The sun didn't rise on the third morning; it simply bled through the curtains in a pale, sickly gray. Jay Jay didn't need an alarm. She had been awake since 4:00 AM, staring at the seventeenth crack in the ceiling until her eyes burned.
Her left leg was a heavy, throbbing anchor. The cast felt tighter today, the skin underneath itching with a restless heat. She moved to the edge of the bed, her breath catching as her foot touched the cold floor. Every movement was a calculation of pain.
Step. Pivot. Reach.
She grabbed the crutches. The cold aluminum bit into her palms, a familiar, unwelcome sting. She didn't look in the mirror this time. She didn't want to see the girl with the hollow eyes. She just dressed in her HVIS uniform—the fabric feeling like a costume for a life she no longer lived—and waited by the window
Percy was already there. He didn't honk; he just sat in the driveway, the engine of his car a low, protective growl in the morning mist. When he saw her hobble out of the front door, he was out of the driver's seat in an instant.
He didn't say "Good morning." He knew there was nothing good about it. He simply took her bag and tucked it into the backseat, then stood steady as a rock while she maneuvered herself into the passenger side.
The drive to HVIS was silent. The city of Manila blurred past the window—jeepneys, street vendors, and early morning commuters—all of them moving with a purpose Jay Jay had lost.
"If anyone touches you," Percy said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, low register as the school gates came into view, "you don't wait. You call. I don't care if it's Keifer, I don't care if it's the Principal. You call me."
Jay Jay just nodded. Her face was a mask of porcelain—smooth, white, and completely empty. She wasn't angry. She wasn't sad. She was just... gone.
The gates of HVIS felt like the entrance to a coliseum. As Percy's car pulled away, Jay Jay stood alone at the curb. The sound of her crutches hitting the pavement—clack, thud, swing—echoed in the morning air.
Students stopped in their tracks. The loud chatter of the hallway died down into a series of jagged whispers.
"Look at her leg."
"Is she really back?"
"She looks like a ghost."
Jay Jay heard it all, but she processed none of it. She kept her gaze fixed exactly three feet in front of her. She didn't blink when a group of juniors scrambled out of her way. She didn't flinch when a basketball bounced near her feet.
Then came the stairs.
The three flights to the Section E classroom looked like a mountain range. Jay Jay reached the first step and stopped. Her forehead was already beaded with cold sweat. She gripped the handrail with her right hand, tucking one crutch under her left arm.
Lift. Heave. Drag.
It was a slow, agonizing process. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps. Halfway up the first flight, a shadow fell over her.
Keifer.
He was standing on the landing above her, looking down. His "cold as ice" mask was perfectly in place, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. To the casual observer, he looked bored. But his eyes were like lasers, tracking the slight tremor in her hands and the way her face paled with every step.
He walked down toward her, stopping just one step above. "You're going to fall," he said, his voice flat and emotionless. He reached out a hand, intending to take her bag or steady her elbow.
Jay Jay didn't even look up at him. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She simply shifted her weight, pulling her arm back with a slow, deliberate motion that was more insulting than a slap. She moved past him as if he were a pillar of stone, her shoulder brushing his sleeve without a single spark of recognition in her eyes.
Keifer stayed frozen on the stairs, his hand still hanging in the empty air. He watched her struggle up the next five steps, his jaw tightening until a muscle leaped in his cheek. He didn't try again. He just followed her at a distance, a silent, predatory shadow watching her every stumble.
The door to the classroom was open. Usually, this was the moment Section E or the troublemaker Ci-N would burst out to greet her. Today, they stood huddled inside, looking like children caught in a lie.
Jay Jay entered the room. The silence was so thick it felt like physical pressure. She didn't go to her usual seat in the middle of the boys. Instead, she headed for the very front corner, the desk closest to the door and furthest from the back row where Keifer sat.
She sat down, propping her crutches against the wall. She didn't look at anyone. She just pulled out a single notebook and stared at the blank white page.
Ci-N couldn't take it. He grabbed a chair from the next row and dragged it over, sitting right next to her. He forced a bright, trembling smile onto his face.
"Hey, Jay Jay! Welcome back! I... I kept all the notes for you. And look, I got you those strawberry crackers you like. They're the limited edition ones!" He placed the bright red package on her desk, his hands shaking.
Jay Jay didn't move. She didn't look at the crackers. She didn't look at Ci-N. She just continued to stare at the blank paper, her eyes wide and unfocused. It was as if Ci-N didn't exist. It was as if the room were empty.
"Jay? You want me to open them for you?" Ci-N asked, his voice cracking with a desperate need for her to just look at him. "I can help with the Physics homework too. Sir Alvin said—"
Nothing.
