Chapter I ` The Forgotten Memo

It was a dim day, and Grace Pat, entered a new place. She had moved from the United States of
America to the Philippines. After living in the USA for quite some time, she had adjusted to a
different type of living and language compared to the place she was born in the Philippines. She
was not expecting anything big and wanted a regular life, however the universe did not quite
agree.

“Grace!,” yelled her sister, “We’re going to be late. Are you going to class today or not?”

I replied to her, “I don’t want to. I’ll stay here. I’ll probably go tomorrow when I’m a little more
comfortable.”

The school is a boarding school and currently is known as a Multi-grade school because it also
holds primary and secondary education. I’m in 7th grade as of the moment, and socializing and
meeting new people is something I strongly dislike. It hasn’t been long since we arrived and I’m
not curious at all. My sister Joy Pat, however, is the polar opposite of me. She adores attention
and is the chatterbox from the both of us. It’s only been a few hours and she’s arrived back home
already, telling me all about how people are curious to see me and that a lot of them are quite
nice despite the language barrier. We only know how to speak basic Bisaya and that’s not the
language/ dialect that’s being used here so it’s quite different. There are people that can
understand us and there are those that can speak English fluently so we got through the week
quite okay.

It was around Mid’ November when we moved here and we stayed with people we weren’t well
acquainted with. The house was right beside the girls dormitory and just behind the office
buildings. In all honesty, I disliked staying here because it’s so different from when we were in
America. A week passed by and a certain guy caught my attention. I was living an anime/ kdrama
life especially since we would exchange letters in secret since he offered to teach me Tagalog-
Filipino. However, it wasn’t long since I found out about the rumors that he had girlfriends from
other towns and how he’s a chickboy, a.k.a. a flirt. It’s hilarious because he reminded me of my
crush of 3 years back in America. That guy, was not at all good looking, but knew how to make a
girl fall for him.

Anyway, going back to the story, around December we decided to become “ M.U.” or what they
call people that have a mutual understanding, “similar feelings.” All of this was new to me and
the only knowledge I had about crushes and dating were all from anime and kdrama’s, not really
reliable sources. Around February, we had an event called Mr. and Ms. Valentine. It was a
pageant that my sister and I were forced to join because, apparently, we were the most prettiest
ones in our batch. I received several chocolates and confessions from guys and some of which
weren’t in my batch. I was also awarded Ms. Valentine and my sister got quite upset at it, but it
was all good in due time because it wasn’t anything serious.

Camping happened the next month, and this is where things got a little messy. We had to go
hiking after the rain and the mud was dark orange to brown and it was quite sticky.

“ Dasiga!(faster),” yelled the Pathfinder leader, “Dasiga! Dasiga nauulhi na mo! (faster! Faster!
You’re all falling behind!).”

We all hurried to the designated area and I ended up slipping. “AH!,” I screamed and quickly
grabbed onto the nearest person by me. The person eventually helped me, but I felt bad because
I grabbed onto his injured arm. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.” He nodded and smiled, eventually
letting me go ahead of him.

We reached the designated area and had to cook on a stick and make rice in a bamboo.
Everything was new for me because I had lived in comfort for the whole 10-11yrs of my stay in
America. I wasn’t quite useful to my groupmates, but I’m still glad they didn’t kick me out. A few
day later, the closing ceremony was happening and just before it we received news that someone
had gone missing.

“ NAWAWALA SI ALEIA (ALEIA IS MISSING)!” someone shouted. Our team leaders were rushed to
a meeting and we stayed behind because it was already dark outside. Someone came to our tent
to inform us of what had happened, and it was far from we imagined.

“Ano nangyare (what happened)?” A teammate of mine asked.

“Aleia… “ they hesitated, “ Aleia and Mitch,” tears started to fall.

“Ano? Naano ba sila (what? What happened to them)?”

“Nahanap nila bayo nila gisi gisi kag damo dugo. Basi gi rape kuno sinda bago gi kidnap. (they
found their clothes teared apart with a lot of blood. They think they got raped before being
kidnapped).“

All of us were in shock. I didn’t know them, but that incident scared me. While our team leaders
were joining the rescue team, we prayed for their safety. We received the news in early morning,
and it turns out, all of it had been a play to see if our team leaders had the capabilities to lead
out a search and rescue team. We were relieved that nothing serious happened to them since it
was all an act.

