Chapter 28 - The Years Between
Thirty-six became thirty-seven.
Thirty-seven became forty.
Then forty-three.
And for once—
the years did not disappear because I was working through them.
They just—
passed.
Like years were supposed to.
The business kept growing.
Not explosively.
Deliberately.
We added services when demand justified them.
Dropped a few that created more problems than profit.
Hired specialists before pretending I could learn their jobs from YouTube.
Promoted people who had earned it.
Replaced systems that had become too small.
By forty, I owned several businesses again.
Not as many as Original Lia had at the same age.
I also slept.
Excellent trade.
Abigail eventually stopped reporting directly to me every day.
That felt strange.
Then correct.
Operations had grown enough that she had managers under her.
Bea stayed in production leadership.
Claire moved fully into fulfillment and logistics.
Ella became procurement lead.
People who had once waited for me to explain every process were now explaining processes to other people.
Sometimes better than I would have.
Rude.
Beautiful.
One morning, I walked into a meeting five minutes late.
Not intentionally.
Traffic.
Everyone had already started.
No one stopped when I entered.
Abigail just slid the agenda toward me.
I sat.
Listened.
Contributed when needed.
Then left.
Years ago, I would've interpreted that as losing control.
Now?
Efficient.
Ate Bianca's jewelry business became a serious company.
Kuya Nathan and Ate Vivian expanded carefully and somehow ended up with several locations.
Sofia's beauty business stopped being—
Sofia's little online shop
—a long time ago.
She had employees.
Suppliers.
Products with her own branding.
Eventually manufacturing discussions.
The first time she asked me about production facilities, I stared at her.
She frowned.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You're making the face."
"What face?"
"Proud but trying to make it operational."
I laughed.
"Accurate."
Mama and Papa got older.
Slowly.
Annoyingly.
Grey hair.
More maintenance medicines.
More complaints about knees.
Papa started taking longer naps on Sundays.
Mama insisted she was perfectly capable of carrying groceries until all of us collectively stopped allowing it.
She complained.
We ignored her.
Family Sundays changed too.
Sometimes at our house.
Sometimes Ate Bianca's.
Sometimes Kuya Nathan and Ate Vivian's.
Sometimes Sofia hosted and spent the entire day complaining that everyone was ruining her clean kitchen.
No matter where—
Mama still had authority.
Someone started business talk?
"Sunday."
Conversation dead.
Instantly.
Even at forty-three, apparently I still had a boss.
Jane and Camille stayed together.
Then stayed together longer.
Long enough that eventually no one said—
"Jane and her girlfriend."
It was just—
Jane and Camille.
Camille became family-adjacent too.
Tita Navarro liked her.
Chloe liked her.
I liked her.
Which Jane continued treating as an opportunity for harassment.
One dinner, Camille brought dessert.
Jane looked at me.
"She made it."
I stared.
"Good."
"From scratch."
"Excellent."
"She also—"
"Jane."
"What?"
"Stop selling your girlfriend to me."
Camille laughed.
"Premium package."
I pointed at her.
"You're enabling this."
"I'm committed now."
Chloe nodded.
"Understandable."
I hated everyone.
Jane's old type-analysis joke also survived more than a decade.
Which was honestly embarrassing.
At forty-one, we were walking through a mall when I glanced at a woman passing us.
Jane didn't even look at me.
"Very nice legs?"
I stopped.
"WE ARE FORTY-ONE."
She started laughing.
"What does age have to do with eyesight?"
Chloe:
"Valid."
I stared at both of them.
Some friendships matured.
Ours apparently fossilized.
Celeste's tutorial center became multiple branches.
Not twenty.
Not an empire.
Just—
successful.
Grace eventually supervised academics in one location.
Celeste reduced her teaching load without fully stopping.
She still loved teaching.
She just no longer needed to teach every hour to make the business work.
Good.
Her messages changed over the years.
At twenty-four:
can i rent
At thirty:
thinking second location
At thirty-eight:
grace wants to expand senior high programs
At forty-two:
should i buy the property instead of renewing lease
Much better problems.
Still usually followed by—
also
Photo.
I once replied—
you are forty-two
Celeste:
and still pretty
I looked at the photo.
Unfortunately true.
very
Pause.
Then—
are you flirting
I stared.
