IF

She Sees Dead People

Eyrin

Amanda's scolding voice reverberates inside Eyrin's ears as though her mom is just in the same room as her, when she's in fact in the kitchen two floors downstairs. The neighboring house across theirs is scraping the quiet with the banging of their karaoke and Eyrin is aware about the party's excessive lighting, penetrating through the thin yellow curtains of her small window, invading her personal space, but she can't do anything. No, not at that moment.

She can't even tell Amanda that she needs a couple more minutes before she can head down for dinner一a couple more minutes to try and take it all in. She can't even wipe her face with her palms一too harsh like she always does, that she can feel her whole face peeling off一or even scream the words, "Can't you guys keep it down?", off her lungs.

Instead, the hand that's holding the computer mouse is trembling while the other is clamped on her mouth. Her eyes, showing horror, wide opened and still, just remained tethered to the on-play video in her laptop's screen. Though the AC in her room is on, prickles of sweat are streaming down her body but she doesn't even spend time wiping them dry.

The CCTV footage playing before her eyes is without any sound except the whooshing of the wind that's coming from her headphones to her ears and then back, but it is as if she can hear everything. It is as if she was there when that happened. It is as if she completely knows someone named Leo Hernandez personally for that rage towards those two criminals to build inside her.

But she realizes she doesn't have to know him or even be close to him to feel that way. She may not say it aloud but her mind is screaming that he did not deserve that; that he did not deserve to be plunged by a knife not once but eighteen times; that he did not deserve to be ignored by those cars passing by; and that he did not deserve to die. She may not know it but tears are already dripping off her eyes and the more she tries to hold it back, the more they just fall down.

"How many times do I have to call you, Eyrin?"

Everything moves in sync. The door opens and her head turns to face her mom that is undeniably shocked to see the depressed look on her face. The air is calm for a moment, like the stirring pain Eyrin feels, that is begging to be vented out.

"Oh my god, honey, what happened?" Amanda asks as she rushes towards her daughter, kneels and pulls her into the tightest hug. Eyrin can sniff the miasma of spirits of various food in Amanda's apron and she usually always has side remarks about all unpleasant things, but that time, she stays quiet, holding her tears back.

But there's nothing that's as comfortable as a mother's hug and it doesn't take any moment longer before she succumbs to that pang of pain.

Amanda doesn't have to ask why her daughter is bawling. Even her self-proclaimed strong heart yields upon seeing the monstrosity that's playing on loop in the computer screen. She taps the space bar on the keyboard, almost too weak but she manages to.

"Your friend?" she asks Eyrin who's now pulling away, still crying, but a little more quiet一and she just stays that way. There's no way she can say yes, Leo was her friend. She only knows his name and that's it.

She doubts anyone would claim they're someone's friend just because that someone is gone.

The next morning, La Vallè is still the way it is. The only difference is that一well, a lot. School is usually crowded and too noisy to claim a personal space but Eyrin still and always finds a certain place where she can be left alone, but that day everything feels too forced for normalcy.

"I'm sorry," she says, almost too hurriedly, picking up her books as fast as they cluttered on the floor.

"Eyrin?" She looks up, meeting the gaze of Kristel and as much as she hates it she's done it. She just bumps onto Kristel Samonte一La Vallè's very own gossip machine. "Eyrin, right?"