THE CANDY WRAPPER (A Post-Valentine's Day Short Story)

       Looking for a piece of an old document, Jude pulled open a cabinet drawer and saw a small box inside, and inside the box, he saw old keys,  a broken watch, an earphone, a couple of small binder clips, a torn bookmark and a tattered candy wrapper—basically, garbage all, except for the binder clips.

       He had just thrown the box (and its contents) into a trash can when he remembered what the candy wrapper was.

       Many years ago, Jude was around fifteen years old (and in third year high school) when he became strongly infatuated with a girl a year older than him. To say that she was pretty would be a gross understatement, in his young eyes, her beauty transcended ethereal.

       She studied in a different school but lived just across the house of Jude’s classmate and almost every day, during vacant periods, Jude, pretending to converse with his classmate, would watch her (let’s call her Mary-Ann) from across the street. He didn’t have the nerve to approach her or talk to her, he was too smitten and nervous to do that—and he thought she was way, way out of his league.

       Until one day, he was buying something from a sari-sari store just beside his classmate’s house when Mary-Ann sauntered towards the store and bought a candy, his heart almost stopping when her arm slightly brushed against his arm.  After her purchase, she strangely lingered in front of the store, toying with the candy in her hand, alternately looking at the road in front of them and casually glancing at him—he’d catch his breath whenever she’d throw a half-smile at him every time their eyes met.

       Was she waiting for him to talk to her? That would be incredulous, he thought. But she continued to awkwardly stand in front of the store until she slowly unwrapped the candy with her delicate fingers, dropped the wrapper on the pavement and put the candy into her mouth in the most exquisite way. She chuckled, her fair cheeks turning rosy, when she saw him watching her with his mouth agape and he almost collapsed with sheer joy at the sound of her heavenly laughter.

       She lingered in front of the store for a few more minutes before slowly walking towards her house. Jude then casually glanced at the wrapper near his foot, then, when he was sure no one was looking, bent to pick it up and slipped it into his pocket. He took it home and carefully placed it between the pages of his favorite book.

       Days went by and he continued to watch her from afar, never finding the courage to talk to her and befriend her, while ignoring love letters sent his way by girls who inexplicably found him cute—he only had eyes for Mary-Ann.

       Then, he finished high school, his classmate decided to study in the province and Jude suddenly found himself without a reason to hang around in front of Mary-Ann’s house.

       He moved on, he banished her from his mind, he grew up, got involved in a few romantic relationships, almost all of which went kaput, the worst of which was when he was dumped by his beloved for a married man (who turned out to be a drug addict and who ended up battering her when they got together). Yes, it wasn’t unusual for many single women to find married men attractive; some said it’s because these men were sexually experienced and some said it’s because some women were just plain adventurous. And Jude was aware of that, and after that chapter in his life which almost destroyed him, he would now just quietly shy away and move on whenever he saw that the girl he liked was being cozy with a married man—a defense-mechanism his mind had concocted.

       Jude went back to the trash can and picked up the candy wrapper.

       He had mementos from his past relationships and crushes or infatuations, but only the candy wrapper had sweet, innocent memories in it.