The Promising Pal
By Margie Tayone Bruce
Excerpt from author Margie Tayone Bruce’s sixth novel “The Promising Pal,” a romance fiction about teen lovers broken up by distance. Issa Maayo cannot forget her first love, the boy she left behind, the precious innocent moments they shared, and the secrets that led to lies that ultimately led to regrets. An inescapable meeting seven years later begged the question: Were the feelings she had for the boy the same as those for the man he has now become?
With Issa confident now that Lucas did not know she had feelings for him due to the fact that she outright denied it to his face, she became bolder around him. She knew Lucas was going home to his provincial town during semester break. Their birthdays fell during that time, so she casually asked if he could send her a birthday card.
“Hey, Avila, can you send me a card for my birthday?” She said this smiling, half-joking, half-serious. To Issa’s surprise, Lucas acquiesced. “Sure,” he replied.
“Really?” she asked, surprised at how surprised she sounded.
“Give me your mailing address,” he said.
Issa waved her hands. “I was just joking.”

“I’m not,” he said as he handed her his notebook.
“Seriously?” she asked as she started writing down her address. She still could not believe that he would do it.
“I promise.” The seriousness in his voice made Issa look up and into his eyes. He was giving her that look! Issa’s heart skipped a beat.
She looked away from his gaze and said, “You know that our birthdays are only a day apart.” She wanted to point out that it was not just her birthday. It was his as well.
“I know,” he said simply.
“But mine comes first so I’m older than you,” Issa said.
“By a day,” Lucas pointed out.
“By a minute, by a day—I’m still older,” Issa insisted.
“I get it. Your birthday comes first,” Lucas finally conceded.
Issa started walking away when Lucas called her name. She turned. “Your address,” he said.
Issa then realized that she was still holding his notebook. “Right!” She walked up to him. “Here.” She turned around to walk away but stopped after taking one step. She turned to Lucas and said, “By the way, advance happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” Lucas replied.
Issa forgot about that encounter, so sure she was Lucas did not mean what he said. There was no way he would go through with it. He probably would not even think of her during break. Why would he? Who was she to him? She would have forgotten all about it if not for the mailman calling out her name several days later outside of her house, “Isabela Maayo?”
“That’s me!” she yelled and ran out the door to open the rickety wooden gate that enclosed her small house and equally small yard.
When Issa looked at the mail, the handwriting was unmistakable, with the strokes made by a gel pen, most likely, a Pilot pen. Her name and address were neatly written across the envelope. There was no return address, but the stamp read “Tacloban City.” She was so happy she could have screamed. Indeed, she did scream and jumped and skipped into the house, up the steps and into her bedroom.
She touched the envelope, not believing it was real. She opened it with trembling hands and heart pounding louder than a drum. There was no doubt whom it came from.
The front of the card read:
“If you think you’re someone special,
just because it’s your birthday…
The inside text read:
…you’re wrong.
You’re always someone special.”
Then in his neat handwriting, he wrote:
“This is what I promised.
L.A. ~ The Promising Pal.”
She clutched that card against her chest and smiled from ear-to-ear, no, giggling and falling in her bed, kicking her feet up in the air like a lunatic. It sure made her fifteenth birthday that year. Sigh; and more sigh.
The Promising Pal is available on Amazon and https://margietayonebruce.com/