Cebu Nights – Part 2: The Sea Wall

The sea wall along Mandaue was quiet at midnight. The tide was out, the water lapping softly against the stones, and the lights of Cebu City shimmered across the strait. Rico walked with his hands in his pockets, shoulder almost brushing Paolo's, the way they had walked home from school a hundred times.

"Do you remember the time we tried to swim to Mactan?" asked Rico.

"You tried to swim. I held the bag."

"You were the one who cried when the jellyfish got me."

"You screamed like a girl."

"I was seventeen. Everyone screams like a girl at seventeen," said Rico, and Paolo laughed, the sound drifting out over the water.

They stopped at the old concrete bench near the lamp post, the one where they used to share a single bag of chicharon and argue about which band was better. Paolo sat down first. Rico sat beside him, not too close.

"Why didn't you ever write back?" asked Paolo, quietly.

Rico looked down at his hands. "I wrote back a hundred times. I just never sent the letters. I was scared you'd laugh."

"I wouldn't have laughed."

"I know that now," said Rico. "But at eighteen, I didn't know anything. I thought if I told you, you'd stop being my friend, and then I'd have nothing left."

Paolo was silent for a moment, watching the water.

"I thought you'd gone to Davao and forgotten all of us," he said. "That's what my uncle told me. I believed him for years."

"I didn't forget you," said Rico. "I never once forgot."

The night wind was warm and salty. Somewhere down the road, a jeepney rattled past, and then the street was quiet again.

"Can I tell you something?" asked Paolo.

"Yes."

"I've been waiting for you to sing that song again. Not on a stage. Just to me."

Rico turned to face him. His eyes were bright in the lamplight.

"Then I'll sing it," he said. "Quietly. Only if you want me to."

"Yes," said Paolo. "And then I want to say something back."

Rico sang, very softly, the first verse of the boy with the bicycle. His voice cracked on the high note, and he laughed at himself, and then stopped, and simply looked at Paolo.

"Your turn," he said.

Paolo took a breath. "I wrote you a letter when we were eighteen," he said. "It's in my drawer at home. Forty pages. I never sent it because I was scared you'd say no."

Rico's face softened, slowly, into something warm and wondering.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked. "Now, not in forty years?"

"Yes," said Paolo. "And if I want you to stop, I'll tell you."

"Good," said Rico, and leaned in.

It was gentle, then deeper, the taste of salt and the faint sweetness of the mango juice from the karaoke bar still on his lips. Paolo's hand found the back of Rico's neck, and Rico's arms came around him, careful, holding him as though he had been waiting a very long time to do exactly that.

When they parted, the moon had come out over the water.

"Green?" Rico whispered.

"Green," said Paolo, laughing, a little dizzy. "Let's walk home, and then you can read my forty pages in the morning."

"Forty pages?"

"Eleven of them are about you singing," said Paolo, and Rico threw back his head and laughed out loud.