Work Text:
I wake up to a message from Mikha.
i told them na
Just four words waiting on my screen at 6:18 on a Monday morning.
Small.
Plain.
Almost harmless.
The kind of message you could read too quickly and not realize your whole life had already changed somewhere eleven hours ahead of you.
For a few seconds, I only stare.
My room is still gray from sleep. The curtains are half-open, letting in a thin stripe of morning light that cuts across the floor. Somewhere outside, someone drags a trash bin along the pavement. The pipes in the apartment above mine groan awake.
Everything sounds normal.
That is the first thing I hate.
How dare the world sound normal?
How dare morning arrive so gently when something has already happened without me?
I read the message again.
i told them na
Mikha was always in my future.
That was how I thought of her.
When I woke up, she had already lived most of the day. When I ate lunch, she was getting ready for bed. When I looked at the moon, sometimes it had already left her sky.
Eleven hours.
We had learned how to love inside it.
My mornings were her evenings.
My late afternoons caught the last tired edge of her voice.
Sometimes I opened my eyes to long messages she had sent while I was asleep. Sometimes she stayed awake too late just to hear my voice for ten more minutes. We did mundane things together through video calls. Ate meals facing screens. Sent photos of just about anything.
We made routines out of distance.
A kiss pressed against a camera before hanging up.
A message that said home na so the other one could finally stop worrying.
We treated ordinary things like proof.
Proof that we were real.
Proof that love could still have weight even when there was an ocean under it.
And while I was sleeping, Mikha had told them.
Late morning for her.
Maybe after breakfast.
Maybe while her mother was still holding a mug.
Maybe while her father was scrolling through his phone.
I picture her sitting at their table, shoulders stiff, fingers wrapped around something warm she is no longer drinking.
I wonder how long she stared at the rim of the cup before speaking.
I wonder if she said my name.
I wonder if my name sounded wrong inside a house that had never made room for me.
I type:
what happened?
Delivered.
Not read.
I stay where I am.
Still beneath the blanket.
Still holding my phone close to my face.
At 6:19, the message changes.
Read.
The typing bubble appears.
Disappears.
Appears again.
Then my phone starts ringing.
Video call.
Mikha.
I answer before I can think.
Her face fills the screen.
She is still in her office.
The lights above her are too bright. Papers sit in uneven stacks on one side of her desk.
She has closed the door.
I can tell by the way she keeps glancing toward it.
“Hi,” I say.
For a moment, there is only silence.
Then Mikha breathes.
“Hi.”
I know immediately.
There are voices you know too well.
Voices that can lie to everyone except you.
Hers sounds scraped thin.
Like she has been swallowing tears for hours.
I pull the blanket closer around myself.
“What happened?”
She does not answer.
“Mikha.”
“I told them.”
“I know.”
“I really told them.”
“I know, love.”
The word breaks her.
Not loudly.
Mikha has never cried loudly.
She cries in small, ashamed sounds, as if pain is something she should apologize for taking up space.
I press my hand against my mouth. “What did they say?”
“My mom cried.”
I close my eyes. “And your dad?”
“He didn’t say much.”
“What happened?”
“I told them after breakfast.”
So I was asleep.
While she was sitting at that table, telling the truth about us, I was asleep.
“What did you say?”
“That there was someone.”
My fingers tighten around my phone. “And?”
“My dad asked who he was.”
I can almost see her face.
That small pause.
That breath.
“I told him it wasn’t a he.”
“What did they do?”
“Nothing.”
Her voice shakes. “Not at first.”
I wait.
“My mom asked if I was joking.”
“And you said no.”
“Yes.”
A tiny ache moves through my chest.
She said yes.
She did not take me back before I had even entered the room.
“She asked if I was sure.”
“What did you say?”
“Yes.”
That one lands differently.
Warm and painful at the same time.
Like being held by someone who is already letting go.
“She asked how long,” Mikha continues.
“What did you tell her?”
“A few months.”
“Did they ask who I was?”
“Yes.”
My heart stutters. “What did you say?”
“That we met online.”
“Did you tell them my name?”
A pause. “Yes.”
My name.
Inside their house.
I stare at the soft fold of blanket beneath my hand.
“What did your mom say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She just cried more.”
I laugh once.
Not because it is funny.
Because I do not know what else to do with the image of a woman crying over my name without ever knowing me.
Mikha goes quiet.
“Sorry,” I say.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I.”
