Chapter 21
Cora found him on the back steps the next morning, exactly where she always seemed to find him when something needed saying.
“You two fought,” she said. Not a question.
“How did you—”
“You didn’t eat anything last night,” she said. “And Robby threw the leftovers straight into the trash last night like the plate had done something wrong.” She sat beside him, in no hurry to start, and waited.
Allan told her the email, the title, the number, and the two weeks of silence he’d kept even from her. He expected, honestly, some version of disappointment. What he got instead was worse: patient, gentle listening, the kind that gave him nowhere to hide.
“So this,” she said, when he finished, “is the fear you mentioned before. It’s not just about Robby, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Allan admitted. “All I know is, I saw the number, the title, and it felt like, like proof that I didn’t waste ten years. That I hadn’t failed.”
“Who said you failed?”
“No one. But—my whole life, Ma, I’ve had a way to measure it. Grades. Titles. Salary. Then I came back here, no job, painting a mural I’m not even sure matters, and I got scared. Because if I don’t have a way to measure it, how am I supposed to know if, if I’m worth anything?”
Cora was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke again, her voice had lost its usual brisk edge completely.
“Allan. Do you know, I was more scared the day I saw you step off that ferry, cracked phone screen, crying in the bathroom your first night here, I was more scared then than I am now, when you have no job but your eyes are actually alive? That’s my measure. Not your title.”
“But what if I’m wrong, and I actually need—need something like that, to feel complete?”
“A title isn’t going to make you complete,” Cora said, plain, the same tone she used to correct a wrong answer on the board.
“You already are complete, Allan.” She stopped there a second, like she was deciding whether the rest was hers to say.
“I’ve seen it. So has the barangay, if you ever let anyone tell you. ”
Allan’s eyes stung, and he let them, for once, instead of blinking it back for the sake of composure.
“I’m scared,” he admitted, small.
“Good,” Cora said, which was not at all what he expected.
“But there’s a difference between running scared and facing it scared.
The first time, you ran. You already know what happened then.
” She tapped his knee once, firm. “So now you also know better. Whether you do anything about it is up to you.”
“What should I do?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “Because then it stops being your choice.” She was quiet for a moment. She looked at him, tired and plain. “Just you, Allan. Not me, not Robby, not what the entire barangay thinks. Just you.”
She stood, brushing off her daster, and paused at the door.
“Just one thing,” she said. “If you’re going to go to Manila for that interview, don’t go there scared.
Go there with your whole heart, really find out what you want, then come back here sure of it, whatever your decision is.
The only thing I can’t stand is if you come back here again, scared and not whole, and then quietly leave all over again. ”
She left him alone on the steps with that, and Allan sat there a long while, watching the morning light climb slowly over the coconut trees, feeling, for the first time since the email arrived, something like clarity starting, cautiously, to surface underneath all the noise.
Ver found him there an hour later, back early from Legazpi for a final dress fitting, and dropped onto the step without any preamble.
“Did Mama tell you what she told me before?” Ver asked. “The ‘alive first’ thing?”
“She told me, yeah.”
“She told me the same thing, when I decided not to go through with law school,” Ver said, surprising him.
“Did you know that? I wanted to be a lawyer once. Then I tried it, and I couldn’t do it, didn’t even really want it, I only kept going because I’d said I wanted it back when I was a kid and I was too embarrassed to take it back.
Mama told me exactly what she told you.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Ver said. “Because you were gone for ten years. Changing your mind isn’t the weak part, Allan. Being too scared to admit to yourself what you actually feel is.”
“That’s annoyingly wise for someone who once stupidly ate an entire lechon by himself on a bet.”
“Can’t I be both,” Ver said, grinning, then sobered again. “Allan. I’m your brother. Whatever you choose, that’s not going to change. But we want to see you happy, not just safe. Secure. There’s a difference, you know that.”
Allan leaned his head briefly on his brother’s shoulder, something he hadn’t done since they were kids sharing a single umbrella on the walk to school.
“Thanks, Kuya.”
“Anytime,” Ver said, and let the silence sit there, comfortable, until it was time to go back inside for the dress fitting neither of them could avoid any longer.
He found Robby that afternoon at the cinema, alone, sanding down the same bench from two weeks ago, movements too careful, too deliberate, the way people worked when they were trying not to think about something else entirely.
“I’m going to Manila,” Allan said, from the doorway.
Robby didn’t look up. “I know. Jake said you already booked a flight.”
“I’m not going there to accept it,” Allan said.
“I’m going to finally get clarity. Actually know what I want instead of guessing at it.
Then I’ll come back. And when I come back—” his voice caught, and he pushed through it anyway “—I want to come back to you too, not just the barangay. You, specifically.”
Robby finally looked up, sawdust on his hands, eyes wary but listening.
“Why did you hesitate to tell me right away?” he said, quieter now, less angry, more simply hurt. “I can wait for your decision, Allan. What I can’t do is be left outside while you’re deciding.”
“Yeah,” Allan said, and for once didn’t dress it up.
“I’m sorry. I did the exact thing I promised you I didn’t want to repeat: I hid inside my own fear, just like before.
But I don’t want to be like that anymore.
So I’m saying it now, even late, even though it’s hard: I’m scared, and I need to face it, and I want you with me through the whole process from now on, even when it’s hard. ”
Robby’s face eased, slow, cautious, like a fist finally deciding to unclench.
“How many days will you be gone?” he asked.
“Three days. Interview, and then I’ve also got a workshop with a partner NGO, an event organized by my former colleagues in DSWD, storm-drawing documentation, like what we’re doing here. Then I’m coming back. Promise.”
“You know what your promises used to be worth,” Robby said, not cruel, just honest.
“Fair,” Allan said. “That’s why this time, it’s not just a promise in words. I’ll tell you every day, if that’s okay, while I’m gone. I won’t disappear.”
Robby studied him a long moment, weighing it, weighing all of it, ten years of history and three weeks of careful new trust standing in the same small, dusty room.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But Allan—” he crossed the space between them, resting a paint-stained hand against Allan’s jaw, gentle, deliberate “—come back because you want to, not because you owe it to us. If you want that life more, tell me. I can accept that, even if it hurts. What I can’t accept is you lying to yourself just so I don’t get hurt. ”
“I don’t want that life,” Allan said, and meant it, fully, for the first time since the email arrived. “But I need to get clarity on it first, so I’m not always scared that I might regret it.”
“Then let’s make this the actual promise,” Robby said, quieter now, like he’d been building up to it the whole conversation.
“If it ever happens again, either of us going quiet, either of us carrying something alone because it feels safer than saying it out loud, we call it out. Both of us. Even if it’s three in the morning. Even if it feels stupid.”
“Both of us,” Allan agreed, and meant it in a way he hadn’t quite been ready to mean it in weeks ago. “We’re both the type to disappear when it gets hard. I know that about myself now. I can’t promise I’ll never want to. I can promise I’ll tell you when I do.”
“Fair,” Robby said, and kissed him once, soft, a promise rather than a goodbye. “Just let me know when you land.”
“Always,” Allan said.
He left the cinema that evening with the mural half-finished behind him, the two painted figures still standing hand in hand under their storm, and for the first time in two weeks, walking away didn’t feel like running.
It felt, finally, like choosing to come back on purpose.