3. Leo and Theo

The look on her face wasn't certain of what is happening. Like someone who had just been woken up only to find out that the world had self-destructed.

Leonore was hardly recollecting pieces of her just earlier after her dream. She does this every time, just to get a grip of reality, and her existence whom she barely knew and felt. 

Yet, this man would just abruptly show up out of the blue claiming that he knows everything that she's been missing. What is he, an angel? Or a reaper? She doesn't know. But what she only knew was that this man deserves a chance to speak up. After all, she felt a connection between them, even before the guy revealed who he was. 

"Wait up, you must be mistaken. Sally de Vega doesn't have a grown-up son. She's only pregnant and that will be her first child." 

"And that is me."

The guy plainly remarked with a slight smirk. Leonore narrowed her eyes at the small lift of Theodore's lips. She felt a boiling exasperation in her insides.

"Don't play games with me, mister. I don't know who you are or where you came from and how you came to know me. If you're here to stir even worse the situation, then you should go." 

Leonore didn't know how she managed to deliver that straight. Her heart is beating unusual, and her nostrils are gasping for spacious air.

She wanted the man away, but she also doesn't want him to go. She's saying all the irony she could, but inside, she's pleading for this stranger to sit with her and have a talk. 

"Leonore... " 

Her fingers twitched when he said her name. Leonore was wondering, something was building up inside her. Some excitement or something less like a finally sought companion? 

"This might be hard for you to understand, so I will take this slowly. Do you mind if I sit with you, for a talk?" 

Leonore felt a sudden rush of blood within every vein in her body. He just read through her mind. She was hardly breathing. She nodded. The guy smiled at her, and suddenly she recognized that smile. That, she was certain of, only belonged to Mayor Jose Manuel.

One would recognize that only smile because you could see it everywhere, on the fliers posted on the walls of the street, tabloids, and newspaper headlines. On top of that, that smile had all the charisma. 

Leonore was now battling with her thoughts. He was telling the truth, he had the eyes of Sally and the smile of Jose Manuel. What are the odds that you'd get a combo like that? There is no chance that he is just a bastard offspring of either Sally or Jose Manuel. He inherited such highlighted features of his parents. Maybe this man is the son of the couple. Maybe this man has worth a story to tell. 

"I'm 17 years old, I just turned 17 today." 

Theo straightened his gaze from afar, reaching beyond the horizon. Leonore straightened up too, her gaze fixed on Theo as he continued talking.

"Two years ago, I was in a car crash. The damaged hit upon me like a stray bullet, so sudden attack. I was helpless. Like death had been destined to embrace me over and over."

He laughed in between his speech, but there was evident sadness behind it. Leonore could tell.

"But despite all of that, I survived. Though not completely and functionally working, because I was in a deep coma… for two years." 

He looked at Leonore. 

"Until now I am still in a coma." 

"What do you mean?" 

Leonore couldn't get a grip on the mocking words there is. She was bewildered, but she couldn't be that transparent about it.

There was more to Theodore that she should know. 

"Sometimes I look at my body while it's lying flat on the hospital bed. I look awful when asleep, I mean for that long. Today, I was in the hospital and Nana Lucia was singing me a happy birthday. There, I confirmed that I just turned 17."

He looked at Leonore whose eyebrows are now unibrow and whose forehead is wrinkled into large folds. Theo smiled.

"You believe me, do you?"

Leonore snapped back suddenly when it was already her turn to reply. She got so used to just listening to Theodore like she was waiting for the climax of his whole narration.

"I...uh...I don't know what to say. It's not that I don't believe you, but what you are saying is very hard to process right now. I'm honestly confused."

The guy smiled at her, again it seemed to her that she was like talking to Jose Manuel, the husband of Sally de Vega, someone very close to her heart.

Leonore closed her eyes for a moment and savored the thin air that went straight through her nostrils down to fill the hollow chambers in her lungs. She tried so hard to start her mind working, but it felt like her mind was also in a deep trance or an iron thickly coated with rust, hopeless for being renewed.

Everything was vague in her array of thoughts like nothing seemed to fall into familiarity in her cluster of memories. But then she caught a glimpse of Theodore’s eyes, and he remembered Sally. All the cloudiness immediately subsided into a translucent reflection of what had once befallen, but now is just secured into a memory.

“Miss de Vega, how long had you been supporting these kids?”

Sally was busy unpacking some boxes that contained the sealed sandwiches and juices for the children’s snacks. She turned to look at Leonore with her natural flamboyant aura.

“I think the oldest age of the kids here are among nine years old. So basically, Leonore, I’m doing this for nine years already, and oh let me correct that, nine years and counting.”

She posed a bright smile, showing off her pristine and perfectly aligned incisors.

“Wow, you’re really into these kinds of charity works Miss de Vega. How admirable.”

