Stalked!

By Jing Villamil

THIS is a true story told by her who was stalked. And by him who stalked her since he was sixteen and she was a year younger.

She was new in his school but this was not what caught his attention at once. She had the biggest brown eyes he had ever seen, magnified by her thick round eyeglasses. She was also fairest of skin, with waist-long curly brown hair. He heard that she left her former school where she ranked one of the best if not the best from grader to high school, to find her peace of heart and mind.

“She must be as weird as I am,” he thought. For he was the school weird, its restless James Dean, but otherwise the typical case of “borderline autistic”.

As early as her first days in the new school, he took notes in his mind as he watched her the times when he could. He learned she was doing as good as in the previous school. Thumbs up, he cheered for her. But she shunned friends. She kept to her lone self. Home was a big old house thirty minutes away by PUJ. And he rode the same, when he could. He took the same jeep back to his home when he was assured she was safe within her gates. She was not dumb; she realized she had a shadow. “Stalker” was not a threatening word then. She was curious, but not afraid. She would walk backwards, but she could not see clearly his face. He kept himself always at a far distance.

At her junior prom, he crossed-over fast from the seniors’ side to claim her first dance. He did not say a word, just a thank you and a press of her palm after the dance. She looked at him with surprise; he looked neat and nice and shy with charmingly naughty eyes that seemingly spoke a lot of words unspoken. And he was gentle with his ways; he realized she had not danced before and he guided her body and her steps around the ballroom like a proper gentleman would.

When she was a year older, and he was college freshman in a mountain city, he came home and claimed her first senior prom dance. When she attended student conferences in the city where he studied, he would know. He would be there, behind a tree with friends or even his sister to watch her. After almost two years, watching her became “watching-over” her.

When she chose to study in an expensive all-girls college in Manila, he transferred from mountain city to metropolitan.

At end of class he would stand across the street from her school, when he could, where he would not be seen. And watched her grow and bloom into a young beautiful adult. He was proud, like he was her own secret guardian angel! But then, he found he did not keep a lone watch. Others who liked, loved or desired her, but just as afraid or shy of her, sometimes watched and “watched-over” her, too.

In her sophomore year, he saw her in her pink jogging pants leading the ranks of protesters, holding high a red flag. He felt a flare of anger, and then a fear for her. He would keep pace with the group but from the sidewalk, never losing sight of her. When the rallyists reached their destination and she would distribute leaflets, a voice would ring out from amidst the crowd: “you stop this, girl, you go home or I will inform your parents.” When she searched for the owner of the voice, he would disappear fast and furious. The warning caring voice became normal abnormal episodes as she continued to march with the protest movement. The Kuya-like admonition made her mad but it made her feel safe, too, in a way. And, no, he did not inform her parents.

And he learned where she lived. Most weekends, a young errand boy would bring her three or a dozen red roses wrapped in soft tulle. Through the next months, errand boy was replaced by fraternity plebe, then by ROTC trainee.

In her junior year, and before he graduated as engineer, he joined the US Army. He sent through a frat brod the most number of roses so far, with the most perplexing message: “Will you please see me off at the airport? Also, will you please marry me before I leave?”

She grasped the roses tight, thorns pricking her palms. She was at a loss for words and simply stared at the messenger with wide shocked eyes. At last, she managed to say slowly: “Please ask him for me – Why should I? How could I? – when, for the past many years, he chose to be just a stranger looking-in, my shadow, my ghost?”

And he saw her now-sad eyes blur with the beginnings of tears.

(To be continued.)

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