Ci-N's smile slowly crumbled. He sat there, hunched over, looking at the side of her face. The "happy" mask he tried to wear fell away, leaving behind a boy who looked like he wanted to scream for forgiveness.
Sir Alvin walked into the room five minutes later. He was usually a man of loud jokes and high energy, but today he was subdued. He glanced at Jay Jay immediately. Kuya Angelo had called him the night before, explaining the "Post-Traumatic Vertigo" and the fragility of her state.
He began the lecture, but his eyes never stayed on the chalkboard for long.
"Alright, class, today we're looking at static friction," Sir Alvin said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. He walked toward the front corner. "Jay Jay? Are you comfortable there? Do you need a footrest for the leg?"
Jay Jay slowly turned her head toward him. Her expression was like a frozen lake—smooth and impossible to read. "I am fine, Sir," she said. Her voice was monotone, a flat, mechanical sound that lacked any of the warmth she used to have.
"If you feel dizzy, or if the light is too bright, you tell me immediately. Understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
She turned back to her notebook. She didn't write a single word.
In the back of the room, Keifer sat in his usual spot. He didn't have his notebook out. He didn't have a pen. He just sat with his arms crossed, staring at the back of Jay Jay's head.
To the rest of the class, he looked like he was daydreaming. But on the desk in front of him, his phone was active. The OTJ101 app was open, showing her heart rate: 98 BPM.
She's panicked, he thought, his eyes narrowing. She looks calm, but her heart is racing.
He watched the way she gripped the edge of the desk until her knuckles turned white. He watched the way her breathing stayed shallow. Every time she winced—a tiny, almost invisible flicker of pain from her leg—he felt it like a physical jolt in his own chest.
At one point, the bell rang for the shift in periods. Jay Jay stood up, her crutch slipping slightly on the slick floor. Keifer was out of his seat before anyone else could move. He reached her in three strides, his hand hovering near her waist to catch her.
"Careful," he muttered, his voice dropping into that familiar, velvet tone.
She let him hold her, her body limp and unresponsive. When she finally looked at him, her eyes were heavy, clouded with a bone-deep exhaustion that made her look years older. There was no fire in her eyes, only a dull, flat stillness. It was the look of someone who had seen too much and felt too much, and had finally gone numb. She didn't move his hand; she just waited for him to realize that his touch didn't spark anything inside her anymore—not even fear.
When Jay Jay looked up at him, Keifer felt the air leave his lungs. He had expected fire; he had expected a glare that could melt the ice he'd spent years building. Instead, he found a desert.
Her eyes were heavy, the lids drooping as if the very act of looking at him was a chore she didn't have the strength to finish. There was no accusation in her gaze, just a profound, quiet exhaustion that made him feel like a ghost standing in the way of a living girl.
Keifer's fingers, still wrapped around her thin arm, went cold. He felt the steady, slow thrum of her pulse through the fabric of her uniform, but it didn't feel like life—it felt like a
countdown.
For the first time, the "Boss" of Section E felt small. The mask he wore-the one that made him look like a king-shivered. His thumb brushed against her sleeve, a desperate, silent plea for her to blink, to scowl, to do anything other than look at him with that terrible, hollow peace.
He slowly withdrew his hand, his knuckles white as he shoved them back into his pockets. He felt a sudden, violent urge to smash the phone in his pocket, to delete the app, to scream at the world for what he had done to her. But all he could do was stand there and watch her hobble away, the sound of her crutches echoing like a heartbeat he no longer had the right to hear.
Jay didn't wait for him to speak, she simply adjusted the sleeves of her uniform and with one last, heavy blink of those exhausted eyes she turned away from him.
As she disappeared into the crowded hallway, she didn't look back at the boys of Section E, who were watching her like a wreckage they couldn't look away from. She just kept moving, a quiet, flickering candle in a drafty room, leaving Keifer standing in the center of the classroom, surrounded by a silence that felt louder than any scream
By the end of the day, Jay Jay had spoken exactly six words. She had eaten nothing. She had ignored forty-two attempts by Section E to catch her eye.
She was back at HVIS, but the Jay Jay they knew was gone. In her place was a girl who had learned that love was a trap, and protection was just another word for a leash.
As she waited by the gate for Percy, she pulled her phone out. She looked at the OTJ101 icon. She didn't delete it. She didn't hide it. She just stared at it, not knowing that somewhere in the building, Keifer was watching her dot move toward the exit.
She looked up at the third-floor window and saw him standing there, a silhouette against the glass. She didn't wave. She didn't glare. She just stepped into Percy's car and let the door close, cutting off the world and the boys who had broken it.
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Soooo how was it???
I will try to upload another chapter tonight!!!
Love you all ur comments cheered me up so much🤍🧸