SWEETS AND MELATONIN

"Kahit isang beses lang... gusto kong sumaya."

She came back to Cavite chasing something simple, a better life, a quieter kind of survival for a family always one step away from falling apart. But Rae quickly learns that returning home doesn't mean returning to peace.

She smiles through exhaustion, laughter masking a body that keeps betraying her. Anemia worsens. Sleep disappears. And while she rebuilds old friendships and forms new ones, something inside her keeps quietly breaking.

Love finds her in the wrong places and at the wrong time-soft, consuming, and complicated enough to blur the line between healing and harm. Every connection pulls her closer to feeling seen, and further from knowing who she is without pain.

When everything begins to spiral-academics, health, trust, and faith, Rae is left to survive not just life, but herself.

And in a world where everyone is trying to save her in their own way, she slowly learns that not every kind of love knows how to keep her alive.

2026