Once the heart gets too heavy with the pain, people don’t dry. They just turned silent. Completely silent.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~RUBEN~There was always a better and a worse version of losing someone. At the loss, we traveled the most painful journey. Perhaps there was something inside us wishing for their presence to hold on to and nurture our being once again.Standing beside Rafael’s coffin, I sensed I had lost him in the worst way possible. And today, watching over his picture, something nudging me to call him back from the impossibilities enveloping me.I still remember the day after the funeral. I visited Raya lying in the hospital bed, surrounded by plastic veins. Everything inside me meddled, and observing her; it splintered into uncountable pieces.That gracious smile that used to enlighten our day was gone, and that tiny angel didn’t learn what she had lost. When the Doctor rolled the wheelchair, it was so awful that I couldn’t settle there watching her perching on t

What’s hardest for me isn’t losing him. It was condoning myself for being in devotion with him, knowing damn the warnings he gave and the loathing he displayed for me.~~~~~~~~~~~~Arlet~It’s been a week, and Raya’s hysteria about being in school didn’t peter out a moment. The lively aura was sufficient to surprise everybody at home whenever she was home after school. Everyone has to be present to listen to her daily endeavors and how Toby fought with Gabriel because he wanted Raya to choose the color of his painting. Now that Raya is apt, I got some time to think about my outcomes. How long am I going to sit here killing my hoards? I knew I had to work to fulfill my prerequisites. After graduation, Milo gave me the offer to join one of his event management companies, but I was more inclined to work for society. Women like me who want to seek their dream but don’t have the finances for it. How strange my dream was to help others when I, too, don’t have the finances to handle myself.

“You have this incredible way of making me alive… even if it was just a single touch, and a little help.”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Arlet~I glanced over the laptop screen, breaking the constant stare burning my eyes. I thought this job would be easy, but within two weeks, this show on the radio broke all the records. We started getting calls and emails from older couples, not just youngsters. How strange to know the only thing common in everyone’s life is love and how desperate we feel to stay in this feeling of wanting by someone.My days start with Raya’s tweeting, and it ends the same way. I used to work when she went to school or late at night when I had time to flatter the feeling of love. A broken, shunned, unwanted girl who was giving tips to handle love life to others. How ironic it sounds.A single meditation thought I wrote for myself and watched over a thousand times was the only anchor keeping this ship against the tempest.“I was not the one with whom he shared his happiness, but I

Someone who overthinks is also someone who over loves, and I will do anything to make you see me.~ARLET~~~~~~~~~~~~~Setting against the wheel, Kathrine and I headed toward our destination. It was a blissful morning and temperate weather. Nothing to talk much, so I kept silent; if it was Milo, I couldn’t stop gesturing my hands to show him all the excitement I contained. But did I forget to share this enormous piece of news with him? Shoot?Taking out my phone, I started typing him the message when Kathrine let down the window glass to enjoy this expedition with the breeze hurling out hair here and there, making me wait. I thought all of Ruben’s friends would judge me, but she was modest enough to rub that irrational thought from my mind. She is taller than me, a perfect model figure. Skimming in the backseat, I saw a laptop and some files that concluded my thoughts about her being an independent woman. My mother used to say a woman could take care of kids and love her husband, but

And what an unfortunate character I would be. You hailed me as the villain of your books, and you were my hero in shining armor.~~~~~~~~~~ARLET~Whatever the silence can be? For some, it’s the music of your heart. And for some, it could be where they are deemed alone and scared to be. I heard people often say, whatever we feel outside it will reflect inside. For me, it was dead silence. Terrified, rescued, pitied, everything was there, and I chose to seal those suffering with silence.We drove back home, and not to my astonishment, Raya was lingering outside. “How was your day, mommy?”Not safe when it was not spent with you, my little one. I wish I could say this to Raya. I hugged her, and her warmth executed my silence and supplied my deemed world with her chuckle. Sometimes you have to accept the silence to value the voice in your life.“You know, mommy, daddy, and I had a lot of fun. But I missed you.” She was all excited to tell me every detail, but there she noticed something