Chapter 2 (Part 1)

One, two, three, four, five, six and seven. And one week had gone, and so another week. It had been exactly two weeks since Yzel and Francis broke up, but everything still felt like it was just yesterday.

Everything felt like it was still yesterday for her. She was thinking, if she reacted so harshly to the situation that time, if that had added fuel to the fire. What if she reacted so calmly, more calmly, and tried to talk it out, probably they might not end into a breakup? Or if she decided to cool it down first, and talk things out, like they were in a meeting, probably they sorted it out, might they end into a break up? Or if she fought for her feelings all the way, justifying her love for him, would it make him stay? 

For the past two weeks, Yzel had cancelled on most of her guestings and invites and never been engaging on most of her social media accounts. Francis, too, was not saying much about their breakup and seemed to avoid those questions whenever he was in public or making company appearances.

Yzel's world stopped at that moment when Francis told her that he wanted to break up with her. What happened to their promises, that they would continue choosing their love for each other? That, no matter how hard and difficult it would get, they would constantly choose each other. It was 52 weeks, 12 months and 365 days of love and sacrifices, and understanding, commitment and joy with each other's companies. How could it be just so easy to let go when all this, all what you did was to constantly win every battle that would come your way? How easy would it get when you were excited to be with him again but ended up being shooed away. With wine and cocktails around, Yzel drowned herself in every drink she got to forget the pain.

But how could she ever forget, when it was in her heart where she kept all those memories alive and not in the brain? Heart didn't have pain receptors, but why did it ache like hell?

Lyin' on her living room space, Yzel looked on the ceiling, playing with the lights from the chandelier, as she let every call to go to her voicemail and ignored all the rings of her phone.

She cut off ties from her family and few friends and her followers start to wonder about her whereabouts. Yzel, not saying or talking about anything, Francis had to take all the questions and interrogations for her.

"What happened between you two?"

"Did you guys fight?"

"Did you guys break up?"

"Why on earth will you guys break up?"

Those were just a few of the frequently asked questions that even on their company website were asked.

Their breakup was causing too much of a commotion on most every corner of his everyday life, work, social media, company website. Francis was being confronted by his superior about this. It was getting a nuisance of the company and the crowd, wanting the real deal to get out of control.

His boss invited Francis to his office, with tea served. This seemed to be a more serious conversation, more than he would expect it to be. With butterflies on his stomach, Francis took a deep breath and tried to play it cool.

"Yes sir. Yzel and I broke up two weeks ago." He confessed to his boss with his fingers twitching as he spoke.

"I understand that you are going through a hard time too, with this chaos, but to protect you and my company from media speculation, I wanna know why," his boss firmly and authoritatively question. He reached for his tea cup.

There was a moment of silence in the whole room. That eerie moment that felt like there was an angel who dropped by and left nothing but holiness in the vibe of the room.

Francis reached for his cup and took a little sip, before he spoke.

"I am seeing someone else," he said.  He put his cup down. "And I realized what love really is, after I met her, sir," he told his boss honestly. He looked straight to his face, trying to read his facial expression or somehow, trying to read what his boss got to say.

"I'll prepare a presscon for you," with a serious tone the boss said. "Before any speculation of third-party spread out," he paused. He reached for his cup. 

"You are an asset of this company, and I don't want your job to be affected by this."

"Do you think it is necessary, sir?" he asked his boss back. "We could just let it go and people would eventually forget about it," he continued. Francis didn't want to make this issue a big deal. That was true that her ex was a public figure but that didn't mean holding a presscon was necessary for personal matters.

"You are a marketing director and that makes you a public figure too. You need to settle it once and for all", replied by his boss. He then cleared his throat and took a sip of his tea again.

"Thank you sir. I understand," he said. He looked away to the sun almost setting from the huge glass windows from the room.

Yzel might not know the reason why Francis had broken up with her and all what she got were just wonders and questions of what really happened to them. 

Did he get tired of her? Was he seeing someone else? Was she never good enough? Was she that replaceable, to just end a year of relationship with her? What was his deal? What about their vows to stay together and to choose each other no matter what? Did all the hardships weigh out his love for her? How could she easily let go of Yzel when he worked so hard to pursue her and to win her love? What about those I love yous, those bouquets and chocolates and dates that they've been together, were all those just easy to forget?

As Yzel marvelled at the pain and ache of her broken heart, she received a phone call from Stella, telling her to open her TV and to confess the truth right now.

She eagerly went to her couch from her seat which faced the sunset beyond the two-yard transparent glass window which gave her night scenery of the night and dawn sky. Things looked great up and above there.

She reached for her remote and turned the TV on. The moment the screen was turned on, Yzel saw Francis on the screen. He was standing at the front of a standee with lots of microphones and flashes everywhere. Yzel read the headline below and it said :

"Marketing Director, Francis Salcedo spoke about his girlfriend, Yzel Bourgès break up."

Yzel felt frozen that moment Francis started to speak about his reasons for breaking her up, and how sorry he was for tearing her heart to pieces as he caused her damage that money couldn't pay. No matter how sorry Francis was on the screen, all that Yzel could hear was his reason for breaking her up, Francis was seeing someone else.

Yzel's face went pale and all she could do was to let her tears roll down her cheeks. She couldn't believe that the love of her life was seeing someone else and she was dumped by his love for her.

She had no idea that his man had been seeing someone else, that he was cheating all this time and once again, Francis, chose to stay with her rather than to live his life with him.

Who could have been this girl?

She reached for her goblet with wine in it and threw it away hitting the wall of her place. The shuttered glasses showered all over the places and the wine sparkled its droplets across the room leaving red spots from the wall to her table, couch and decors. She clenched her fist with a piece of glass near her. Her hand was dripping with blood as the glasses cut her flesh. This could hurt a lot, but Yzel couldn't feel any pain at all. All her pain was turned to anger, to hatred. She has never been a laughing stock before. 

She reached for her phone and dialed a number. After a few rings, the person on the other line picked it up and greeted her.

"Hi, This is Coleen, PR officer of FM Images, speaking, how may I help you?" said the other person with perkiness in her tone.

"Hello," she greeted her back bluntly. She then took a deep breath before continuing to speak. "This is Yzel Bourgès, and I want to discuss your collaboration proposal with me," she ended. She was still not looking away from his ex's face on the TV screen.

This was enough humiliation. She was the goddess of the fashion industry, and this kind of doing was belittling her. She worked so hard not to look pathetic from other people and here she was watching her own ex presscon of why he broke up with him instead of telling it right to her face. This is unacceptable, his apologies were just a marketing strategy and nothing was truly meant from the presscon.

Yzel gathered all the courage that she had, and tried to calm her nerves down. She would have a public appearance, and she would make sure that Francis would regret not choosing her love for her. Yzel would prove that he was not a big loss, because he was his loss.

She had enough of this absurdity, to think that all those times Francis had loved her. Relationships should never be one-sided. If it was, then it was not a relationship at all. Relationships had to be two-way communication. Loving him was not enough to make him stay. Sacrificing time and investing your emotions were not enough to make him realize how lucky he was to have a lady like her. Constantly choosing him was never enough because as she did, Francis had to choose her, not because Yzel loved him dearly, but because Francis felt the same thing too. Men stayed for some reason as to why a lady would stay. He had to love you the same love you feel for him. He had to make sacrifices and investments too with no panunumbat of his love for her. The only way to make a man stay was he had to love you too.