And The Sky Never Rains

"You may be acting tough, but your eyes tell a different story that you wish no one could read. But I did."

Ma. Aiyana Nicoleen Silvestre has always believed that exhaustion is the only thing stronger than pain and loneliness. Since childhood, she learned that as long as she kept herself busy, she would not have to face anything that hurt her. Because the moment she stopped, everything she buried would come rushing back.

Bakit pa ako iiyak kung sa bawat patak ng luha ko, hindi naman naibabalik ang nawala sa akin?

For years, she has lived in a desert. Not because she is incapable of feeling nor because her heart is empty, but because she refuses to let herself fall apart. She has mastered the art of running, of working, of becoming too occupied to hear the silence where her mind speaks loudly than her heart.

Until she meets Lorenzo Hael Ibarra. Unlike everyone else, Zio sees what she tries so hard to hide. He reads the storm behind her eyes, the exhaustion she mistakes for strength, and the emotions she has locked away for years. And somehow, without forcing his way in, he makes her feel seen in a way she has always feared.

With him, the desert in her begins to change slowly and dangerously, like it remembers what rain feels like.

Can a sky that has never rained finally learn how to fall open after years of holding everything in, or will the flowers remain forever withered beneath a silence too heavy to break?