Between The Lines Of What Was (BOOK 1)

CHAPTER FIVE: The Next Page We Write

The first time I wake up and don’t think about Elias is a Saturday in December — the air is cool with a pre-Christmas breeze, and the sound of parols being hung up in the street drifts up to my window. I stretch my arms above my head, look at the empty space next to me in bed, and feel not sadness, but peace. It’s not that I’ve forgotten him — how could I? He was part of my story, part of the lines that led me here. But he’s no longer the one writing the words. I am. I get out of bed, make myself a cup of barako, and carry it to the table where my notebook sits open to a blank page — the next page.

I decided to take a walk to the bookstore in Cubao, the one where Elias held my hand for the first time. It’s been years since I’ve been there alone, and when I walk in, the same old smell of paper and coffee wraps around me like a hug. The owner, Ate Rosa, looks up from the counter and smiles. “Estrella! Long time no see,” she says. “I still have that poetry collection you asked for — the one by Merlinda Bobis. I knew you’d come back for it someday.” I thanked her and took the book from her hands, running my fingers over the cover. It’s the same book I’d been wanting the day I met Elias — the one I’d put back because he’d wanted to buy me a different one, a novel about two people who fall in love and never let go.

I think about my cousin Jake, who called me that afternoon from Davao. “You won’t believe it,” he says, his voice full of excitement. “That old woman I told you about — the one who’d hidden her love for fifty years — she finally found him. He lives in Cagayan de Oro now, widowed too. They’re meeting next week. She told me she’s not scared anymore. She said, ‘Life’s too short to let silence write your story.’” I felt tears prick my eyes as I listened to him talk. It’s not just her story that’s changing — it’s all of ours. We’re all learning to turn the page, to write the words we’ve been too scared to say, to find the love we’ve been hiding from.

I sat down in a corner of the bookstore, opened the Bobis collection, and read the first poem. It’s about a woman who sails across the ocean to find herself, and in the middle of the poem, there’s a line that stops me cold: “The sea doesn’t care if you’re lost — it just carries you forward, if you let it.” I close the book and pull out my notebook, writing those words down. For three years, I’d been fighting the current, trying to swim back to the shore where Elias was waiting. But now I know I don’t have to swim back. I can let the sea carry me forward — to new shores, new stories, new versions of myself.

That evening, Maya, Sofia, and Leo came over to my apartment for dinner. I cook adobo the way Tita Liza taught me — with extra garlic and a splash of coconut vinegar — and we eat at the table, laughing and talking as the sun sets over the city. Sofia pulls out her camera and takes pictures of us — of Maya and I are hugging, of Leo telling a joke, of all of us raising our glasses of wine to toast “the next page.” When she shows me the photos later, I look at my face and barely recognize myself. My eyes are bright, my smile is real, and there’s a light in me that wasn’t there before — the light of someone who knows who she is and where she’s going.

I thought about Elias that night, as I was washing the dishes. I wonder where he is, what he’s doing, if he ever thinks about me. But for the first time, the wondering doesn’t hurt. It’s just curiosity — like wondering about a character in a book you read a long time ago. I hope he’s happy. I hope he’s found the story he wanted to write. I hope he’s learned to love himself, too. Because even though our stories didn’t end the way I’d planned, I’m grateful for the time we had — grateful for the lines he helped me write, grateful for the space between them that led me to myself.

I pick up my notebook and write: “The next page isn’t about forgetting the past — it’s about carrying it with you, not as a weight, but as a gift. It’s about taking the lessons you’ve learned, the love you’ve felt, the pain you’ve endured, and using them to write something new. It’s about knowing that you don’t need anyone else to complete your story — you just need the courage to keep writing it. For me, the next page is about travel. About taking that trip to Palawan I’ve been dreaming of. About writing a collection of poems about the stars and the sea and the people who’ve touched my life. About letting myself be seen, fully and completely, by the world.”

The next morning, I booked a ticket to Palawan for the first week of January. I don’t tell anyone — not Maya, not Leo, not Tita Liza. It’s my secret, but this time, it’s not a secret I’m hiding. It’s a secret I’m holding close, a gift I’m giving myself. As I look at the confirmation email on my phone, I feel a flutter of excitement in my chest — the same flutter I used to feel when I’d sit down to write a new story. This is my new story. This is my next page.

I went back to the bookstore that afternoon and bought a journal to take with me to Palawan — small enough to fit in my bag, with pages that are soft and worn, like they’re waiting to be filled. Ate Rosa sees me and hands me a small, wrapped package. “For your trip,” she says. “Something to remind you that stories are everywhere — you just have to look for them.” I open it and find a small, wooden pen — the kind that writes smoothly, the kind that makes you want to fill every page. I thank her and hold the pen in my hand, feeling its weight. It’s not just a pen — it’s a promise. A promise to keep writing, to keep exploring, to keep loving myself.

That night, I stood on my balcony and looked at the stars. They’re shining brighter than ever, and I think about all the lines I’ve written, all the space between them, all the pages I have yet to fill. I think about Tita Liza’s box of dreams, about Leo’s painting, about Jake’s patient finding her love, about Kuya Manny’s son’s restaurant. We’re all writing our own stories, drawing our own lines, sailing our own seas. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about — not the ending, not the neat lines, not the heroes and villains. It’s about the act of writing. It’s about the next page. It’s about loving yourself enough to see where the story takes you.

I go inside, sit down at my table, and open my new travel journal. I pick up the wooden pen and write the first line of the next chapter of my life: “I am on my way to the sea, to find the stories that live between the waves — and to write the one that lives inside me.” The words flow smoothly, easily, like they’ve been waiting to be written all along. I close the journal, smile, and look out the window one more time. The stars are still shining, and I know I’m one of them — burning bright, sailing forward, ready to write the next page.