Leonore complimented.

“Yeah… thanks to these I somewhat made my time and resources useful. I just felt the need to help those unfortunate and deserving Leonore, in that way, if I die tomorrow, I made half of my lifetime beneficial.”

There was sadness in between the lines that Leonore was so certain she noticed. But that sadness wasn’t projected to Sally’s face, after all, she had all the glamor and dazzle in her.

“That’s… uhm, something to look up to, Miss de Vega.”

“Oh Leonore, call me Sally. It’s better that way. Perhaps you are no stranger to me anymore. You’ve volunteered for the third time now if I am not mistaken.”

“This is the fourth time actually, Sal? Is it appropriate to hear that way, Miss de Vega?”

Leonore threw a meekly awkward expression which made Sally giggle.

“Yes, call me Sal if that’s the way you wanted Leonore. And just to lighten you a bit, you will be the only one calling me that way.”

Leonore’s face brightened with glee.

“That would be so favorable of you, Miss de Vega. I mean it kinda gives off a unique and special bond between us, if you permit me to call you that way. Not that I am assuming nor inviting malice Miss de Vega, no no no, that's rather an unseemly idea, but it appeals so special for me."

Leonore couldn’t help the blush in between her speech. She wasn't precise about what she is blabbering about. This is what mostly happens to her when she gets excited about a particular thing. And for this instance, it is this chance of a unique name call for Sally.

She knew that when it comes to her, she just couldn't contain herself. She scolds herself frequently because she doesn't have enough control to refrain her body from doing stupid things around Sally. All she ever would want to do is to impress her and make herself look pleasing. She isn't naturally like this. So she also resents the idea that whenever Sally is around she had to be someone she is not. It isn't a deliberate action, rather it is involuntary that her body just responds directly to a pretense like her mind and behavior just made a high five in front of her and there she goes again.

Leonore knew that something troubling is happening to her. She is the right person to solve this kind of personal dilemma in a matter of one seating, yet right now she wasn't sure if she is still that person. It was all because of an unsung emotion that she kept denying. That emotion appeared the moment she saw Sally on that day she volunteered to have a statement of her as scope on her paper. That was her main purpose. But now, she dumped her research journals in her desk and granted them a long slumber. Right after that, she fled to another type of shallow research, and that is digging pieces of information about Sally and her charity works so she can volunteer again and again until she can make herself close to her. 

What is it with Sally again? Oh, it was her bronze dyed hair that is well kept in a bun, her flashy eyelashes that well complemented her almond-shaped pair of pale brown eyes, her pointy nose, and high cheekbones, and the way she speaks with a serene voice full of modesty and class. That's it with Sally. She was physically attractive. But what drawn Leonore was her inner beauty, full of compassion and art. Everything about her was poetic; an enigma dressed in charm.

"Really?"

Sally stopped unpacking for a moment and stared at Leonore with an expression full of surprise and amusement.

"Leonore you have no idea how grateful I am for your volunteerism. That is just so rare, and I just can't put the right words to describe how thankful I am with you," she smiled, "so if I may ask, what drives you to keep doing this? You know, extending your support without expecting a thing in return than just the happiness in being able to help. What is it, Leonore?"

Leonore was left stunned for a moment or so. She wasn't expecting that kind of an upheaval question. For that nanosecond that seemed like an eternity for her, she contemplated, and thus face the truth of her real intentions.

That unsung emotion she had her lenses blurred, was the emotion of love. Leonore kept on denying it. She couldn't give enough justice by her array of reasons that could potentially decipher the conundrum behind this troubling feeling. Yet her body language cannot lie. She had been keeping herself busy for Sally and forgetting about herself and her career. She had been prioritizing someone else's company than of her own. She wasn't her usual self: the conspiring, competitive, and dull Leonore, rather she has morphed into someone... better. Someone who cares for others other than herself, someone who now pays attention to the bigger picture, someone who sets aside her personal gain to pave way for others, and someone who is willing to open up herself for that someone who've turned her into someone better.

She kept asking herself, how can a woman love another woman? That sounded so odd and way off the norms, way off what is acceptable among people. Yet aside from this, she also asked herself, how did she fell in love? In that question, everything else was blurred including all the worries and uncertainties, and the only translucent entity left is the possibility that love had touched her, and she never felt so human. She came to this realization that regardless of that person you fall in love with, the same or opposite sex, right or the wrong person, seize the moment. Carpe Diem, as they say. Because love is a powerful gift that in an instant, we feel so alive, we feel so human.

So in that realization, Leonore managed to acknowledge and appreciate the beautiful and soothing melody of that unsung emotion. For the first time in the longest time of her existence, she said something divulging to herself without feeling undaunted.

