BETWEEN ME AND YOU

CONFUSION

Downstairs, Banjo Gomez stood motionless while he looked up stairs, at the door of her room... He could faintly hear her voice drifting down like a whisper carried by the wind.

A deep longing welled up inside him, urging him to dash upstairs, to wrap her in a warm embrace like any ordinary couple would, and to reassure her of the love that enveloped her. But a heavy sense of dread held him back, a paralyzing fear that if he reached out to touch her again, she might vanish into thin air, slipping away like a fleeting dream that fades just as he wakes up.

The storm finally broke. The world outside shimmered clean and new, but inside the house, the air was heavy with everything left unsaid...

Kristine Sanchez walked down the stairs quietly. While Banjo was asleep on the couch. At first, she noticed an open album resting on his chest. Afraid to wake him up, she decided to push it aside for the moment and took a sip of cold water from the fridge. As she drank, her eyes looked at the room of Yuan, the little one who always called her "Mom"

Without the presence of Yuan.. the house is like an empty bottle. Kristine realizes how lucky to have this cute little one, and a loving husband. But as soon as she thinks deeper, she suddenly remembers the conversation in the hospital, "My wife died.. suicide.."

"What happened to her? Why she killed herself?" Kristine frowned. She thinks to find a way on how she could have an honest answer from him. What she needs is good timing, to start a good conversation with him.

She approached him slowly. The album was filled with photos, birthdays, vacations, anniversaries...all those moments that belong to a life she couldn’t quite remember living.

At the very end of the album, tucked behind the last page, was a photograph... faded, creased. It showed Banjo and another woman... younger, before the wedding.

Her blood ran cold as she stepped back. Because that woman’s eyes… were hers.

Frozen at the following moment, when she saw what was written on the back: Kristine Sanchez.

Her hand trembled by looking on it.

The house felt like it was leaning, while the seconds ticked by, as if it were starting to collapse.

“Kristine?” Banjo stirred, voice groggy. “What are you doing?”

She turned slowly, the photo in her hand. Her face pale, her breath is shaking.

“This picture…” she whispered. “Where did you get this?”

Banjo frowned, confusion knitting his brow. “That’s from years ago... before we married. You gave it to me yourself.”

Her pulse thundered in her ears.

“No,” she said, her voice trembling. “This… this isn’t me. Not the me you knew. This was taken abroad. Before the accident. Before…”

Banjo froze, realizing the impossible truth that had been staring him in the face since the day she woke up.

Two lives.

One body.

One love that refused to die.

Rain had stopped, but a fog lingered outside, soft and heavy against the windows, turning the world into a watercolor blur. Inside, everything was still, the kind of stillness that follows revelation.

Kristine stood at the edge of the living room, the photograph trembling in her hand. Banjo watched her from the couch, fully awake now, his eyes wide, trying to understand what he was seeing, or maybe, what he was losing.

“Kristine,” he said quietly, as though afraid a louder word might shatter her. “What do you mean that isn’t you?”

She turned the photo toward him. “This was taken years ago,” she said, her voice a mix of disbelief and fear.

“In Tokyo. I remember the smell of ramen, the sound of the trains, the taste of rain on my skin. I was working at a hospital there. I wasn’t married. I didn’t have a son. I was… me. Just Kristine Sanchez.”

Banjo’s jaw tightened. “You’ve been through a lot. The doctors said the coma might’ve caused confusion...”

"This isn’t confusion,” she snapped, tears welling in her eyes. “These are memories, Banjo. Memories that don’t belong to your wife!”

Silence fell like a blade between them.

Banjo set the album down, rose slowly, and walked toward her. His steps were deliberate, careful, as though he were approaching a wounded animal. “I don’t know what you remember,” he said softly, “but you are my wife. You’re Mrs Kristine Gomez. You were in that car accident six months ago. You were gone for three days, and then...” His voice cracked. “You came back.”

Kristine’s chest heaved. “Back? Or someone else came back in her place?”

He stopped in front of her, searching her eyes for the woman he loved. “Don’t do this,” he whispered. “Don’t say things like that.”

But Kristine couldn’t stop. The dam inside her had broken. “Banjo, I dreamed of dying,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I remember a hospital, a body that wasn’t mine. I remember holding someone’s hand... it's "Rico’s" hand... while the monitor flat lined. He told me to live for both of us. Then I woke up here, in a house that smells like someone else’s life.”

Her words hit Banjo like blows. He took a step back, his expression shifting from pain to disbelief. “So what are you saying?” he demanded hoarsely.

“That you’re not her? That the woman sleeping beside me, the one who gave birth to Yuan, the one who loved me... is gone?”

Kristine’s lips trembled. “I don’t know what I am anymore.” She holds her breath deeply as she fall herself on the couch.

"Mom?."

Yuan’s small voice cut through the storm of silence.

Both of them turned up to him at the same time. Looking at the pale face of an innocent little boy.