Halik Book II

Prologue

Someone said that life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it. I learned the hard way that that everything included me. Without realizing it, I paved a road so rutted that I stumbled and crashed everytime I took a step, looking back at times and watching how I gradually added distance from that initial point where my life was imperfect but quiet, simple but bearable, and had the right person's life lawfully and beautifully entangled with it.

But that road ended. After a series of doubts, betrayal, anger, and stupidity, it ended. And I was lost. When I looked back, the past was already too far away that it started disappearing into that thin line where horizons met. I could no longer go back to it. All I could do was look ahead into the future, hoping that all the wounds I caused had healed and all the pain in my heart had dwindled.

But it didn't. At least, not entirely.

With everything and everyone in my life being set into their rightful places, I still felt a prick inside my chest each time I looked at them...him especially—my husband who no longer belonged to me. Severed by a piece of paper that said he was already free...free from me.

Exactly a year ago, I was released from the penitentiary. For a very long time, I was encaged in a bottomless pit of misery and self-loathing, where I was stripped off of my personality until all that remained was my mistake, pinned on my face for the rest of my sentence. I sinned, and the world surely conspired to make me pay for it and saved me at the same time.

Growing up alone, I vowed to build my own home with a family who loved and accepted me and fill it with every drop of love I could give. While my father abandoned us and let our home crumble into a pile of broken dreams and crumpled hope, I would keep mine whole and never let anyone destroy it.

But I burned it down myself.

I never envisioned to cheat on my husband and become somebody else's other woman, but I was a foolish one who could not outgrow her insecurities and fears that she had to dig her own grave and die in it. I knew I had it coming despite putting layers of denials and pointing fingers to everyone else other than myself. I ruined the lives of other people. I ruined my marriage. I ruined me. And I deserved everything that happened to me.

I walked out of that holding place with Lino by my side, together with our child. And I was saved. I had been longing to be with them someday. And when I was finally freed from the clutches of that dark abyss, I deluded myself once again that I could go back to them as a wife and as a mother. But I stopped on my tracks and castigated myself. I no longer deserved to be Lino's wife...but I was grateful that he allowed me to be a mother to our child.

And as I thought of CJ, love overwhelmed me. I looked at his full cheeks, curly hair, and bright smile, and contentment already pacified that small resentment I had for losing my husband. He filled that void I had in the deepest of my heart...and I believed he was all that I needed.

It was CJ who helped me endure the entire year of seeing Lino and his first love rekindle their relationship.

I'd like to believe that it was mutually agreed that Jacky and I never bring up the past, but it all came back to me with just one glance from her, so I mostly cowered in her presence, unable to brave the shifting tides of those painful memories and our fragile reconciliation. She was as beautiful as ever. Her kind smile and soft words would lighten up every room she entered, an angel who brought serenity to the mess of a life Lino had with me. I could not grasp how stupid I was for trying to level myself with her. I was nothing like her. I was just a small speck of dust on the hem of her skirt. Invisible. Insignificant. And with a successful Lino by her side, she was unreachable. And I was expecting that familiar resentment and jealousy to start budding in my gut, but there was nothing but fear.

I had a lot of them—fears. Mostly, I was terrified of losing my son. I only had CJ to lose, and I could lose him with just one misstep, no matter how much I believed in Lino's goodness overthrowing my insanity. But I was also scared of offending Jacky and anyone in Lino's family. I could hardly face them, Nanay Dolor especially. In those unfortunate times I had to be in one room with anyone of them, I had to tiptoe around for the fear of bringing up the past and setting off another painful encounter. I didn't know why but I felt like a crumb of stale bread in a sumptous banquet that was Jacky and Lino's family. With everyone already well off and remaining good, I felt so undeserving to be near them.

I knew I could ruin everything I touched, so I kept my hands to myself. I put up brick walls around me. I kept my distance. I only allowed CJ to seep through, but I always had to be careful. I let Lino decide in everything that concerned CJ. I couldn't make a mistake. And for a year, life seemed to be working out so well for me. There was peace and quiet once again.

Or so I thought.