Another Goodbye

"Hey, I haven't seen you in ages." Chythia pouted her cupid bow lips, making her the adorable little piece of peach that she is.

"I have a life," her voice was laced with sarcasm, something that Chythia or any of her friends got offended with.

"And we don't?"

Stella approached them, carrying her longboard under her armpit, her hands were occupied with eating some chips.

"You don't expect me to answer that for you, do you?" She beckoned to one of the boys that were sitting on the asphalt, watching those who were practicing their board tricks.

The boy understood what she was asking and grabbed his skateboard. He handed it to her without any question and left before she could say thank you.

"Another fan of yours?" Trez asked, with an annoyed expression on his face.

Lalin stared at him for a long time, trying to read how serious his annoyance was before she darted her eyes to Chythia who didn't seem to care that her boyfriend was being jealous of her admirer.

She shook her head at how the two acted. She had no time to wonder how they were as a couple. Or if they were really a couple since they don't act the way other kids at school who were in a relationship acted. Although they both claimed they were each other boyfriend and girlfriend.

They all went back to practicing except Stella who stayed behind to finish her chips. She watched them play around.

None of them were aware of the eyes that were watching them, especially toward Lalin. The man was standing in the shadow, wearing all black with a muscular body, and a dragon tattoo creeping on his neck.

It was a surprise that no one seemed to mind the man even though he was standing out of place. The place was littered with kids and young teenagers. The man was already in his mid-thirties.

He stayed the whole time Lalin was there with her friends. He simply stood, unmoving in the shadow, his eyes never leaving Lalin.

"Hey, I got to go!"

The man in the shadow flinched when he heard Lalin shouting goodbye at her friends. He stepped back into the shadow and disappeared.

Lalin left the same way she came. She looked up at the sky and saw that a lot of time had passed. Her aunt had finished with her client by now. She crossed the street hurriedly, thinking of the math workbook that she had to finish.

That was the only thing she had in mind she didn't notice the man who crossed the street at the same time as her. Nor did she notice that he walked her home and watched her enter the house and her room.

The man stood in the shadow the whole time the light in her room was on.

***

"Lalin, how long are you going to stay in bed? Girl, get up now!"

She rolled on her stomach and covered her ears with her pillow, and counted to ten. She slept at four in the morning and it was just frigging six in the morning.

When she reached the number ten, she got up and fixed her bed. She didn't have to reply to her aunt to let her know that she had already woken up. The noise that she was making was enough for her to walk away from her door.

She surveyed her small bed and sighed. This place is getting dreary every day and yet, she cannot do anything with it. She is stuck in this place until she reaches eighteen or until she can feed herself, whichever comes first.

She was still mulling about her room when she heard a loud crashing sound from the living room.

"Auntie?!" She screamed, yanking the thin plywood door of her room. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears and if she wasn't panicking she could swear that she knew what had happened without seeing it first.

She ran the short distance between her room and the living room where she found her aunt, sprawled in the middle of the small room, clutching her chest.

"L-la..lin," she breathed shakily, her eyes were two rounds of terror.

She stopped screeching like a small animal caught crossing the street in the middle of the night, the morning light streaming in the window was like a headlight that caught her in the act of committing a sin.

Maybe it was a sin for she didn't do anything to help her aunt. She simply gawked at her, tears running down her cheeks. Inside her head, she knew she was dying.

"Lalin."

She heard her aunt call her and she finally got her bearings. She kneeled next to her, held her hand in her hands, and pressed it on her chest.

"Auntie," she softly called her name.

"Be careful. They are coming to get you. Trust no one," she snorted like a pig, exhaling the last air of her life before her eyes lost their lights.

Lalin sat there, crying until her aunt's first customer of the day, found them and called the ambulance. She mutely followed the crowd who took her aunt and brought her lifeless body to the hospital, not to be revived—for she had no more life left in her fragile body, but to be declared dead and be brought to the morgue.

She sat in one of the hospital plastic chairs in the lobby, tears had long dried out from her eyes when Chythia and Stella arrived and took her to a hotel room because she cannot do anything for her aunt. She was a minor and most of all, she wasn't a relative of hers.

Trez came later in the afternoon to inform her that her aunt's cadaver was sent to the Philippines embassy to be sent home. She was just another overseas Filipino worker that died outside the country and would come home in a wooden box.

Lalin sat rigidly under the window, slumped on the cold marble floor of the hotel room Stella booked for her to stay in because she could no longer go back to the house she shared with her aunt. The child service would take her away if they would find her there.