Where the Thunder Bows Its Head [BL] (Passion Series #1)

KAPITULO 1

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I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, where my family decided to raise me. Although my mother was French, she spent a lot of time in the Philippines, where she met my father, so we speak Filipino at home. I had never set foot in the Philippines until my mother's death, which forced my father to return our family back to the homeland.

My mother succumbed to cancer when I was seven. I ended up killing my father when I was nine. I was then sent to the orphanage a year and a half later after all of the Philippine jurisprudence fiasco that declared the state of affairs death by self-defense.

Thinking about it now, wala ako ni katiting na pagsisisi. Wala akong nararamdaman na kahit ano. All I think about whenever I reminisce is that I did what I had to do to survive.

When you experience first-hand how it feels like to be put in a constant traumatic environment, you will eventually lose the sense of care. All you would ever think about is how to escape and how to survive. Nothing else matters.

Nalulong si Daddy sa droga simula noong mamatay si Mommy. Kung hindi droga, iinom siya ng alak buong araw o kaya naman ay magsusugal. He became a frequent visitor of a lot of casinos back then in Manila. I was eight when he started abusing me physically whenever he gets home dead drunk, yet he always forgets everything in the morning. Or so, he said.

He acted as if he did nothing when he was sober. He would buy me toys and treat me to the nearest ice cream shop in the morning, but he would double-cross and persecute me in the dead of night. I suffered a lot in his cruel hands. Bruises, black eyes, wounds, name it, I had it all.

It was almost like he would transform into some type of monster whenever the moon took its reign. Isang maliit na pagkakamali, pagbubuhatan ako ng kamay. Parang hindi ko siya kilala. He was like a stranger at night. In the morning, he was completely different. He would cook for me and drive me to the elementary school I went to for a while in Muntinlupa. He would play pretend as if I was not full of bruises due to his neglect.

Gone was the sweetest and loving father I knew growing up.

Fortunately, he didn't come to the point of sexually abusing me, unlike what happens to a lot of crime documentaries on TV. But honestly, it's the bare minimum.

At some point, I felt like dying.

And it lasted a year. I just couldn't live like that anymore.

It was like when my mother died, he died too, leaving me behind. They forgot about me. They forgot that I was there too. He forgot that I lost my mother too and I needed him more than anything. And I was still a child. I was too young to be abused by power and too innocent to be betrayed by my own father.

He died too, in Pennsylvania with my mother. He wasn't the same man who travelled with me back to the Philippines.

Isang gabi, noong nililinis ko ang kwarto niya sa maliit na condo unit namin sa Alabang, nahanap ko ang isang sulat na naiwan niya sa ibabaw ng maliit na tukador. His handwriting was messy, almost incomprehensible. Hindi ko nga alam kung paano ko naintindihan ang lahat ng letra na nakasulat doon. But that's how I found out that he was planning to kill himself.

And this time, for the very first time, he was not leaving me behind. I was included. He'll take me with him, to the grave.

What was stated in the letter was clear as an exorbitant gem. He had purchased a gun and he'd shoot me first before finally killing himself. He even wrote in his letter that after the crime, he had hired men who would bring our bodies back to Pennsylvania and be buried next to my mother.

It left me with the most straightforward choice. Live or die. Fight or flight. It's either I'll fight fire with fire or I bite the dust. That's why when the night came and the gun was aimed at my head, I kicked him on the feet, only during it, did he accidentally shoot himself in the head.