Alex

The 8-Shaded Rainbow –Part 19

aLeX

I am quite obsessive.  I think I have mentioned a thing or two about myself and that in the prior episodes.  I don’t really pay that much attention to things or events happening around me.  But once one thing catches my attention rather upfront, I will be restless for the next days or so.

That seemed to be the case with Alex - the other guy renting another room in Loraine and Mac’s place apart from Ethan.

I met Alex that same time when I met everybody in that off-white duplex.  Standing at about an inch shorter than me, (at least that was what I think) Alex showed every indication of being intimated when he was introduced to me.  I didn’t mind at all.  I was in a wacky mood then and I really don’t pay that much attention to teasing and cupid-playing-roles of friends.  

  

Alex is married to his childhood sweetheart who is now a sales executive back home in the Philippines. They were blessed with a baby boy who is 9 years old now.  How so very ideal.  Well not really.  In fact, what made Alex get into this series-of-circus somehow is the very opposite of whatever being “ideal” means.  

Shortly after I have known Alex alongside the rest, the “confetti” of controversies rained down as if in a scene where a wheel of fortune player hits the jackpot.  I was there, I witnessed it myself.  Alex has a Canadian girlfriend, Jaz, whom I met the very next time I saw Alex – on Jaz’s sister’s birthday party – when on the very same occasion, Alex ditched Jaz for her sister – when on that very same night, on a quick bar gig, Alex saw another girl, (a co-worker) flirted with her, and took her back home along with Jaz’s sister – when all three of them ended up spending the rest of the night altogether in Alex’s room – when Jaz walked her demise out, devastated and totally screwed.

I thought, well, isn’t the Alex-Jaz affair supposed to end anyway?  Not so soon, I reckon.  The next time I was in the duplex for Jeff’s birthday party, Alex and Jaz are together, sweeter than ever, as if a budding teenage affair.

From then on, there’s none of another instance when I don’t see them together – until yesterday.

Loraine is having her first of the last two check-ups before the baby pops.  And since I work earlier than ever these days, I finish earlier than ever as well; meaning, I was able to tag along.  Alex is driving.  When Loraine gets in the clinic to see her OB-Gynaecologist, I took all the time in the world to have a little one-on-one personal talk with Alex.  I apologized for the last time I meddled in his and Jaz’s fight. (Well, Jeff and I did.)  It was a past issue but I feel like I have to say it one last time to seal it off; and, so I may be able to get into the core of my quest.  Some ulterior motive huh?  And so we are okay.  I then deliberately asked Alex how things are between him and his “legal wife.”  Alex told me, it is over.  Of course my eyebrows arched!  Oh no, not the overrated word again!  I can forgive the celebrities with all their universal answers to questions like that of a template, but Alex here?  Come on, man. 

Surprisingly, Alex confided rather unselfishly and breathed out everything like I was paying him.   This is the third time he cheated on her wife - twice in the Philippines and now here.  He told me that his wife, very recently, asked of him to just let her go now; that, she wanted to be happy.  She even told Alex that through all the years of their married life, she has never ever been happy.  Alex curled all the pride he has in his petite structure; he tried to win her back many times he told me, but he failed.  I told him, it must not be enough.  Most of the time, us girls, especially when we were hurt so badly, we wanted greater effort, we wanted “EFFORT” – and effort has a very technical definition to us as well.  When men try so hard, we wanted them to try the hardest; when men say sorry, we wanted them to be on their knees; when men admit to their mistakes, we wanted them to take the sin of the world; when men give a stem of flower, we wanted a couple of dozens more; when men cry, we wanted blood for tears; when men try to win us back, we turn away, hoping and praying in our hearts that they will come running behind; when they don’t, we cry for decades like it’s the end of the world happening every day.

Alex is still with Jaz to this day.  Jaz is very young and therefore, impulsive.  She did everything she could to win Alex.  Somehow, she found a way to get in contact with Alex’s wife – and when she did, she told his wife that she is in love with Alex and even told her that as they talk, she is in the same room with Alex.  That was the last incident – the trigger.  Alex’s wife is asking for space now and nothing Alex can do that will ever alter her decision.

 

I asked Alex about Jaz and what is it between them.  Caught like rabbit on the road about to be hit by a fast car, Alex smiled sheepishly and answered that way. I could be so dumb but there’s no way I wouldn’t understand what that smile entails.  Sex – is all that Jaz matters about.  In Alex’s words, he didn’t ask of her to be with him, she pushed herself in.  The nagging voice in my head says, Jaz wouldn’t be there if Alex doesn’t give her a reason or two to stay.

To have been in the same spot at one point in my life, I have all my heart for Alex’s wife.  Jaz is such a pleasant girl but what she did is absolutely wrong.  Although I can’t help my finger, so forceful like having a mind of its own, pointing only to no one but ALEX.

All that being said and done, Alex remains a friend.  These might be a turning point in this self-confessed playboy’s life who, as I look into his eyes, still cares so much about his wife.  The mere fact that he admitted being derailed and being sorry about it makes him human.  I hope he would soon be able to reconcile with himself and the decisions that he make because to do so would make him more of a man.