The following night, we had a social night, an event that is usually done for closing ceremonies
here in the Philippines. I was invited by two of my batchmates to join the marching, both of them
had feelings for me and I was well aware of it. However, little did I know that the marching only
had one round, so the other person was disappointed. I also didn’t know that a lot of people
would be annoyed at me for choosing the guy I liked over the guy that liked me. After the program,
they were pretty upset to see how I gave the guy a chance despite being told that he was a
playboy.

April came and classes were over by now. I was going to move schools since we only stayed here
for the province life experience. So, I decided to cut ties from the guy I liked since he wasn’t going
to become a doctor anyway. Summer was here and we went to our dad’s friends place in Masbate
and had a crusade there for a short while. During our stay there, I had a crush on my dads friends
son, quite a cutie if you ask me. I kept this crush for that short time and was happy just to see his
handsome and fair skinned face, with luscious flowing black hair. However, since it was just a
crush, my feelings died down by the time we traveled to our new place in Silang, Cavite and I had
to adjust to yet another bigger crowd.

By the time classes started in June, I was greeted by a fairly tall girl in the same batch as me.

“ HIIIIIIIIIII! ,” she greeted with a big smile on her face. I could tell she’s the talkative type and
she’s probably been attending this school for quite some time.

I smiled back at her and lined up in my current section for the flag ceremony. After the ceremony,
we headed to our respective homerooms and I was greeted by a mother accompanying her
daughter for classes.

“Hi, taga- saan ka (Hi, where are you from)?” The mother asked.

With a confused face, I answered, “ Uh, sorry. I’m not from here, so I don’t quite understand
what you said.”

“Ah, foreigner?,” the mother questioned.

“No, I just grew up in America and transferred here.”

“I’m Pearl. Nice to meet you, were in the same section I’m guessing,” her daughter inserted, “I
hope we can be friends.”

“I’m Grace,” I answered as I smiled faintly.

I entered the class with Pearl, but didn’t sit next to her. I sat next to a foreigner and I was just
grateful to have met someone that could speak English. Throughout the whole semester I made
quite a lot of friends, but mostly hanged out with my foreigner friends since I haven’t been able
to adjust to the language. Our fieldtrip time came and I was quite excited for it because I haven’t
been to a lot of fieldtrips back in America. A guy told me he liked me before the field trip which
was quite interesting because we weren’t really that close. He said his name was El and was also
Bisaya. My friend and I sat next to each other because my other friend Kiary sat somewhere else.
El and his friend sat behind us and during the duration of the trip he kept on touching my cheek
from behind and my friend, Glad, probably assumed that he was bothering me – which in fact he
was. I couldn’t recall the rest of the happenings, but that was that. We had several potlucks and
events during the school year and the sooner I knew it ,it was already time to enter grade 9.

Grade 9 came quite fast- we were also told that after this school year, we would be having a 4
month vacation since the school calendar would be moved to august to have a similar set up to
the American education. Anyway, so grade 9 came. There was another guy named Clyde and I
didn’t really like him, but I knew who he liked. It was funny because when I told that to his friends
and they kept asking him who, he pointed at me, which obviously wasn’t true. But, like that naïve
Grace I was, I fell for him and we started chatting and had pet names. The time came where he
wanted to be MU or dating, but I didn’t really know how that worked. I said that we could try,
but he got mad and said “what is this? Food?” So, the next day he said that we’ll just be friends
instead. Just a few days after, during our fieldtrip, he was already sitting and flirting with another
girl. Thus, the inspiration for the song we made during our music video project, You made me
believe love was real totally inspired by this heartbreaking flirtatious jerk. I did end up comparing
the girl to another person I met by saying that ‘you’re nicer’ – turned out to be her close friend
and snitched- then the ganged up and kept telling me to say sorry because I so-and-so
‘backstabbed’ her, which I didn’t. I don’t get how saying, ‘You’re nicer’ than so-and-so is
backstabbing, I didn’t say that she was a flirt or she was a jerk, No. All I said was you’re nicer. Talk
about trauma. Anyway, fast forward after all that, I became close to this friend of mine named
Eimer. He wasn’t good-looking at all and didn’t have a knack for fashion or talking, but he was
smart and talented. We became close and I was helping him with his crush, her name was Dana.
He liked her and I wanted to play cupid because that’s how nice I am – or at least, that’s what I
thought. So, time came for our pathfinder camping and it was just in line with valentines. I told
him this would be the perfect time to tell her how you feel. But, he just gave me chocolates, my
friend Pearl, and told me to give the chocolates to Dana instead. I’ll admit I did started gaining
feelings for him, but I said that this is just something I’ll get off my chest. So, after camping ended,
I texted him right away and told him. He told me that he liked me, too and to my surprise, gave
me chocolates the next day. I was very confused because my friends came running to me, asking
me if me and him were dating. I was shocked, because from what I knew, I just said that I liked
him in order to stop liking him. But after that, people just kept on teasing us more and more.