The line fills with our breathing.
I shift higher against my pillows. Morning still clings to my face. My hair is tangled. My eyes are barely open.
Mikha looks tired.
Not sleepy.
Tired in the way people look when something inside them has been arguing for too long.
I raise my hand to the screen before realizing how useless it is.
“Hi,” I whisper.
She gives me a weak smile. “Hi.”
“What did your dad say?”
“He asked if we’ve met.”
“And?”
“I said no.”
I wait.
“He said I don’t really know you.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That talking through a screen isn’t the same.”
I look away.
He does not know the shape of our days.
He does not know I can tell when Mikha is sad by the way she types alright.
He does not know she listens to the same song for days when she likes it.
He does not know how she sounds just before she falls asleep.
He does not know that distance does not make love less real.
Only hungrier.
“What did your mom say?” I ask.
“She kept asking where she went wrong.”
“She didn’t.”
“I told her that.”
“What else?”
“She said she loves me.”
The way Mikha says it makes love sound like something heavy placed on the table.
“She said she’ll always love me. But she can’t accept this.”
I swallow. “This?”
“Us.”
No one speaks.
Someone walks past her office.
Mikha lowers her voice.
“What did you say?”
“I said you make me happy.”
My eyes fill. “Mikha.”
“I told them you’re good to me.” Her lips tremble. “I told them I love you.”
That should comfort me.
It should.
Instead, it feels like flowers being placed beside a grave.
“What did they say?”
“My mom said love isn’t always enough.”
I go still.
I stare at her.
She looks down.
“What?”
“She said people love things that aren’t good for them all the time.”
I feel something cold move through me “And your dad?”
“He said people will talk.”
Of course.
People.
Always people.
People who do not know me.
People who do not know her.
People who will never be there when she is sick or scared or lonely.
People who do not know the way she laughs when she is too tired to make sense.
People who have never loved either of us.
Yet somehow they have a place in the room.
I do not.
“He said relatives will find out,” Mikha continues. “People at church. Neighbors.”
“And your mom?”
“She said I should stop before it gets more serious.”
I look at her. “More serious?”
“She thinks because we haven’t met…”
“She thinks it isn’t real.”
Mikha closes her eyes. “Yes.”
The word hurts.
Not because I believe them.
Because I know how exhausting it must be to keep defending something everyone around you has already decided not to understand.
“Did they ask you to end it?”
The question comes out too quickly.
Mikha does not answer.
My stomach drops.
“Mikha.”
“They didn’t say it exactly like that.”
“But?”
“My mom asked me not to talk to you anymore.”
The room goes very still.
I grip the edge of the blanket.
“Anymore?”
Mikha’s eyes leave mine. “She said she couldn’t handle knowing it was still happening.”
“What did you say?”
A pause.
Too long.
“Mikha.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
I nod slowly.
It should not hurt this much.
She did not say yes.
She did not say no.
But sometimes silence is not confusion.
Sometimes it is the beginning of surrender.
“Oh.”
“Aiah.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to stop talking to you.”
I look at her. “Then don’t.”
The words leave me before I can soften them.
Not an order.
Not a challenge.
Just the truth, frightened and small.
Mikha’s eyes fill. “My mom hasn’t stopped crying.”
I close my eyes.
There it is.
The thing already pulling her away.
Not hate.
That would be easier.
Guilt.
The kind wrapped in love.
The kind that says, Look what your happiness is doing to us.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers.
I look at her face on my screen.
The woman I love.
The woman I have planned a future with in that silly, careful way people in long-distance relationships do.
She once sent me photo of a ring at three in the morning with the message:
pag stable na tayo, ito
I replied:
sure ka?
She said:
ikaw ba, sure ka sa akin?
I answered:
always.
Now she sits eleven hours ahead of me, inside her office with the door shut, asking what to do as if there is a correct answer that does not destroy anyone.
There is not.
I could tell her to ignore them.
I could tell her to leave.
I could say, If you love me, choose me.
But I love her too much to turn her family into a test.
So I swallow everything sharp.
“You don’t have to figure everything out right now,” I say.
Mikha looks at me. “I think I do.”
Something in the way she says it makes my stomach twist. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t go home later and pretend nothing happened.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I can’t keep lying to them.”
“You told them the truth.”
“I know.”
“Then you’re not lying anymore.”
She shakes her head. “If we keep talking and I hide it…”
“Why would you have to hide it?”
“You know why.”
