I’ve always said that it’s one of the worst mistakes I made in my life, next to not reviewing for my last BPI exam and saying no to Mac. And most of the time, it is. Because no matter how hard I try to tell myself that what’s done is done and the end justifies the means, every time I think about what I did to John Carl, it just eats me up inside.

 Until now, there’s a big part of me who wishes that I didn’t selfishly, insensitively throw him under the bus. There’s a smaller part that says it’s take one or the other because I know that I wouldn’t have won if I hadn’t done that, and I know that the smaller part is right. But it doesn’t make things less difficult.

Winning the secretarial position gave me the ‘leadership experience’ (at least resume-wise) that I needed to land my jobs. But whenever I remember all the stress, the tears, the hard feelings and restless nights that countless arguments, bashings, back-stabbings and trash talkings that I experienced after finally getting what I wanted, not to forget the fact that John Carl has totally cut me off from his world because of what I did, (I’m not saying that I don’t deserve it) I think it’s almost not worth it.

Many times I find myself wishing that I didn’t run for the position after all. Then maybe people wouldn’t have backstabbed me. Maybe there would be no shadow of doubt about who my real friends were and who were only faking it haunting me until now. Maybe John Carl and I would still be friends. For these reasons, I think – I know - that wanting to be Secretary is indeed one of the worst mistakes I made in my life.

And so I wonder why I find myself crying when I wake up at two in the morning and read a message from Lawi that says “I miss your Aslags and Aslag artics.”