She doesn’t eat chocolate.

We’re celebrating our 1 year and 7 months anniversary today.

We’re two very different people. She’s very outgoing while I’m shy. She grew up in the city, me in the province. We met during a student exchange program to Japan high school. We were both in 4th year back then. We weren’t close at first. During the closing ceremonies, we ended up sitting next to each other. We shared laughter and joy, sadness and tears.

After the program, we ended up becoming textmates. She told me secrets about her family. She was filled with sadness, and all I wanted to do was to hug her and tell her, “Everything’s okay.”

I went to Ateneo for college, she went to UPD. I went to see her to UP, we chatted for a while. We’d talk online too. I didn’t realize it, but talking with her was important to me. I was already falling for her back then. Every time she talked about her problems, I wanted to do whatever I could to make her feel better. 

Later I did realize that I liked her very much. I wanted the feelings to go away, I told myself I wasn’t ready yet. I stopped talking to her. But a few months later, we met again with other friends. We ignored each other for the most part, but we ended up talking again. We resumed chatting online.

I was already sure of what I was feeling for her then, but I couldn’t tell her up front. All I wished was for her to have the same feelings for me. Little did I know that she did.

We finally got around to talking. When we confessed to each other, it was the happiest feeling I ever had. The first time that I felt like my life was complete. That feeling like the world is a hundred times better than it was before. Like the heart would explode because of happiness. Like nothing wrong will ever happen, no dream that will never be reached.

Life would be bland without her. She is, forever, the caramel in my life.