“No.”
My voice is sharper now. “I know why they want you to. That doesn’t mean you have to.”
Mikha looks toward the office door again. “I can’t keep seeing my mom like that.”
My fingers loosen around the blanket. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“Aiah.”
“You wouldn’t have called me looking like this if you didn’t.”
She closes her eyes.
I watch her breathe.
Once.
Twice.
“Mikha.”
“I thought I could do it.”
“Do what?”
“Tell them.”
“You did.”
“No.”
Her voice cracks. “I thought I could tell them and still…” She stops.
“Still what?”
“Still keep everything.”
The words come out quietly.
Almost childlike.
I stare at her.
Everything.
Her parents.
Their approval.
Their home.
Me.
A future that asks no one to pay for it.
“You can,” I whisper.
She looks at me.
The hope on my face must be unbearable because she starts crying again.
“I don’t think I can.”
My chest tightens. “What does that mean?”
“Aiah…”
“No.” I shake my head. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s the last time.”
She covers her mouth.
The answer is already there.
I can see it in the way she looks at me.
The way people look at something they have not left yet but already miss.
“No,” I say. “Mikha, no.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“I don’t know what else…”
“Then don’t say anything.”
She cries quietly.
I stare at her through the screen.
I'm still in bed. Still wrapped in my blanket. Still only half awake.
It is 6:31 in the morning.
Less than fifteen minutes ago, we were still together in the uncomplicated way people are together before one sentence changes the meaning of everything.
“You’re ending this,” I say. It does not sound like a question.
Mikha looks down at her desk. “I think I have to.”
My hand goes cold. “You think?”
“I can’t do this to them.”
I close my eyes.
I could say, What about me?
I could ask why their pain is urgent while mine is treated like something I can survive quietly.
But I know how it will sound.
Like a choice.
I do not want to do that to her.
Even now.
Especially now.
“I’m not asking you to leave them,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to choose me over your family.”
“I know.”
“I would never ask you to do that.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
Mikha says nothing.
I laugh once.
Not because it is funny.
Because the silence is already the answer.
“Is this what you want?”
“No.” The answer comes immediately.
“Then don’t.”
“Aiah…”
“Then don’t do it.”
“I can’t keep hurting them.”
My eyes burn. “I’m not asking you to hurt them.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to fight with them.”
“I know.”
“I’m just asking you not to end us because they cried.”
Her face crumples. “That’s not fair.”
“I know.” I wipe my face with the edge of the blanket “None of this is fair.”
She looks away. “I thought they would need time.”
“So give them time.”
“What?”
“Give them time.” My words come faster now. “They don’t have to accept it today. They don’t have to understand me today. They don’t even have to like me.”
“Aiah.”
“We can slow down. We don’t have to tell anyone else.”
I hate the desperation in my own voice.
The way I am already offering pieces of our future just to keep the rest alive.
“I can wait.”
“You’ve already waited.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I don’t.”
“You should be with someone who…”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t decide what I deserve because it makes leaving easier.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Her eyes fill again.
“You’re trying to make this sound like you’re doing something good for me.”
“I’m not good for you right now.”
“I didn’t ask you to be good.”
“Aiah…”
“I asked you to stay.”
Silence.
The office light washes her face pale.
Someone knocks softly on her door.
Mikha freezes.
“Just a minute,” she calls, wiping her cheeks quickly.
Her voice changes.
Professional.
Steady.
Almost normal.
Footsteps move away.
She looks back at me.
I think that is what breaks me.
How easily the world asks her to continue.
How she can answer a knock while our whole future sits dying between us.
“You won’t even fight for me?” I ask.
The words come out small.
Not angry.
Almost embarrassed.
Mikha closes her eyes. “I did.”
“You told them once.”
“I told them I love you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Aiah.”
“You told them and they cried, and now you’re here ending us before they even had one full day to sit with it.”
She flinches. “I know.”
“You didn’t even give them time.”
“I know what they believe.”
“So?”
“So they’re not going to change.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“No.” My voice breaks. “You’re scared they won’t.”
She says nothing.
I look at her.
“You’re scared to hope.”
“I can’t build my life around people changing.”
“But you built ours around the promise that one day they might understand.”
“I was wrong.”
The sentence lands hard.
I stare at her.
“No.”
“Aiah.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You don’t get to call us a mistake because they didn’t react the way you wanted.”
“I didn’t say we were a mistake.”
