BETWEEN ME AND YOU

THE PHOTOGRAPH

The morning after the small talk with Banjo. Kristine fell asleep again. Only she could hear the sound of music that "Rico" was singing according to her dream. Until she woke up again.

A soft light filtering through the curtains, her body heavy, her head throbbing from her sleep of restless dreams. The scent of rain still clung to the air, mingled with the faint aroma of brewed coffee.

This morning broke with a strange kind of silence, the kind that follows after too much crying.

For a long moment, she didn’t move. She stared at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the paint as though they were lines of fate she didn’t remember writing. The house felt foreign, like a stage set where she was forced to play a role that wasn’t hers.

From the hallway, she heard quiet footsteps. Then a knock.

“Kristine,” Banjo’s voice came through the door, soft and unsure. “Are you awake?”

She didn’t answer right away. The sound of his voice sent ripples through her, comfort and fear intertwined. Then he knocked again, more gently this time.

“I made breakfast,” he said. “Yuan’s already eating. He wanted to wait for you.”

Kristine sat up slowly, her throat tightening. Yuan. The little boy with eyes too bright for the sadness he must have carried. She couldn’t remember him before the coma, but she could remember how he’d smiled last night when she promised to try. That small smile haunted her more than any dream.

"Okay,” she said quietly, and after a pause, she added, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

When she entered the kitchen, sunlight caught on the glass window, scattering golden reflections across the table. Yuan was sitting there, swinging his legs, a milk mustache on his upper lip. He grinned the moment he saw her.

“Good morning, Mom!”

Her heart twisted. The word still didn’t feel like hers, but his joy was too pure to correct.

"Good morning,” she said softly, managing a smile.

Banjo was at the counter, frying eggs. He looked tired, the shadows beneath his eyes deep, but he smiled too.... careful, as if afraid any wrong move might shatter what little peace they had left.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” he said. “So I made all the usuals.”

The table was a mosaic of comfort food, fried rice, eggs, longganisa, slices of mango. Kristine blinked, a flicker of warmth and confusion washing through her. It all looked familiar, yet foreign. Like something she’d only dreamed of eating once.

She sat down beside Yuan. The child pushed a plate toward her. “You always make smiley faces with my eggs,” he said. “See? Daddy tried.”

Banjo’s ears turned a little red. “I did my best.”

Kristine smiled faintly. “It’s perfect.”

For a while, they ate in silence. The clinking of utensils, the hum of the refrigerator, the faint laughter of morning cartoons from the next room, all ordinary sounds, all painfully beautiful in their normalcy.

But as Kristine took a bite, a sudden image flashed in her mind. A small ramen stall under a neon sign, rain tapping on a tin roof, and a man across from her... Rico... smiling as he said, “You eat too slow, nurse.”

She froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“Kristine?” Banjo’s voice pulled her back. “You okay?”

She blinked and shook her head slightly, forcing the image away. “Yeah. I just… got dizzy for a second.”

Banjo nodded, concerned about softening his features. “Take it easy today. You don’t have to do anything. Just rest.”

She nodded absently, though the rest was the last thing her mind could offer.

Later that morning, Kristine wandered through the house while Banjo worked on his laptop in the living room. The rain had returned, gentle now, drumming against the windows. The whole place smelled like clean wood and citrus polish.

She stopped by a framed photo hanging in the hallway. It was of her, the other her... smiling widely, arms wrapped around Banjo’s shoulders, both of them standing on a beach. The woman in the picture looked radiant, alive in ways Kristine Sanchez no longer knew how to be.

But something strange pulled her heart. The curve of the woman’s smile, the tilt of her head, she recognized them. Not as memories, but as habits her own body remembered. She raised a hand and mimicked the pose unconsciously, and for a second, the reflection in the glass looked whole.

"Do you remember that day?”

Banjo’s voice startled her. He had come up behind her quietly, holding a mug of coffee.

She shook her head slowly. “No… but it looks peaceful.”

"It was.” He stared at the photo, a small smile ghosting over his lips. “We took that in Siargao. You insisted on learning to surf even though you were terrified of falling.”

Kristine laughed faintly. “Did I?”

"Yeah. You fell anyway. Then you laughed so hard you almost choked on seawater.”

The memory, the idea of the memory, made her smile too. “She sounds braver than me.”

"Banjo looked at her, his eyes unreadable. “You are her.”

Kristine turned away, her throat tight. “Am I?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened a drawer and took out a small red box. Inside, there was a delicate, slightly worn silver pendant. "You used to wear this every day,” he said. “I thought you’d want it back.”

She took it with care. The pendant resembled a tiny compass, its needle stuck in one position. She felt a lump in her throat.

A memory flashed; she also liked lightning things. And she remembers the time when "Rico" pressing the same pendant into her palm.

“Keep it,” he’d said. “So you’ll always find your way back to me..."

Her fingers trembled. Kristine did not forget that the real owner of this pendant is his wife and not her. So she reminded herself "why there is a need to keep this.."

Banjo’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

Kristine forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It just… feels familiar.”

She hurriedly excused herself, her heart racing, as she dashed upstairs. Once she reached the safety of her bedroom, she collapsed onto the bed, clutching the pendant so tightly that it pressed into her skin.

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

Two lives... two loves... two identities tangled inside one fragile body. She didn’t know which heartbeat was hers anymore.

That night, Banjo Gomez leaned against the railing of the veranda, a cigarette dangling from his fingers as he gazed out at the rain-drenched the street. He had quit this habit years ago, but recently, the silence of the house had become too much to bear.

He couldn’t help but think about the woman sleeping inside. She had the same face, the same voice, and the same gentle touch, yet she looked at him as if he were a complete stranger. Each time she recoiled from his touch, it felt like a deeper wound was being carved into his heart.

He closed his eyes, then talked to himself, "Maybe the woman I love really did die," he thought bitterly. And what’s left is only a shadow pretending to be her.

Inside her room, Kristine tossed in her sleep. Her dreams were filled with the sound of ocean waves and hospital alarms.

"Rico’s" voice echoed faintly: "You promised you’d live for both of us."

As if her dreams is like the last part of "Titanic movie" where the man save his girlfriend. Because the man wants her to live.

When she finally opened her eyes, she found her pillow drenched in tears. Kristine got up and made her way to the dresser, where she paused to take in her reflection, in the mirror. The pendant on her chest caught the light just enough to shimmer softly. Her lips quivered as she leaned closer to the mirror and whispered to herself.

“Who am I supposed to be?”