I was pacing our living room like a cornered animal.
The fireplace was off, but i still felt like i was burning from the inside.
The kind of heat that comes from betrayal. Not rage.
Not grief.
Just the kind that makes you want to claw at your skin because nothing makes sense anymore.
Lucien said Paul is alive.
And if that’s true, if that’s even half-true, then everything i believed, everything i was raised to protect, everything i destroyed myself over… was a lie?
Putangina.
Hindi ako pwedeng maniwala agad.
I’m not that girl.
I don’t do blind faith.
Especially not when my entire childhood was curated like a PR campaign.
Especially not when both Lucien and my parents have motives, lies, and blood on their hands.
Paul is dead. That’s what they told me.
Paul is alive. That’s what Lucien says now.
They can’t both be true.
And yet here i am falling apart.
Calix watched me from the couch, his elbow resting on his knee, eyes following every angry turn i took across the rug.
He didn't speak. Not yet.
He never rushed me when i was unraveling. He just waited like he always did present, steady, quiet.
But i knew he was aching too.
We’d been through hell and worse together. We were married now. Not in the poetic, fantasy sort of way, but in the way two battle-scarred soldiers decide they’d rather bleed together than alone.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said finally, the words falling out like teeth.
Calix just nodded, like he understood the weight of those seven words.
“Do you think… it’s possible?” I asked. “That Paul’s alive?”
“Do you want the truth or comfort?” he asked softly.
“I want the fucking truth.”
“Then we have to find Paul.”
My throat closed.
Tears prickled but i didn’t cry. I couldn’t.
My body was too used to suppressing grief.
Paul was my brother in every way that mattered.
Hindi kami magkadugo, pero siya ‘yung kasama ko sa lahat ng gulo.
He was the reason i survived being ten.
He was the reason i had something to lose when the fire came.
And now Lucien says he’s not dead?
Too convenient. Too insane. Too cruel.
“What if Lucien’s lying?” I whispered.
Calix didn’t flinch. “Then we burn him down.”
“And what if… what if he’s not? What if my parents are?”
Silence.
A beat.
Two.
Then Calix said, “Then we burn them down too.”
I sank onto the floor, my back pressed against the cold marble. My knees up. My arms draped limply over them.
“Sixteen years, Calix. They made me believe Paul was gone. They let me carry that guilt. That rage. They made me believe it was Lucien who caused the fire, who killed Paul. They fed me a script.”
His voice was careful. “And you followed it.”
“Because i trusted them,” I said bitterly. “Because they were my parents.”
“They built you to be unquestioning,” he murmured. “They knew exactly how to twist the truth until it looked like love.”
I let that sink in. Then, quietly, “What if i never find the truth?”
“Then we keep digging. Until there's nothing left but bone.”
That night, I didn’t sleep.
I sat on our bed while Calix was in the shower, my laptop open, fingers typing names and dates and reports i’d once ignored.
There were gaps.
Inconsistencies.
Even back then.
But i was so eager to forget, I didn’t connect them.
I was ten.
I was grieving.
I was easy to mold.
Paul’s medical records stopped abruptly.
Lucien disappeared after the fire.
My mother’s therapy sessions with me were conveniently unrecorded.
The world forgot.
But i couldn’t.
By the time Calix walked out of the bathroom in a shirt and sweatpants, towel in hand, he saw the mess i made. Printed reports. Burned USBs. Shredded photos. A wall of timelines i’d scribbled in black pen and red ink.
He looked at it all.
Then looked at me.
And said, “You’re going full spiral.”
“I’m not spiraling,” I bit out.
He raised a brow.
I threw a pen at him.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Maybe a little.”
Calix sat beside me on the bed, staring at the chaos on our wall like it was a true crime documentary.
“I want to find him,” I said, softer this time.
“Paul?”
I nodded.
He didn’t ask why.
He didn’t ask how.
He just said, “Then we will.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder.
And for the first time since Lucien opened his mouth, I allowed myself to hope. Not believe. Not yet. But hope.
Kasi sa gitna ng lahat ng sunog, lahat ng panlilinlang, lahat ng galit—
May parte pa rin sa ‘kin na umaasang buhay si Paul.
Because if he is… then maybe i can finally start living too.