“You said you were wrong.”
“I was wrong to think I could keep you.”
Keep me.
As if I was something she had borrowed.
Something beautiful she was always expected to return.
“You can keep me,” I whisper.
Mikha covers her mouth.
“I’m right here.”
She cries harder.
“I’m still here.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking like I’m already gone.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Then don’t let me.”
“Aiah…”
“You’re just letting me go like that?”
“No.”
“Then stop.” My voice breaks completely “Stop me.”
She stares at me.
I wait.
For a sentence.
For courage.
For anything that sounds like she might still reach.
Nothing comes.
“You told me forever,” I whisper.
“I meant it.”
“You told me we’d figure everything out.”
“I wanted to.”
“You told me love was enough.”
Mikha breaks.
Her whole face folds.
“It isn’t.”
No.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Aiah…”
“No, don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t rewrite us.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” My voice cracks. “You don’t get to spend months convincing me I’m safe with you…” I laugh through my tears. “…then suddenly tell me love isn’t enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I said stop.”
“I don’t know what else…”
“I don’t need sorry.” I look at her. “I need you.”
Mikha cries harder than I have ever seen.
I hate that I am the one making her cry.
I hate that she is the one leaving.
I hate that both can be true.
“I don’t want you thinking I didn’t love you enough,” she says.
I laugh softly. “That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“I know you love me.”
Her face twists.
“I know.” I press my hand against my chest “If you didn’t, I could hate you.”
“It was real.”
“I know.”
“I still love you.”
“I know.”
There it is.
The cruelest truth.
She loves me.
And she is still leaving.
“I’m not asking you to choose me,” I say. “I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
“I’m not asking you to abandon them.”
“I know.”
“But not asking doesn’t mean I want to let you go.”
Mikha covers her mouth.
“I don’t.” My voice becomes small. “I don’t want this.”
“I know.”
“I want you to stay.”
“I know.”
“I want you to call me tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I want the trip.”
She shuts her eyes. “Aiah…”
“I want all of it.”
I wipe my face with both hands. “And I hate that I have to act like understanding why you’re leaving makes it hurt less.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No.” I shake my head. “It doesn’t.”
Mikha looks down at her hands. “I don’t know how to keep being your girlfriend and still go home tonight.”
I swallow. “You just do.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“My mom will ask me.”
“Then tell her the truth.”
“She’ll cry.”
“I know.”
“My dad won’t speak to me.”
“I know.”
“Everyone will look at me differently.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice rises for the first time. “You don’t know what it feels like to go home and feel like your parents are grieving you while you’re standing right there.”
I go quiet.
She looks sorry immediately.
“Aiah…”
“No.” I wipe my face. “You’re right.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“You’re right.”
The room around me brightens slowly as morning arrives.
“I don’t know what that feels like.”
She says nothing.
“But you don’t know what it feels like to be the person everyone thinks should disappear so the family can be okay again.”
Mikha closes her eyes.
“I know they didn’t say it like that,” I continue. “I know they don’t know me. I know they think they’re protecting you.” My breath shakes. “But I’m still the thing being removed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Say you’re staying.”
Silence.
I close my eyes.
There it is.
The answer.
“You know what hurts the most?”
Mikha looks at me. “What?”
“You didn’t even wait.”
“Aiah…”
“You told them this morning.”
“I know.”
“And before the day even ended, you decided we couldn’t survive it.”
“I didn’t decide quickly.”
“You did.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for months.”
The words stop me. “What?”
Mikha’s face changes.
Regret.
Immediate.
“What do you mean?”
“I knew this could happen.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Aiah.”
“You’ve been thinking about leaving me?”
“No.”
“Then what have you been thinking about?”
“How impossible this is.”
I stare at her.
While I had been saving apartments.
While I had been adding songs to our playlist.
While I had been counting down to our trip.
She had been measuring how much it would hurt to lose me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be real.”
“But it was real enough for you to prepare.”
“I didn’t prepare.”
“You did more than I did.” My voice cracks “I went to sleep thinking you were telling them because you wanted a future with me.”
“I did.”
“And I woke up inside the ending.”
Mikha presses both hands against her face “I’m sorry.”
“Stop.”
“I never wanted…”
“Stop saying what you didn’t want.”
She lowers her hands.
I am crying too hard now to hide it. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
She looks at me. “I’m ending it.”
The words are barely audible.
Still, they reach me.
Clear.
Final.
