Chapter 1: A Broken Heart

“Hello?”

“Hello! Rica? Finally, you picked up! Where are you?"

Rica pulled the phone away from her ears. She didn't feel like talking to anyone. She wanted to be alone in that beautiful place. She needed to figure everything out.   

"I've been calling you. George called me but I don’t understand why he wants me to come get you. I thought you were together. What’s going on? Is everything okay between you two?”

"George?" Rica stopped walking. Hearing that name inevitably stabbed her heart. Her body trembled and her legs started to shake with every step.

"Please talk to me, Rica. Please..."

She didn’t know what to tell her best friend. Panting and covered in her own sweat, she sat down under an old weeping willow tree with dancing, ground-sweeping branches providing her a canopy of leaves. As she tried to hide her misery and ignore all the pain, her effort failed, tears started to roll down her red cheeks. 

"Hey! Are you crying? What happened? I'm starting to worry," Melanie asked when she heard her soft sobbings.

"Melanie, G-g-george is ... he's gone."

"What do you mean he’s gone? Like gone-gone? Wait.. you mean he broke up with you?" 

Rica’s face crumpled and she began to cry in pain. 

She invited George to go for a hike. He was her boyfriend for four years. She started to worry about their relationship when he began to avoid her at work and ignore her calls and text messages. She reasoned to herself that he might be too weary and stressed because he had a lot of work to accomplish at their company. In her attempt to save their relationship, she asked him to go hiking which was their favorite activity to do together. He consented, but she had no idea that the day she had been dreading had finally arrived.

"What do you mean this is the end, baby? What happened to 'I will never leave you, Rica'?" she asked George. Her voice cracked and her eyes burned with unshed tears. 

He tried to open his lips for words but remained silent. He looked away.

She cupped his face and slowly turned it for their eyes to meet. Her eyes pleaded for his answers. She waited for him to speak but he kept his lips sealed and turned his gaze away away from hers.

“You cheated on me!” she shouted. She helped him reveal the truth. The truth he couldn’t tell her but she knew. She was smart enough to know but stupid enough to think he would never leave her no matter what. That he would soon realize she was the only one capable of loving everything about him, even his many flaws.

George held her hand. "Rica, baby, I'm really sorry. I love you but our relationship is starting to suffocate me." 

Like rain, tears fell down her face. Is George really breaking up with her? She closed her eyes. It can’t be! She tried to think of what she could have done to save their relationship but she had done everything already. Then why? Is this really the end?

When she opened her eyes. George was no longer there. He left her.

***Parting ways with someone you love the most is never easy but you never beg for that person to stay. Coz' loving someone is choosing his happiness even though it means you have to let him go.*** - Author

“Rica? Where are you?” her friend asked worriedly. “I can’t believe that after my long tiring conference, I’ll return home only to find out that my friend is nowhere to be found and I have to look for her instead of going to the SPA or the hair salon. Please have mercy on me. I need my beauty rest too.”

“Nowhere to be found? Hey! I’m not a missing person.” She laughed. She was already used to Mel complaining a lot about things and stuff. “You don’t have to worry about me, Mel. I’m okay. I just, j-just wanted to be alone.”

She heard her friend sighed gently.

“That bastard! Why would he even du..?” She sighed crossly this time. “Look! I don’t know if this would help you feel better but please Rica, just forget him. He’s an asshole anyway. How could he leave you for another girl? You’re far more beautiful, more attractive, more kind-hearted, more loving and all the positive comparative adjectives out there. If I were you, be thankful that you don’t have to be with that kind of guy. What a big cheater!”

Yes! He’s a big cheater indeed! She knew he was cheating on her. She could hear all their colleagues talking behind her back about her boyfriend and her secretary going out on dates. They could be seen dining in fancy restaurants, going to the movies and enjoying flirting inside her office while she was spending her days consumed with meeting madness. Yet, her mind refused to believe and she chose not to listen to them. She chose to trust and listen to her heart. She chose to believe in their relationship. She convinced herself that she had nothing to worry about because George would not just throw everything away.

But she was WRONG!

And she wanted to blame herself for everything. 

"Rica? Still there?"

She wiped all her tears away. The branches of the willow tree moved and hugged her. "Yes. I'm still here. Mel, thank you for being there," she answered. "For always being there. I am so blessed to have a friend like you." 

“Rica, you’re like a sister to me so you don't have to thank me. Okay? I am and will always be here for you. That’s a promise."

"You're the best!" She smiled gently. "Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me. Just go to the SPA and enjoy yourself. I'll meet you at home."

"Are you sure? No more cryings?" Melanie teased her.

"Not even a single drop of tear!" she answered. "It's going to be hard but I know I can get over him. Time will heal. Soon, I’ll forget him and only the memories will remain."

"That's my girl! You’ll be fine, dear. You’re better off without him. I’ll hang up now. I’ll see you at home. I’ll make dinner so if you can, please get a bottle of wine on your way home.”

“Sure,” she replied.

“Thanks. See you. Bye!"

“Bye!”

She took a deep breath and stood up.

“George…,” she whispered to herself. “I am letting you go now.” She stared at a ring on her finger. It was the ring George gave her when she said yes after being asked to be his girlfriend. She had been wearing it for four years. She couldn’t believe the man who gave it to her chose to give up on her. She stared at the tree. She could remember how her favorite poet, William Shakespeare, used the mournful symbolism of the willow tree in Hamlet. Ophelia and her flowers fell into the gurgling brook. She floated for a while, buoyed up by her clothing but in the end, she sank and drowned.

She would rather drown too than continue living with a stake through her heart. However, that would make George and her new woman happier. She chose to live, of course! She took the ring off her finger and left it by the tree. She buried it, along with her broken heart.