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“for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3: 19
Sophia Laforteza did not believe in religion. But oh how hard she prayed to whatever divine being was out there to fix the mess she had made that night.
Blood dripped down her mouth that night. She stared at her shaking hands in disbelief and at the body that was once so filled with life lay unmoving, its face pale white with a scream forever left in their throat. She gulped.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps approach, coming nearer the room she was in. Goddamn it.
“Sophia, anak anong ginagawa ninyo ng kaibigan mo diyan! Kanina pa kayo!” ( Sophia, what are you and your friend in there? You've been there for quite some time now , get out of your room!) She heard her mom say as her mom’s knocking on her bedroom door continued to persist. Sure, her friend was laying there dead, but aside from that they weren’t doing anything bad—right? Sophia didn’t know what to say or if she trusted her voice to not betray her at the very moment. How would she explain to her mom that her so-called friend is dead, and she was the reason.
“Wait lang, Ma! May inaayos lang” ( Just wait, mom. We’re just fixing something ). Sophia tried reasoning. A shitty excuse if you will, because according to universal rules, your mom just knows when and where you’re lying. Because within a second Sophia’s bedroom door burst open.
The young Filipina stood bewildered. Since when did her mom have such strength? But, she didn’t have time to ponder about her mom’s unexpected strength, she had bigger problems to worry about. Like, how could she explain her friend’s dead body on her bed. Or her bloody mouth?
Before Sophia’s brain could begin coming up with ridiculous reasons to explain the scene that laid in front of her. Her mom simply sighed, as if the opening the bedroom door of your only daughter only to be met with her once neatly ironed uniform stained with blood, her mouth suspiciously dripping with blood she had yet to wipe, and not to forget her friend’s dead body on her bed, emphasis on the dead—is as normal as seeing your daughter forget to put her laundry in the washer, or leaving her bedroom a bloody mess.
Her mother moved in an eerily calculated manner, as if this has happened before. As if this was as normal as it could possibly get. As if she knew exactly what had happened.
“Ma, I can explain. I promise, I don’t know what happened! I was just-” Sophia rambled, her mom, Carla Guevara Laforteza—a rather prominent icon in the theater scene—stood unimpressed.
“Ang sabi nila it wouldn’t happen so early. That it would still take years before it actually happens” (they said it wouldn’t happen so early,) her mom muttered.
“Ma?” Sophia looked at her mother, her mother seemingly interrupted in her thoughts, looked at her youngest daughter, her eyes filled with an emotion Sophia failed to recognize. Instead of screaming, her mother closed the gap between Sophia and her, and pulled the young Filipina into a tight embrace. Before Sophia could do anything like muscle memory she found herself sobbing into her mother’s shoulder, muttering phrases of apologies, strings of ‘i don’t knows’ and ‘please help me’
Carla, her mother, grabbed Sophia’s shoulder and made her look her in the eye. Sophia’s face was stained with tears, her mouth still stained with blood.
“Sophia, please stop crying,” The young Filipina so overwhelmed with emotions, thought if she heard her mother right. “Let’s fix this mess of yours first, okay?”
“Ma, naman! Paano mo ‘to aayusin!? Patay na yung tao! Oh my god, I killed my friend. Oh my god, I’m a murderer! Ma, why are you acting like this is nothing!? I KILLED someone!” Sophia says exasperated. (Come on, mom! How would you fix this?! A person’s dead! Oh my god, I killed my friend. Oh my god, I’m a murderer. Mom, why are you acting like this is nothing! I just killed someone!)
“I’ll fix it, me and your father will explain everything tonight.”
Sophia nodded numbly, still trembling as she watched her mom make a phone call to god knows who. She only stood there staring down at her friend’s lifeless eyes with a scream forever stuck in her throat stare back at her.
What a mess.