That is the question

"Mahal mo pa ba?"

And then my mind went blank. It was as if I was alone in a dark-pitched room, with the moon shining on a glass window as the only light.

And then she asked again, "Mahal mo pa ba?" I was sitting straightly on a chair but felt like falling on a cliff. Mahal... it echoed repeatedly on my head - torturing my feelings.

It sounded so simple, yet required a lot of effort. A harmful question I would always want to avoid. But today, I couldn't.

She looked at me with eyes waiting for an answer, and I looked through forests, swam through oceans, just to give her what she wants to hear. Pressured, I just shrugged and said, "Hindi ko alam." 

As soon as she nodded, I turned my back and hoped to never hear that question again. Because I'm afraid that one day, I could answer it with just a plain yes.