended to send.
I never wanted to see him again.
He denied everything.
I didn't believe him.
───
A week later...
The rumors reached my mother.
Not through teachers.
Not through relatives.
Through the woman who washed our family's clothes.
That hurt in a way I still struggle to explain.
My mother was furious.
It was the first time I had ever seen that expression on her face.
Not just anger.
Disappointment.
She threatened to make me marry him.
So...
I lied.
I told her people were making stories because other girls were jealous of me.
I wanted her to believe me.
I needed her to.
I don't know if she ever did.
───
After that...
My body began carrying what my mouth refused to say.
One afternoon I fainted at school.
My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
My mother rushed me to a cardiologist.
ECG.
More tests.
More waiting.
Finally the doctor smiled.
"Your heart is fine."
"It's structurally sound."
My mother looked relieved.
I smiled too.
Neither of us realized he had examined the only part of me that hadn't actually been broken.
───
He texted again after I left for college in Cebu.
First he told me he'd gotten someone pregnant and was getting married.
When I congratulated him, he admitted it wasn't true.
"It was my brother."
By then, I understood enough to stop believing every story he told.
Sometime after everything had already fallen apart, he sent me one sentence I never forgot.
"No one else will ever want you."
For a long time, I carried those words like another rumor.
Years later, I realized they had never belonged to me.
I changed my number.
This time, for good.
───
The last time I saw him was years later at my father's company party.
By then, my hair was short.
He was married.
We stood in the same room.
We didn't say hello.
We didn't smile.
We didn't acknowledge each other at all.
We simply passed like strangers.
Looking back now...
I don't think that's the saddest ending.
I think it's the most honest one.
The cardiologist was right.
My heart was structurally sound.
It just took years before it trusted the world again.
—
Elle K. Lee
Recovering old negatives, one story at a time.