For a moment, I cannot breathe.
There it is.
The name of the wound.
I nod slowly.
Once.
Then again.
As if my body is agreeing before my heart can stop it.
“So that’s it?”
Mikha cries. “I don’t know how else…”
“You keep saying you don’t know how.” I laugh through my tears. “But you know how to leave.”
“Aiah.”
“You know how to tell me it’s over.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know how to ask me to understand.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You are.” I look at her. “You called me because you needed me to tell you it’s okay.”
“No.”
“You need me to make you feel like you’re not breaking me.”
“That’s not why I called.”
“Then why?”
“Because I couldn’t end it through a message.”
I shut my eyes.
The answer is honest.
That makes it worse.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She flinches. “For what?”
“For calling.”
“Aiah…”
“At least I got to watch you leave.”
She cries harder.
I hate myself for saying it.
Still, I do not take it back.
For a while, neither of us speaks.
The call stays connected.
Two women crying in different time zones.
No shouting.
No villain walking into the room.
Just love becoming impossible because too many people are afraid of it.
I stare at her office.
The desk behind her.
The stacks of papers.
Ordinary things.
Objects that will remain where they are after the call ends.
“Can you move the phone closer?” I ask.
She does.
Her face fills the screen.
Eyes swollen.
She looks exhausted.
I want to remember her like this.
Not because she looks beautiful.
Though she does.
Because I need proof that I mattered enough to break something in her too.
“I love you,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop.”
“Aiah…”
“Alam mo…” My voice shakes. “…ang sakit pala no?”
Mikha cannot answer.
“Kasi hindi naman tayo nagkulang.”
She covers her mouth.
“Hindi tayo nagloko.” My tears fall harder “Hindi tayo nagsinungaling sa isa’t isa.”
“Aiah.”
“Hindi tayo nanakit ng tao.” I laugh, but it sounds ruined. “So bakit tayo yung kailangang mawala?”
Mikha cries silently.
No answer.
There is no answer that would not hurt.
“I needed your courage,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t ask for an apology.”
She closes her eyes.
“I asked for you.”
Neither of us knows how to end the call.
Maybe we think if we stay connected long enough, time will get tired and give us back what it has taken.
It does not.
The clock keeps moving.
Someone passes her office.
A car starts outside my window.
The pipes groan again.
How unfair.
How dare the world continue?
Eventually, Mikha asks, “Will you be okay?”
I almost laugh.
Instead, I say, “Not for a while.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“Can I still message you?”
The question hurts in a different place. “For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Exactly.
She wants me gone enough to quiet the house.
Still close enough to make the loss gentler.
I know she does not mean to be cruel.
That almost makes it worse.
“I can’t be your friend.”
She nods slowly. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“No.” A pause. “Maybe I don’t.”
I look at the clock.
6:57.
My day has barely started.
Hers is already ending.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispers.
“Don’t say that.”
“What should I say?”
I want her to say, I changed my mind.
I want her to say, I’m staying.
Instead, I say, “Nothing.”
Her lips tremble.
“Goodbye, Mikha.”
“Aiah.”
I wait.
She looks at me as if there is still a sentence somewhere that could save us.
There is not.
“I love you,” she says.
I close my eyes.
There are words that heal.
There are words that hurt because they are still true.
“I love you too.”
The call ends.
I stay in bed long after the screen goes dark.
Days become weeks.
Weeks become months.
People assume silence means healing.
Sometimes silence is just grief learning how to breathe quietly.
One afternoon, I pass a jewelry store.
There is a ring in the window.
The same one Mikha once sent me at three in the morning.
pag stable na tayo, ito
I have enough money now.
Funny.
A year later, someone asks me why it ended.
I smile politely.
“Distance.”
It is easier.
People understand distance.
Distance has no mother crying at a dining table.
No father afraid of gossip.
No religion turned into a wall.
No daughter trying to keep everyone she loves.
No woman waking up to four words that change the shape of her life.
Just distance.
Eleven hours.
Two countries.
Bad timing.
Clean.
Believable.
A lie with enough truth inside it.
Sometimes I still wake up at 6:18.
Not often.
Only on certain Mondays.
The light falls across the floor in the same thin stripe.
A trash bin scrapes along the pavement.
The apartment pipes groan.
And for one stupid second, before memory settles in, I think my phone has lit up.
i told them na
In another life, maybe that message would have been the beginning.
In this one, it was the first line of our ending.