GHOST NUMBER 1

D.J SERRANO (THE PAST)

(SEVEN YEARS AGO)

This was our third time at the restaurant, and the girl wouldn’t even look up from her book. She was around my age but she was serious. I could tell.

Enrique stabbed at his chicken enchilada as Mom tried to strike up conversation. About the weather. Her bowl of sinigang was half-empty. Mine was completely gone.

"It's such a beautiful day today. We should go to the beach," she said with a smile on her face. A genuine one, miles away from the one she always had on in Manila. Now that she was finally away from Dad, she was a lot more relaxed. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen her like this before.

"Hmm." That was all my brother said, but for all his surliness, he was more relaxed too. He was nineteen, I was ten, and it was the first time we'd ever been out of our father's reach.

Now, of course, he knew where we were. I didn't know it at the time, but he'd sent people to shadow us. But he hadn't started to threaten my mother yet. He was still giving her space, and pleading with her to return, so all was well. For now.

For now, I stared at the girl reading on the other side of the counter. And I wondered about the stories in her head.

Mom caught me watching.

"D.J," she said softly with a warm smile. "Would you like to go and say hello?"

I nodded wordlessly, and made a beeline for the girl with pretty dark hair.

"Hello,"

"Hi."

"What are you reading?"

She turned the cover of the book to me. "The Young Investor?" I read aloud, in awe.

My dad had gotten me the same book for Christmas, and then he'd forced me to finish reading it before New Years. I'd written a seven-page summary on the whole thing, complete with presentation slides. And the entire experience had been harrowing. At least, he'd been impressed at the end of everything. Or at least, satisfied enough that he hadn't seen the need to hurt anybody.

But here someone else was - someone my age - reading that stupid book for fun.

"What's your name?"

She raised her chin defiantly and quipped. "What's yours?"

I smiled. "D.J. D.J Serrano."

"I'm Emmy. Emmy Mikay Mendoza."

I couldn't help it. "That has way too many M's."

She shrugged and returned to her reading, with a small smile on her face. Something about that smile did something to me. It made me want to keep talking so that she would keep smiling, which was rather odd because I wasn't usually so chatty. At least, not with strangers.

"Do you mind if I just call you M.K?"

She shrugged again. "Sure. What does D.J stand for?"

"Daniel Juansen."

"That's cool."

"Yeah." I didn't know what else to say, so I asked an innocent question that would change everything. "Have you ever been to the beach?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"We're going to the beach. My mom is taking me and my brother. You can come with us. My grandma lives near there. I'm sure your dad wouldn't mind if we ask him nicely."

"Oh, he'll mind. But not if we...rephrase our question."

I should have known she was trouble the moment I saw the wheels turning in her head, the mischievous smile and twinkle in her eyes. But all those things captivated me. Something about it reminded me of Mario, and I completely missed my friend.

So, when "we" went to ask her father for permission to go and play outside, I totally went along with it.

Her father was a nice man, and I think he was so relieved to see his daughter actually make a new friend that he agreed. Also, he knew my grandmother; Lalanita had brought us to his restaurant, the very first time we were there. Plus, it helped that he didn't actually know that we were going on a forty-minute drive to the beach.

(FIVE YEARS AGO)

Mom had gone back to Dad, after he threatened to cut Enrique and I off, and write us out of his will. His terms were simple; she had to bring us back and stay, otherwise, everybody would get nothing.

The threat of being cut off was one thing, but being written out of the will was another entirely.

"Mom, we can't go back to him," Enrique had pleaded with her back in Cebu while I watched the unfolding scene dejectedly and aimlessly. I'd known. Deep inside, I'd known that Mom would return to him, but seeing it play out in real time was like getting hit in the face with a bag of bricks.

"After everything he's done, how could you go back to him?" my brother wailed.

Of the two of us, I was the younger and more gullible. But on some level, I knew our mother best.

"I want to leave your father, Rico. But I will not stand by and let you and your brother suffer for it."

"Fuck that! You're just afraid of losing all that money."

"Don't talk to me like that!" she retorted. "But yes, I'm afraid." She was packing up our things now, throwing everything we'd come to Cebu with back into our bags.

"I'm afraid that your father is going to make good on his threat. That you boys are going to lose everything I've worked so hard for, bled for, cried for all these years. All because of me. So, I'm returning to him, to Manila. I'm making my choice for both our sakes. Make yours when you're in control of the corporation. Do whatever you will with it. But for goodness' sakes, get that power first. And right now, the only way to do that is to return to Manila."

Tears had slid down my brother's face as he stared at her hatefully. "You're just like him, you know? I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize it. But you're just like Dad. Even after everything, even after what he did to Veronica and the baby, you'll still go back to him because of money and power. That's all you care about."

So, now I was twelve. Back in the trapping of my life, back with Mario and the familiar guilt of destroying his family...back to pretending everything was picture perfect in Casa Serrano.

"D.J, come! Lalanita wants to speak to you."

"Mom, I'm late for school. Tell her I'll speak to her later." It was a lie. I haven't spoken to my grandmother since that summer when Mom had left Dad. Not really. Because I kind of understood my father too; he liked to hurt people with the things - people - that they loved. He'd maintained tight control over Enrique by using me and Mom as leverage. And with Mom he used us, and Lalanita. Once he figured out you loved something - or someone - he started playing games with you; games where you had to do whatever he wanted in order to keep those things, and people, safe.

"She says that girl you brought to the beach came to visit her, that she's now living close to her. Apparently, her dad died and her mother remarried."

'Chef Emilio is dead,' I thought in shock. Without thought, I took one step closer to my mother, ready to grab the phone and speak to Lalanita myself when I heard my dad's voice.

"What girl?"

Fear gripped me and glued me right where I stood. "She's-" I shook my head, remembering what he'd done to Veronica. Veronica was my brother's first real girlfriend. His first love; a junior at Rico's university who he'd dated throughout his first year. She was a scholarship student, an orphan who'd had to work her way through school. But as soon as she'd started getting serious with my brother, Dad had made her lose her scholarship and he'd made sure no one would hire her. Veronica had fallen pregnant, then she'd aborted the kid before Enrique discovered she was even pregnant; because Dad had paid and pressured her to. I shivered at the thought of what he could do to Emmy Mikay Mendoza.

"I don't think I remember her," I lied. "I'm really going to be late, tell Lalanita I said 'hi.'"

Then I hurried out of the room as unsuspiciously as possible. Dad may have fallen in love with a woman from humble beginnings, but he thoroughly hated when any of his sons did the same. He'd planned Enrique's life and mine out since before we were born, and that simply wasn't in the plans. Rico was supposed to marry Lucy Godenzano, whose little sister I'd known since childhood, and I was destined to wed some equally privileged kid, whose connections would aid the expansion of my father's empire.

(THE PRESENT)

I stared in shock at Chef Emilio, Emmy's father, who was supposed to be dead.

He looked exactly the same way he had the last time I was here. When I was ten years old. Back when things had been simpler. But there was something intangible about him.

"She works too hard," the ghostly apparition said, staring at his daughter with love in his eyes. Emmy was looking at me too, calling my name, shaking me and trying to...come back to my senses, to talk to her, and say something."Trying too hard to make success in places I couldn't succeed. She's stretching herself too thin. Hasn't even had a proper meal all day. And so much anger...there's so much anger in her heart." His eyes swiveled to me. "Help her, D.J. Help her, please."

Then he dissolved into a cloud of white smoke.

I screamed. And fainted. Right in the arms of my first crush.