"I am doing this, Sal," she chuckled upon mentioning the shortened name of Sally, "because you inspired me to. There is nothing right I did in my whole life until this one that I met you. You see, this whole thing changed me. Spending time with you changed me. So yeah, I love doing this that's why I will continue lending my support."

She posed an awkward smile. She hadn't said enough of what she expected to. There were more truths embedded between the lines. But maybe she was right to keep it hidden from Sally for now. At least to herself, she wouldn't anymore have to deny it, that she is doing this for Sally, because she loves her.

Sally on the other hand couldn't help the moist in her eyes. She was moved by what Leonore said.

"Leonore, if you may, you are welcome to be my accomplice."

Leonore's face brightened. That would only mean that she will get to be with Sally more often and closer. Such a great time to leap for joy.

"And Leonore, you should know as well that I am enjoying working with you. I'm happy I have met you."

‘ And I'm happy too, very happy. You're the only memory that stood transparent in my mind Sal. Everything else vanished, and I cannot decipher the reason behind it. Memories with you remained evergreen, just like you are, just like you were.’

Leonore uttered these last lines in her mind, savoring what was left intact of her memories.

"I understand. But Leonore, there isn't much time, you must be ready for the truth." 

"What truth?" 

Leonore's heart suddenly paced fast. 

"That you are a lost soul." 

In that instant, her jaw dropped as well as her breathing.

There was a deafening silence. What remained audible for Leonore was her heavy breathing which occurred to her at that instant as counted and monitored by some omnipotent entity, and the rustling of the leaves of the trees that wasn't anymore calming rather yet disturbing.

"What crap are you talking about? What lost soul what are you some paranormal expert?"

She was furious, she couldn't get a hold of what this man was talking about. 

"Leonore you need to understand. You need to open up your mind. We're both souls, you are and I am. I told you I was in a coma until this very moment. We are two souls talking now. I have waited for this moment to happen. I have searched for you anywhere in this celestial world." 

"How do you know all of that? How come you are aware? I've been left clueless about who I am every goddamn day. Why- what exactly happened to me?" 

Leonore was now in tears. 

"We're both souls, but what makes us different is that I still have a chance to get back to my human body. That's why I am aware Leonore. In your case, you are one of those lost souls who have unfinished business, and who are stuck with an eternal curse of their last piece of existence."

This struck Leonore. Her recurrent dreams. That is. Her recurrent dreams were her last piece of existence. It wasn't some premonition of the future, in fact, it already happened. She was already killed.

"You died seventeen years ago, Leonore. The same year that I was born, was the same year that you were killed."

The curse was true. She witnessed how she died. It only appeared to be as a dream but it was the last remnant of her as living. She was in between a never-ending cycle of her sudden death. 

"Leonore this must be very hard for you. It pains me to see that you are crying right now."

Theo gently brushed the woman's hair. It was soft and thick. He also noticed something on her forehead, it was a small island like a birthmark. What attracted him more was the moles on Leonore's face. 

There's a mole beside her left brow, one below the corner of her right eye, one tiny mole resting above her lips, and the last that Theo spotted was one fainted mole on her left cheek. 

Leonore, though in between sobs, tried to speak. 

"If that's the case then, what is your agenda with me? What do you get from telling me all this?" 

This time, Theo couldn't help but smile with tears forming in his eyes. 

"I told you I was the son of Sally de Vega, right? A lot of people say I have my mother's eyes. I hope you could see her in my eyes. She was very grateful to you."

Leonore paused for a moment and reflected on Theodore's eyes. She got the chance to appreciate the rest of his face.

He had very soft features for a man. His eyes were slightly big to look at, because of his thick eyelids. He had naturally long and curly eyelashes. His brows were thick and bushy. His nose was pointy and perfectly shaped to blend in with the rest of his face. His lips were red and thin with curvy edges.

He was very handsome. Like the one you would imagine a prince would look like. He looked just like his mother. Leonore felt like talking to Sally just now that he perceived Theo was her son. She felt Sally's presence all of a sudden.

"I heard you fought for my mother despite the danger it might cause you. Although I wasn't able to read the section of your tabloid where you would write about my mother because your paper wasn't published, and I didn't get any copies of your draft since it was reported stolen. I was desperate to find you Leonore because I want to thank you for taking up all the courage to writing that article for my mother. You fought for me as well Leonore. At least, if I won't be able to get back to life, I have already met you and thanked you for standing tall with me. "

Leonore had her tears running down her face. She had never felt so moved before. For the first time in her life, there was someone who extended such gratitude. She wasn't certain if a soul could feel the weight of human emotions. Yet again she felt very ecstatic upon hearing all the truth from Theodore.

At last, the missing pieces of the jigsaw had been found and reconnected. The shattered pieces of the glass had been glued back together.

Her identity was not anymore hanging. But, there was something crucial left unanswered.

"Theo... Who had killed me?"