Some things had apparently survived aging too.
not responsibly
She sent laughing emojis.
Classic.
I dated occasionally.
Not much.
Enough.
A few dinners.
A few women I genuinely liked.
One relationship almost happened around thirty-eight.
We saw each other for several months.
Smart.
Funny.
Good company.
Then both of us realized we liked each other—
but liked our existing lives more than we wanted to combine them.
No betrayal.
No heartbreak worthy of soundtrack.
Just honesty.
We stayed friendly.
That was fine.
By forty, people had started asking me—
"Why are you still single?"
As if I had forgotten.
I usually answered—
"Because I am."
Some accepted that.
Some looked sad for me.
That was their problem.
I wasn't lonely.
I had been lonely before.
This wasn't it.
I had family.
Friends.
Work I liked.
Money.
Trips.
A home I actually used.
People I could call.
People who called me.
And yes—
sometimes it would've been nice to have someone.
Someone permanent.
Someone mine.
But nice to have and missing piece were not the same thing.
I was complete.
Annoying word.
True anyway.
At forty-two, Jane asked me again.
"Do you still want a relationship?"
We were having coffee.
Camille was somewhere else.
Chloe late.
Classic.
I thought about it.
"Maybe."
Jane laughed.
"Still maybe?"
"I don't know."
"You're impossible."
"I've been happy."
"I know."
"If someone comes along, fine."
"And if not?"
I shrugged.
"Next life na lang."
Jane stared.
I almost laughed at her expression.
"What?"
"That sounds so dramatic."
"It isn't."
"Next life talaga?"
"Sure."
She shook her head.
"Okay."
Then Chloe arrived and ruined the conversation by asking for food.
Good.
I said it as a joke.
Obviously.
Because I had no reason to believe there would actually be another life.
At least—
not yet.
By forty-four, the businesses could operate for weeks without me.
Not perfectly.
Nothing did.
But enough.
I worked mostly on strategy.
Large decisions.
Investments.
Leadership.
Occasional problems nobody else had authority to solve.
I had executive teams.
Finance.
Legal.
Operations.
People whose degrees actually matched their jobs.
Beautiful.
I also had hobbies.
Actual hobbies.
Travel.
Reading.
Trying restaurants.
Photography badly.
I bought a piano at forty-one because I'd always wanted one.
I was terrible.
Stayed terrible for months.
No monetization plan.
No content strategy.
No business model.
Just—
terrible piano.
It was wonderful.
I had photos now.
Thousands.
Mama laughing.
Papa asleep.
Sofia holding some ridiculous product sample.
Ate Bianca showing jewelry.
Kuya Nathan pretending not to pose.
Ate Vivian actually posing.
Jane.
Camille.
Chloe.
Celeste at one of her center anniversaries.
Abigail and the old team at company events.
Trips.
Food.
Birthdays.
Ordinary rooms.
Ordinary days.
Work was in the gallery too.
Of course.
But it wasn't the whole gallery anymore.
Then I turned forty-four.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Good.
Because forty-five was coming.
And I remembered exactly what forty-five had meant before.
A desk.
After midnight.
A body that had spent years warning me.
A life I kept postponing.
Death.
A month before my forty-fifth birthday, I opened the old notebook.
Still had it.
Different cover now.
Same pages preserved inside.
My Reset 1 rules.
My twenty-three-year-old panic.
I flipped to the page where I'd written—
I REMEMBERED THIS ONE.
I smiled.
Nearly twenty-one years had passed since then.
I remembered those too.
Not all of them.
Enough.
More than enough.
My phone buzzed.
Group chat.
Jane:
birthday next month
Chloe:
old
Me:
you are literally the same age range
Jane:
what do you want
I stared at the question.
Same one she'd asked at twenty-four.
Back then—
peace.
Sleep.
Chicken.
Chocolate cake.
Cash.
I typed—
same
Jane:
chicken?
yes
Chloe:
cash?
always
Jane:
chocolate cake?
obviously
Then—
anything else
I looked around my house.
Quiet.
Comfortable.
Used.
My piano in one corner.
Photos on shelves.
A suitcase still not completely unpacked from a recent trip.
No office documents on the dining table.
No printer beside my bed.
No work waiting for midnight.
I smiled.
nothing
And this time—
I meant it.