ᵖˡˢavian
Region: PH
Sunday 23 August 2026 15:37:05 GMT
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ᵖˡˢavian :
[2️⃣] "I mean it. Your father would never allow it. My family needs me too much to survive a scandal. Everyone will have an opinion about this except the two of us." . "I know." . "Then why—" . Meisha reached for her hand, tentative, waiting to be refused. Lorraine didn't refuse. Their fingers laced together in the rain, and for one suspended moment, none of it; the surnames, the money, the politics, and the whole rotten architecture of the world outside, mattered at all. . "Because," Meisha said, "I would rather have something doomed with you than something safe with anyone else." . Lorraine laughed; a small, broken, disbelieving sound. "That's the most privileged thing you've ever said." . "Probably." . "And also the most honest." . She kissed her then, there under the flickering lamp, rain gathering in their hair, and somewhere far off a jeepney honked and a dog barked and the whole unfair city carried on around them, indifferent to the small, impossible thing that had just begun. --- They were careful, as careful as two people falling in love in a small city can be. Meisha told her driver she had extra tutoring sessions. Lorraine told her mother she had faculty meetings. They met in the back room of a secondhand bookstore near the plaza, where the owner, an old woman named Aling Baby, never asked questions and always left a pot of ginger tea on the table for them. . "Tell me something true," Meisha said one evening, her head in Lorraine's lap, fingers laced through her own. . "Everything I tell you is true." . "Tell me something true you haven't told anyone." . Lorraine considered this, tracing slow circles on the back of Meisha's hand. "When I was twelve, my father used to take me to his shop on Saturdays. He'd let me use the register, count the coins, and hand change to customers. I loved it. I thought, this is what I want. A shop of my own someday. Something with my name on it." Her voice thinned. "Now every time I pass a hardware store I have to look away." . "I'm sorry." . "Your turn."
2026-08-23 15:57:28
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ᵖˡˢavian :
[1️⃣] Months passed like that. Saturdays at the orphanage, then Sundays too, and then Lorraine walking Meisha partway home because 'it's not safe for someone like you to walk alone at night,' which made Meisha laugh so hard she had to lean against a wall. . "Someone like me? I have bodyguards, Lorraine." . "Not tonight, you don't. Where are they?" . "I told them I was staying at a friend's." . "Am I the friend?" . "You're the friend." . Lorraine shook her head, but she didn't stop walking beside her. . It was on one of those walks, under a street lamp flickering with dying electricity, that something changed. They'd been arguing… very gently. Just like the way people argue when they're circling something else entirely. . "You should be studying medicine or law, something that pays," Lorraine was saying. "Not spending every weekend here for free." . "You're one to talk. You're a public school teacher supporting your whole family on a salary that barely covers rent." . "That's different. I don't have a choice." . "Neither do I," Meisha said, stopping under the lamp. "I don't have a choice either, Lorraine. This? The orphanage, the kids, and you? This is the only place I get to choose who I am instead of who I was born to be." . Lorraine turned to face her fully then. The rain had started again, soft and fine, the kind that Filipinos call 'ambon.' Not enough to run from, just enough to notice. . "You shouldn't say things like that to me," Lorraine said quietly. . "Why not?" . "Because I might start believing them." . Meisha stepped closer, closing the distance the way the rain closed distances, slow and inevitable. "What if I want you to believe them?" . Lorraine's breath caught. "Meisha—" . "I know what I am. I know what you are. I know none of this makes sense on paper. But I'm not asking you about the paper, Lorraine. I'm asking about right now, under this street lamp, in the rain, with you." . Lorraine closed her eyes. When she opened them, something in her had already been decided. . "This is going to end badly," she whispered. . "Probably."
2026-08-23 15:55:39
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ᵖˡˢavian :
[5️⃣] "So what, you're just going to hand me back? Like I'm something you borrowed?" . "I'm trying to protect you!" . "I never asked you to protect me!" Lorraine's voice cracked, tears finally spilling. "I asked you to love me. That's all I ever asked. And now you're standing here deciding my life for me, exactly like every rich person who's ever decided something for someone like me, and you don't even see the irony of it—" . "I see it," Meisha said quietly, devastated. "I see it, and I hate myself for it, and I'm still going to do it, because at least this way you get to keep your job, your family, your safety. At least this way the damage stops with me." . "And what about the damage to me, Meisha? What about what this does to me?" . Meisha had no answer for that. There wasn't one. She reached out, and Lorraine let her, and they stood in that small room holding each other like survivors of something, which, in a way, they were. . "I accepted a long time ago that good things don't stay in my life," Lorraine whispered against her shoulder. "I don't know why I let myself believe you'd be different." . "I wanted to be different." . "I know." Lorraine pulled back, wiped her face, and something in her posture closed like a door being locked from the inside. "Go home, Meisha." . "Lorraine—" . "Go home. Before I ask you to stay, and you have to say no anyway, and we do this twice." . Meisha left. She did not look back, because she knew if she did, she would not be able to make herself keep walking.
2026-08-23 16:25:30
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ᵖˡˢavian :
[4️⃣] "She is a public school teacher, Meisha. Her father is a drunk who owes half the barangay money. Do you understand what your father's enemies would do with this? Do you understand what this would cost this family?" . "I don't care what it costs this family. This family has cost this city enough already." . Her mother's hand cracked across her face before either of them registered it happening. The silence afterward was worse than the slap. . "You will end this," her mother said, voice shaking. "Quietly. Today. Or your father will end it for you, and I promise you, it will not be quiet, and it will not be kind to her." . That night, Meisha went to Lorraine's rented room above the sari-sari store, the fluorescent light buzzing, moths circling it in slow desperate loops. . "They know," she said, before Lorraine could even close the door. . Lorraine's face went pale. "How much do they know?" . "Enough. There's a photograph." . "Meisha." Lorraine sat down hard on the edge of her bed, and for the first time since Meisha had known her, she looked frightened. She’s not tired, not sad… just frightened. . "My father works odd construction jobs when he's sober enough. My little brother is starting high school next year. If your father decides to make an example of my family, we will not survive it. He could have my father blacklisted from every barangay project in the city. He could have me fired, teachers get transferred to punishment postings for less than this. Do you understand what I'm saying?" . "I understand." Meisha's voice broke on the words. "I understand, and I hate that I understand, and I hate that understanding means I have to say what I'm about to say." . "Don't." Lorraine stood, closing the distance, gripping Meisha's arms like she could hold the moment still through sheer will. "Don't say it." . "Lorraine—" "We can be careful. More careful. No more photos, no more bookstore, we can—" . "They will find us again. And next time it won't be a photograph, it'll be your family's whole life dismantled because of me. I won't do that to you. I won't do that to your brother, to your mother, to you."
2026-08-23 16:23:56
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ᵖˡˢavian :
tbc
2026-08-23 16:33:41
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