Between The Lines Of What Was (BOOK 1)

CHAPTER ONE: The Draft That Never Ended

We all tell stories. About the people we love, the days we’ve lost, the versions of ourselves we used to be. I write mine in a worn leather notebook that’s been with me since I was twenty-two — the year I met Elias. The pages are creased, stained with coffee and tears, and filled with words I’ve crossed out so many times they bleed into the paper like old wounds. I used to think if I just polished the lines enough, made the ending neat enough, the story would stop hurting. Now I know I was just hiding the truth in the spaces between.

The apartment is quiet today, save for the hum of the window and the distant sound of jeepneys honking — the same sound that filled the air the first time Elias held my hand. We were walking to a little bookstore in Cubao, and he’d pointed to a street vendor selling isaw and said, “You know what the best stories are? The ones you find in the most ordinary places.” Back then, I’d laughed and told him he was being too poetic. Now I sit here, staring at that same street from my window, and I know he was right. The ordinary parts are the ones that cut the deepest.

I pull out my notebook and flip to the first page of the draft I’ve been working on for three years. “Elias was the kind of man who made the world feel brighter,” it says. It’s a pretty line. A neat line. But it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is that he also made the world feel smaller — like the only thing that mattered was the space between us, and when he left, that space felt like an ocean I could never cross. I cross out the line and write underneath: “Elias was the kind of man who made me forget how to stand on my own.” My hand shakes as I write it, but it feels like breathing for the first time in years.

I think about my Tita Liza, who lives in Cebu and calls me every Sunday. She tells me stories about her youth — about the man she almost married, about the job she turned down to take care of her family, about the dreams she tucked away in a box under her bed. “We all have our secrets, anak,” she says every time I try to tell her I’m fine. “The trick is not to let them bury you.” I used to think she was talking about hiding things from other people. Now I know she was talking about hiding things from myself. The secret I’ve been keeping isn’t about Elias — it’s about the part of me that let him define my worth.

The phone rings, and I jump. It’s Maya, my best friend since college, who’s been trying to get me out of the apartment for weeks. “Hey, starlight,” she says — the nickname she gave me because my name means “star,” and I used to spend hours staring at the sky, waiting for Elias to call. “I’m outside your building. I brought halo-halo from that place you love in Malate. Open the door.” I want to say no, to tell her I’m busy writing, but I know she won’t leave. So I get up and walk to the door, my feet heavy on the wooden floor.

When I open it, Maya is standing there with two big cups of halo-halo, her hair tied back in a messy bun, her eyes soft with worry. “I know you’re working on your story,” she says, pushing past me and setting the cups on the table. “But you can’t write about the past if you’re still living in it.” She sits down next to me and picks up my notebook, flipping through the pages. “These lines are beautiful, Estrella,” she says. “But where are you in them? All I see is Elias. All I see is what was. Where’s what is?”

I look at her, and the words I’ve been holding in come pouring out. “I’m scared,” I say, my voice cracking. “I’m scared that if I write the truth — that I was so desperate to be loved that I lost myself in him — no one will read it. That no one will care. That I’ll just be another girl who got her heart broken.” Maya reaches over and takes my hand. “You know what my lola used to say?” she asks. “‘The stories that matter most are the ones that make you bleed, because those are the ones that make you real.’”

We sit there in silence for a while, eating our halo-halo, watching the sun set over the city. I think about all the stories I’ve read — the ones with heroes who save the day, the ones with villains who get what they deserve, the ones with endings that wrap everything up in a neat bow. I used to want my story to be like that. But now I realize that real stories don’t have neat endings. They have messy middles and uncertain futures and lines that blur between what’s true and what’s wanted.

I pick up my pen again and flip to a new page in my notebook. I write: “The day Elias left, he didn’t say goodbye. He just left a note on the fridge that said ‘I’m sorry’ and took his guitar. I spent three years trying to write a story where he came back, where he explained, where we fixed it. But that’s not our story. Our story ended the day he walked out the door. My story started the day I decided to stop waiting for him to come back.” The words feel like fire on the page, but they also feel like freedom.

As Maya gets up to leave, she turns and says, “Keep writing, starlight. Not for Elias. Not for anyone else. Write for you. Because the world needs to hear your story — the whole thing, not just the pretty lines.” I nod, and as I close the door behind her, I look at my notebook, at the words I’ve written, at the spaces between them where the truth lives. For the first time in three years, I don’t feel like I’m hiding. I feel like I’m finally ready to look between the lines of what was — and find myself there.