Never Mine

(Repost from a friend's blog.)

"So will you be mine?" I asked him. With a smirk, he didn't speak for a while.

"Fine, I won't sleep with anyone, and I won't use Grindr," he said, as if to make a concession in exchange for a little bit more time to think about his answer.

And then I laughed. Gotcha, I thought. Whoever said the art of manipulation cannot be used to one of UP's top debaters? Haha.

I never imagined he'll let me tie the knot this early in our relationship, or the lack of it. But I always somehow believed I can still make him do what I want.

Even if I have no assurances. Even if he can never be sure himself.

---

"I'm a jerk," is what he always says. That's how he has been with all of them before. That's how he has been with other friends he slept with before.

Anyone in his right mind would keep clear given a warning as clear as that. Fair warning, I asked. Caveat emptor, he replied.

Yet somehow, despite that, I'm still here. Part of it is because of the challenge of changing this person into a good man which I know he could be. Part of it is because I like him. And I like knowing he likes me, too.

Like that time when I have seen how he looked at me. Puppy eyes I called it, but, deep in our minds, we both knew what it meant. What it really meant.

It was his eyes, glistening and shining at the same time, focusing on me and me alone; as if he's saying, I'm seeing you again for the first time. As if to say something changed, and now, I like you to be mine.

---

But the words never came out, the thoughts were never said.

And now, I'm in limbo. Mind's full of conjectures, and of uncertainties.

Save for the fact that I like him.

And that…

---

He may never be mine.