QUOTATIONS: ONE MORE CHANCE BY JUAN MIGUEL SEVILLA

"Minsan its better for two people to break up. So they can grow up. It takes grown-ups to make relationships work."

PROLOGUE

"Memory can be a funny thing - we really can't decide what we will remember. Our mind thinks everything and nothing is precious. We remember without bias; the most mundane things occupy the same space as the significant ones. I can't remember the date when I graduated from high school, but I can remember the minutest details from one random day several years ago. I can remember the combination of my locker from elementary school, but I can't recall what I had for lunch three days ago. Then there are the days when you remember almost everthing." - Popoy page 9

"Sometimes, I have to trust the truth a little bit more." - Popoy page 12

"I think when we first fall in love, there's really no turning back. After we become aware of the feeling, we continue to fall in love for the rest of our lives. We suddenly know we are capable of it. No matter who it may be, it just opens us up. It changes us so profoundly that we are never the same once we experience it. We never really go back to our old selves once we feel it. And we're all the better for it." - Popoy page 13

"Why are relationships such hard work?" - Helen page 16

CHAPTER 1 - THE HOTEL INCIDENT

"And sometimes different can be comforting." - Basha page 21

"Some people like to torture themselves more when already in pain." - Popoy page 25

CHAPTER 2 - HE'S ALL OVER ME

"Arguments never end with someone winning or being right. They end with exhaustion leading to compromise." - Basha page 31

CHAPTER 3 - SPACE

"When people get into relationships, sometimes they forget they're not only entering into a specific time in a person's life." - Basha page 39

"Bash, I just want what's best for you." - Popoy page 42

"There's no reasonable argument against it. How can she hate someone who just wants the best for her? The more she thinks about it, however, the more it just doesn't feel right." - Basha page 43

CHAPTER 4 - CAR TROUBLE

"Most people frown upon not knowing what you want in life. They always lament the loss of time, the hours and days wasted on aimlessly drifting without any discernible goal in life. But it takes courage to actually admit that you don't know everything you will do in life and yet, you're okay with it." - Basha page 52

"There are words that have hidden themselves for far too long. Words that have been waiting there, biding their time, waiting for the right moment to be said, for when they're at their truest, when they're at their most painful. Words can become ripe. Words like wine reach a certain point that when they're said, they're at their most potent." - Basha page 53

"I want to stop wondering 'what if'. I want to know 'what is'." - Basha page 54

"But the truth isn't meant to be pleasant; it's meant to tear things down and rebuild once again." - Basha page 54

CHAPTER 5 - A DIFFERENT BASHA

"When people ask for space, do they really know what they're asking for? What is space after all but a concept no one can really put their finger on. It means different things to different people. Is it time? Time apart? What does it entail? Space is something people ask for when they can't muster enough courage to be the bad guy and ask for what they really want." - Popoy page 57

"And sometimes, people consciously avoid pain, not because they don't want to feel it but because they fear what it might uncover." - Basha page 60

"For her, to let go means to refuse all the happiness they have yet to share." - Basha page 61

"It's tiring to break each other's heart over and over again." - Basha page 65

"But you're asking for too much." - Popoy page 66

CHAPTER 7 - A NEW DAY

"Some wounds heals over time. Some wounds, however, never heal at all." Chinno and JP page 81

"You don't recognize how big the little things are until they're taken away from you." - Basha page 91

"How is it possible for one person to fall out of love? How do you go from loving to not?" - Popoy page 103

"For what good is love if it can be forgotten?" - Popoy page 106

INTERLUDE

"Sometimes, it's okay to admit you need help too." - Helen page 108

"Being alone for a while will do you good." - Helen page 108

"You were here for me then and I'm here for you now." - Helen page 108

CHAPTER 9 - BEGINNING

"No matter how definite the end to a relationship was, seeing a former love is certain to bring back feelings that were once thought lost." - Basha page 116

CHAPTER 10 - REUNION

"It's the simplest comment that hurts the most." - Basha page 132

CHAPTER 11 - JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

"The past has many inhabitants. Some live in it by choice. Some live in it by circumstance. And there are those who live in it unknowingly." - Popoy page 133

"You just have to learn to live with it." - Popoy page 134

"Pop songs have that power; they grab hold of the heart with a simplicity that some say is dumb. But very few people would admit: it's the honesty of the cheesy love song that people latch on to." - Popoy page 144

"The past has many inhabitants. After all, the past can be a very comfortable place to live in." - Popoy page 145

CHAPTER 12 - CAR TROUBLE REDUX

"It's human nature to want to know more about someone you spent a significant amount of time with." - Popoy page 149

"Both of them love someone from afar. And as anyone with a pulse knows, it's the worst kind of love there is." - Basha page 155

"Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. It's times like this when being single is more of a curse than a blessing." - Basha page 156

"Time moves slowly when you're in pain." - Basha page 158

CHAPTER 13 - CHOICES

"But pain isn't really something one can take away, thinks Popoy. People just think they can. But it's impossible. The best they can wish for is happiness that's big enough to overwhelm the pain." - Popoy page 162

"He hates that the same feeling that used to make him feel alive now tears him apart from the inside." - Popoy page 162

"She loved me at my worst. You had me at my best." - Popoy page 166

"But maybe there's no such thing as right and wrong? Maybe people just have to make a choice and convince themselves the choice they made is right." - Basha page 170

"The effect one has on others should not be underestimated. Some people can really damage us so bad that we never recover. We are forever broken - and all happiness we feel from then on is tainted by that heartbreak." - Basha page 170

CHAPTER 14 - HOME

"Don't ever think that it was a mistake that you chose to find yourself, that you chose to love yourself a little bit more." - Mark page 180

"It's better for two people to breakup so they can grow up. It takes grown-ups to make relationships work." - Mark page 180

CHAPTER 15 - ONE MORE CHANCE

"If only apologies can turn back time, Popoy thinks. But they cannot." - Popoy page 189

"I want my heart to stop breaking." - Popoy page 190

CODA

"There's really nothing more effective at making you realize what's important than actually losing it." - Helen page 197

EPILOGUE

"People say we spend half our lives looking for our own place in the world. And for a time, it's all I ever thought about. I guess I was at that age when defining myself was the most important thing in teh world. I didn't want to be identified as someone's girlfriend, someone's daughter, someone's employee - I wanted to be me." - Basha page 199