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Twelve

AN: Another surprise update :) For @stephaneegss, for helping me with the Tagalog dialogue, and for @fantasticmaine, whose opinion on this chapter matters the most.

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Coleen takes one look at her face as she walks through the front door of their condo, sighs, and shakes her head.

"So alam na ni Richard yung totoo?" She asks her sister, already knowing the answer.

Maine gives her a defeated look and pinches the bridge of her nose, her head throbbing with pain after crying so much. "Coleen, please. I don't want to talk about it."

Coleen tuts and shakes her head again sadly as she takes a sip of coffee from the mug she's holding. "I hate to say I told you so—"

"Then don't," Maine snaps. "Please. I'm already in so much pain."

"Alam ko, Meng."

"And I've been in so much pain for the past, what—18 months?" Maine continues, unable to stop a fat tear from slipping out of the corner of her eye and sliding down her smooth cheek. "Hindi mo naiintindihan yung sakit na nararamdaman ko, kaya kung pwede lang, huwag mo kong i-lecture ngayon, please."

"I know you're in a lot of pain, Meng," Coleen says kindly, setting her mug on the dining table. "I can't even begin to imagine what you must be going through. But just because you're in pain doesn't make it okay for you to hurt others too, that's what I was trying to tell you before."

"Coleen." Maine exhales loudly in frustration. "I can't do this with you right now. I've had enough for one day." And with that, she turns on her heels and stalks into her room, slamming the door behind her.

Coleen lets out another sorrowful sigh and finishes her coffee in silence, lost in thought for the next ten minutes. Maybe she is being too hard on her sister—her timing was off. There's a time and place for tough love and lectures, and those are not what Maine needs right now. Taking a deep breath, she gets up and heads towards her sister's room. Before she can raise her hand to knock on the door, the muffled sounds coming from within stop her in her tracks.

Maine is weeping with abandon, desperately crying out for help to an invisible being. Coleen presses the heels of her hands over her eyes, overcome with pity for her poor sister. Maine used to do this almost every night after she came home from Australia. She doesn't know it, but Coleen would spend hours sitting on the floor outside her sister's bedroom, listening to her call upon her dead boyfriend.

"Help me, Caloy," she would groan. "Please come back—please, Caloy, please. Hindi ko na alam kung ano ang dapat kong gawin. Bumalik ka na, please. Sorry na, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so, so sorry..." Then she would give in completely to her grief as just outside the door, Coleen sat, tugging anxiously at her hair, feeling helpless and not knowing what to do.

It's been a good five or six months since the last time she did this, but here she is again, and the familiar sensation of dread churns in Coleen's stomach as she leans her back against the wall. Inside, Maine continues sobbing out her pleas—only this time, she is calling out to Richard.

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It's been three days, and Maine has scarcely left her room. She hardly eats—pecking listlessly at breakfast and lunch, and skipping dinner altogether—and she's taken a grand total of one shower in the past 72 hours. She hasn't spoken to anyone apart from Kaila's mother, Steph, whom she calls every morning to check on the little tyke's condition. Coleen is seriously starting to worry.

It is a quarter to seven and Maine's last "meal" was one-third of a tuna sandwich almost six hours ago, so Coleen goes into her room to try and entice her out for some mac and cheese. She finds her laying forlornly on her bed, staring vacantly out of the window, her unwashed hair a messy tangle of knots.