Unseen

Chapter Five

Mart One in Laoag rose above the morning traffic like a monument to everyday life. Its wide glass façade mirrored the early light, while the automatic doors slid open and shut with a quiet sigh each time someone stepped near them. The department store stretched upward in clean layers of escalators and bright floors filled with clothes, household goods and school supplies section on the ground level. It was a small world within a larger world, always awake, always moving.

Downstairs, Olivia stood at her cashier station, her posture neat and still, as though she had been carved gently into the spot. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, though a few strands had escaped to brush softly against her cheeks. Her face held a quiet gentleness that made people instinctively lower their voices when they spoke to her. Her eyes, warm brown and steady, had a softness that came from years of learning how to survive without disturbing anyone’s peace. She looked fragile, but her fragility was shaped by endurance, not weakness.

The scanner beeped with each item she passed, a steady rhythm she had grown used to. Olivia greeted customers with soft politeness, offering small smiles even when her bones felt heavy. The store was always cold, the kind of cold that settled not only on the skin but somewhere deeper, where fatigue liked to hide.

In the back of her mind, Helena’s voice still lingered from that morning. Cold. Sharp. Final.

Do not expect anything. You already have more than you deserve.

Olivia inhaled slowly through her nose. She had stopped expecting long ago. Expectation only brought disappointment, and she had learned to hold her dreams quietly, like fragile things that could shatter under the weight of someone else’s indifference.

Architecture had once been her dream. When she was younger, she drew houses in her school notebooks, little windows filled with light, staircases that curled like ribbons, gardens she imagined running through barefoot. But dreams demanded money, support, encouragement. None of which her family ever offered. So she placed her dream into a worn envelope, tucked it at the bottom of her bag, and shifted her path toward something she could afford. Hotel and Restaurant Services at Data Center College. A diploma instead of a degree. A future that was smaller but still hers.

She clung to that. It was the only thing she had.

The automatic doors slid open as Mae stepped in, sunlight catching her chestnut dyed hair. Mae didn’t walk so much as bounce, her energy bright and unfiltered. She was the daughter of the Salvador family’s housekeeper, raised in the same household as Olivia but treated with far more warmth. Over the years, Mae had become more sister than friend, refusing to let Olivia sink into the shadows she had been pushed into. Mae’s laughter was fearless, her loyalty fierce.

Jonathan followed behind her. Taller, composed, the quiet to Mae’s fire. He walked with an easy confidence shaped by the middle class life he lived, simple, steady, full of possibilities Olivia sometimes envied. His mother worked in Canada, and his papers were already being processed for sponsorship. He never bragged. He simply carried the hope of a better future like a promise folded neatly in his pocket.

He approached Olivia’s counter with a bottle of cold water in hand. “You look exhausted,” he said softly.

She managed a small smile. “It’s nothing.”

Jonathan shook his head. “Everything for you becomes nothing too fast.”

Mae rolled her eyes playfully. “Via, if you don’t stop trying to be a saint, you’re going to evaporate.”

Olivia laughed under her breath, the sound small but sincere. She finished her shift soon after, clocked out, and grabbed her canvas bag. Inside were her notebooks, her packed lunch, a few borrowed textbooks, and the envelope of old sketches she refused to throw away.

They stepped out of Mart One and into the warm hum of Laoag’s afternoon. Jeepneys rumbled along the road. Street vendors shouted their prices. Students rushed toward their schools with arms full of books. The city felt alive, and for a moment, Olivia let the noise wash away her exhaustion.

Mae chatted the entire walk to Data Center College, telling stories from home, gossip about classmates, and random thoughts that made Jonathan shake his head with quiet amusement.

Olivia walked between them, warmed by their presence, grateful for the simple comfort they offered without asking anything in return.

As they reached the school gates, Olivia paused. Something in the air felt different. A change too subtle to name. A tremor beneath the familiar.

Jonathan looked back at her. “You alright?”

“Yes,” she whispered, though she wasn’t completely sure.

She took a breath, stepped forward, and crossed the threshold into the next small piece of her day.

Unaware that life around her had begun to shift in ways still unseen.