Last meeting in our PhilLit class , our prof asked us to read a short story entitled A Dead Star by Paz Benitez. I got excited that time because we were about to read another piece of art, but as I look to the pages of what we were about to read, it seems to me that it is quite long and I even asked myself if that really a short story. But it does not matter because I still read the story because maybe I will regret when I did not read the whole story. So yeah, as I was reading the story, it made me think and imagine a lot; what the story is about, how the scene goes, and the confusing love story . 

So the story is about Alfredo Salazar, Esperanza, and Julia Salas. Alfredo is engaged to Esperanza. He loves her but as the time goes by, it seems that his love towards the girl is starting to fade,and then he met Julia Salas. They got close and they talk whenever they see each other and eventually Alfredo got attracted to Julia but he knows that they can't be together because of Esperanza and also because he knows that people will judge him. 

And the "what if"  questions took place through his mind; what if he first met Julia than Esperanza?What if he and Esperanza is not engaged? What if he chose Julia over Esperanza? All his "what if" question did not help because in the end he chose what he should do than want he wanted to do even though it hurts.

This is the part that hit me. I got sad, angry, frustrated, and all. For me that's not it, that's not right, and if I were to change the story, if I was the author of the story, I will change what Alfredo did to the original story. I will make him choose what he wanted to do than what he should do because I know it feels to do such thing, that you thought that you can't do anything about something when in fact you really could... if you really wanted to. 

I was carried away by that part of the story and that made realized that I got hooked to the story. So I continue reading...

So there, but as I read the story, it made think again if my opinion was right, because after they lost their connections ( Info: Julia didn't know that Alfredo was engaged and after found out about that, she distant herself to Alfredo after saying goodbye.) and then met again after a long time. Alfredo seeing Julia once again he felt that feeling that he known a long time ago... when he felt that his love for Esperanza faded but now it's his love for Julia that has faded. 

My realization with this story is that Alfredo really did not love Julia, he just got the affection toward the girl because he think that Julia has what Esperanza did not have. I remember the line of Maricel Soriano in her role in A Love Story (which we have watched in our EEP class last time), when he was having a closure with Aga Muhlach's character, so her line somehow goes like this... " You really don't need me, you just need me because there's a part of me that your wife doesn't have. I don't want to be love by just a part of me, I don't want to be love because I have some part of me that your wife don 't have..." (note: Sorry for that, I don't really remember the exact line). This movie, A Love Story, is slightly similar to Dead Star because of their characters.