What People Do When They're In Love

What People Do When They're In Love by Redkinoko and HealsforMeals

I want a divorce.

Everything ended with something as simple as that when she broke the message to me a year ago. It was a high priestess, Primella that uttered these words. Primella had been the wife of my sniper EndlessCalamity from the moment we could wed them.

In real life, a girl named Marion owned Primella.

Marion was my girlfriend.

We met in RO as distant guildmates, became friends in RO, and fell for each other in game. Whoever said online relationships didn't work out should've seen us when we were still together. Every night, Marion and I would trade sleep for playing RO with each other, and then see each other in dates on weekends. We were connecting more than anybody other couple.

I loved her so much and I was sure she's the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. When I was with her I knew I could pretty much rule the world if I wanted to. And I'm sure she'd think the same of me.

Then it happened one night. It was a special night, our second anniversary as a couple. I was in a cafe in Cebu where I was spending my vacation at that time. Of course in keeping with how we styled our relationship, we had a date inside our favorite game.

I gave her as a gift the lyrics of the song that I made for her, knowing she badly wanted to be part of the music my band back in Manila.



She thanked me for it, and though I couldn't hear her voice at that time, I was guessing she was excited about it and how she could hear it being played when I got back to Manila. But then again, she barely made any remarks about it and just continued casting spells and doing emoticons afterwards.

I shrugged it off.

Then later that night, we were resting in Prontera when she sent me a PM.

(From Primella): Two years na pala.
(To Primella): Two years pa lang.
(From Primella): yup yup
(From Primella): can i ask you a question jet?
(To Primella): Looks like I don't have a choice, you're asking already.
(From Primella): pilosopo ka talaga!
(From Primella): nyway, masaya ka ba sa 2 years na magkasama tayo?
(To Primella): Syempre naman. I can't imagine playing RO without you around. Bakit mo natanong?

At this point my heart was beating fast already. A voice at the back of my head was already screaming at me that something was wrong. It wasn't like her to become so sentimental all of a sudden. It wasn't like her to be like that.

And then she said it.

(From Primella): I want a divorce.

She must have meant it as a joke. It just had to be. So I asked why, she then replied.

(From Primella): i want to see our characters divorced before I give this account to my friend
(To Primella): Are you serious?
(From Primella): dead serious. im quitting RO
(To Primella): That character is something we made together. You cant just give it to anybody.
(From Primella): ill delete it anyway
(To Primella): No. Dammit, what the hell is this all about?
(From Primella): keep a secret?

My heart beat faster and faster. The perfect world I was living in started crumbling by the pillars. She was the reason for RO. She was the reason for everything. And now this? I took a breath and asked her as to what her secret was. I didn't want to know anymore, but it's not like I have any choice anymore.

(To Primella): What is it?
(From Primella): My mom is going to the states and she'll be taking me with her.
(From Primella): I cant play RO there.
(To Primella): Then why the divorce? Youll come back right?
(From Primella): No I won't. We'll be migrating so it'll take a long time for me to return.
(To Primella): I'll wait for you.
(From Primella): But I wont. I cant.
(To Primella): What? Is there anything I'm not seeing here.
(From Primella): I hate long distance relationships.
(From Primella): our relationship will just become a baggage for our lives.
(To Primella): A baggage? So is that how you saw the whole relationship?
(From Primella): now we're on the same page.
(From Primella): it was good leveling with you though.
(From Primella): and thanks for the song.
(To Primella): You're welcome.

The conversation ended there. She disconnected. I disconnected. And that was the last time we ever talked. Not that I still needed to. That settles that. I've been fucked by my so-called-girlfriend.

You're welcome, you sly bitch. I hope that airplane you ride on crashes to the ground like a fucking dart.

That was all I had in my mind. But at that time, I was too much in shock. I was still deeply in love with her when she broke up with me without any reason, without warning. Had I been so fucking clueless about everything, I asked myself. So much so that I thought my love was being reciprocated?

I hated her for that. She didn't have to accompany me to Niffleheim. I made the divorce myself. I convinced the guildmaster to kick her out of the guild as well since he was a friend of mine who owed me a favor. I got in her account and threw away all her inventory. My rares, her rares - it didn't matter. I wanted her inventory cleaned.

It was pretty convenient after all, ditching me for an opportunity to bag a Joe and live the American life. Shit, I know I couldn't give her that. Not with what I had at the time. I was a small-time programmer, what would I know in earning dollars? I'm just a guildmate who hunted bosses with her in game.

But I took the whole breakup with a pinch of salt and went on with my life. I continued playing Ragnarok Online and also worked hard to start my own business outside the game. After a few months, I finally got to establish my own software company taking work from abroad and earning much more than what the average American salaried man earns.

Through the time after I broke up with Marion I went in and out of many relationships. Perhaps save for how she broke up with me, I saw Marion as the perfect girl to aspire for, but she was so high above another level, any girl I meet online or in real life couldn't even begin to compare.

It was always the case of me almost forgetting about the girl in my past named Marion. Almost, because life has its way of not letting what needs to be remembered slip out of the picture.

I remember it clearly, it was the 1st of November and I was visiting the grave of the parents of a friend in Paranaque. I saw a familiar old couple. They were the parents of Marion, standing in front of a grave marker just a few meters away from where I stood.

I thought I was hallucinating at first, since I thought Marion made it pretty clear that they were migrating and wont be returning anytime soon. I looked around to see if Marion was around, and confirmed after a while that she wasn’t.

I approached them to ask why they weren't in the States like Marion told me. I wasn't the one to break up with their daughter so I took it that there was they bore no ill will against me. And they didn’t.

Her mother broke down in tears. There was never any plan to migrate to the States, Marion's father told me.

"More lies," I snickered and told myself.

As I learned, I was the one who was lying to myself.

"Marion died a few months after you two broke up," he told me.

One week before the night she asked for a divorce, her father recalled tearfully and careful to not let it show, Marion had been diagnosed with an incurable cancer that gave her the pale coloured I've always attributed to some sort of anemia. She was told she had only a few months to live.

It was her wish that I not know anything about it, how she suffered to the bitter end. How her body slowly and surely failed her, turning her into a bedridden pile of flesh the most painful way possible.

She didn't want me to be part of it.

I broke into tears and asked her father the ultimate question of why.

Why she had to do this to me.

Why she didn't want me with her in her suffering.

Without a word, he pointed to me the stone-carved epitaph in the marble that lay in front of us:

for you are my love
and you are your own reason
This much I know is true
PS, I love you.

Marion Agcaoilli
born: May 25, 1986
died: April 18, 2005