Summer finally came which was 3 months after we were “MU.” I finally wanted to end things
with him because I just didn’t see how we could continue dating behind my parents back. I gave
a lot of reasons.
“You’re ugly. You’re not right for me. I don’t love you, this is just infatuation.”

Only to come running back because my boredom struck. That summer was a very long summer
vacation. I did unspeakable things, cheated on the guy, and was losing a lot of my self. Before
classes started, I also found out that he was chatting females and asking for their pictures. We
we’re both cheating on each other, but the only difference was that he was going to tell people
what I did if I didn’t stop and broke up with him. I stayed, stopped the things I did, and was
blackmailed. I continued to please him and do whatever he wanted, with my reputation and risk
of getting caught. My parents soon found out that we were dating and told me to stop, I still
didn’t. I made an account just to have an unmonitored chat with him and keep in contact because
I was continually drawn and traumatized. Grade 10 finally came and a new face came in the
picture. She became close to Eimer and Eimer hid that from me. He started developing feelings
for her, dropped and picked her up via motorcycle to her dorm. They became pretty close and
he eventually gave her a gift. His best friend told me the truth about him picking up another gift
when he bought mine. I got furious, mad, and upset. I started hanging out with my friend more.
One day, I told my guy friend Mark that we should study near the soccer field so I can see Eimer
playing. Eimer got furious that day and kicked the soccer ball directly to my tailbone. I couldn’t
understand why he did that, but I assumed it was because I was with a guy friend. I kept buying
gatorades and snacks for Eimer whenever he had his soccer practices and always tried to see him
despite not being allowed to.

Grade 11 came and we were put in the same section, things were going smoothly, but my parents
found out and told us to stop everything. Eimer didn’t talk at all. People were talking as to how
Eimer is so entitled to have such a pretty girlfriend and acts like he doesn’t have one. I didn’t
know all this. We still continued talking to each other even though we broke up.

Fieldtrip came and this guy named Emman was hanging out with us. I didn’t know then but he
told me he liked me. I really can’t remember much as to what happened, but we also had several
events and what nots like Les Miserable. Anyway, that was that. Fast forward to grade 12.

During grade 12 fieldtrip, things weren’t the best. I’d already broken up with a long time
boyfriend and I had just found out that my father had cheated on my mom. I was in denial for
quite sometime, until I finally found out when we were preparing to check things at Balibago. My
dads wallpaper was another female I didn’t know and He kept coming home late and talked late
at night with some other female, hid his phone often and had a nearly closed door at home with
his laptop screen beaming. I found out too much and it was over-bearing that I bursted after the
fieldtrip. A friend of mine, his name was Mer, comforted me. I had a crush on him since the first
day of grade 11, but found out later he had a long term girlfriend. I didn’t want to ruin what he
had with the girl and I really found them fit for each other. I told Mer everything and he comforted
me like a friend would, it was just wrong of me to feel butterflies in my stomach that time. We
also had our Bacolod-Iloilo SHS Academy chorale tour that December and the girl my dad cheated
on with, was the person who offered to give us a lift. I was angry and upset. I didn’t know how to
act, but I was called out for acting rudely. I tried and did my best to ignore her at all times and I
did. We had sung and ate at several places, and during our last concert in Iloilo, I was just an
audience because I had already lost my voice. That same year, I was told that this wasn’t the first
time my dad had cheated on our mom and that he’d been doing this since we were in America. I
was heartbroken and traumatized. It’s no wonder why my mom was getting divorce papers ready
when she was in America. Time came or graduation, and my mom came home the same year.
She decided that she’ll come home instead of breaking the family, so that we could all work things
out. I still harbored awful feelings and didn’t feel the best even though my mother finally came
home. My parents actually told us to move to the Philippines to graduate faster, but I was caught
in the K12 program. But that was that, and graduation finally came. We all said our goodbyes and
thank you’s and by November, I finally got tired of talking to my ex and decided to end things
once and for all. He insisted that we wait for each other after graduation, but I told him I didn’t
want this anymore and ended all things there- sure, he did mock me and laugh at my ‘several
closures,’ but once I was done, I was done.

By that time of November, I was already in college pursuing what I thought was my dream.