“You don’t know him like I do!”
“Please, spare me the cliché lines. You’re the one that doesn’t know what she’s doing. Do you know anything about this guy? Who he is and what he’s done?!”
“It doesn’t matter! I love him and there’s nothing you can say that can change my mind!”
“You don’t understand! He’s not what you think he is.”
“Stop trying to protect me! I can take care of myself. I’m old enough to handle this. Please, just trust me. I know it hasn’t been long since I met him, but he makes me feel like I matter. You know as well as I do that hasn’t happened in a long time. I don’t know where this will take me, but I know this is something I need. I know you care about me, but I’ll be okay. I know I can handle this.”
“He’s the devil.”
“What? Now you’re just being petty.”
“Listen to me! You met him at the Punta de Diablo, that broken bridge that looks like it’s going to Talim island right? I’ve been doing my research. No one’s ever heard of him in this area and if he were a tourist or an outsider, people would know. There’s no one fitting his description that lives anywhere in Binangonan and people would know if he did.
Think about it. He has blue eyes, he sounds like your favorite singer, he knows “surprisingly” knows everything about you even before you guys met. There are too many coincidences to count.
Do you know why people stay away from the Punta de Diablo?! Every few years a girl drowns herself by that bridge. The girls say that they have to join their husband. That bridge is unfinished because the legend goes the Devil fell in love with a girl and the only way she would accept her hand in marriage was to build a bridge to Talim island, he was about to finish but a fisherman saw it and rang the church bells to stop the bridge!”
“You sound crazy, I’m leaving.”
“I know you think that you’re in love with him but you can’t keep doing this. You fell in love and he’s not going to be there to catch you. He made you trust him, made you think that he wasn’t like all the other guys, and he was right. He’s worse.
He knows what he’s doing and he knows he’s going to hurt you. Please. Don’t let it happen.”
“Goodbye. If you can’t be happy for me then I’ll go somewhere I’ll be loved!”
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Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by ‘Punta de Diablo’ in Philippine Folk Literature: The Legends. Eugenio. 2002.
The Devil (The Handsome Stranger) Illustration and Watercolor by Marc Magpantay
Tumblr: Glassy-draws.tumblr.com