Shiver Through Burn

Chapter 8

By the time I made it back to my apartment, it was just before 9:00 PM. The place was quiet, the lights soft—exactly what I needed after a long, exhausting day. My books were still on the table, exactly where I'd left them that morning. I dropped my bag and plopped down in my chair, letting out a long sigh.

I kicked off my heels, the ones I’d been wearing all day. Taking them off felt like a huge weight lifted, and I immediately felt the relief. My feet ached, and the coolness of the wooden floor against my soles made me sigh in satisfaction.

I stripped off my clothes, feeling the tension melt from my shoulders as I tossed them into the laundry basket. I reached for my hair clip, pulling the loose strands away from my face and clipping them back. I walked to the bathroom to wash my face, the cool water refreshing against my skin, clearing away the weariness of the day.

Afterward, I grabbed my pajamas from the closet. The soft fabric immediately felt like relief, the cool material easing the heat of my skin. I paused for a moment, taking a deep breath, letting the calm settle in as I let go of the day.

I spent a few minutes tidying up my space, quickly scanning for anything I may have missed. I had already finished everything at the university while waiting for my next class. While everyone else was scrambling to finish their work, I used my free time wisely to knock out the tasks. It was one of my habits to get things done ahead of time, no matter how hectic everything else was.

Then, my gaze landed on my study table. Papers were piled high, marked with highlights and scattered with notes. My study notes from different subjects, reminders, and random scribbles were all mixed together in a chaotic heap. I spent a few minutes rearranging it all, sorting through the mess. As I finished, my eyes wandered to my book on the side of the desk. My bookmark peeking out from between the pages caught my attention.

"Okay, just a little reading," I muttered to myself. Midterms were over, but that didn’t mean I could afford to slack off. I flipped through my notes, highlighter in hand, jotting down the occasional point. I was already familiar with the material, but I wasn’t about to let Lucerio get too comfortable. He may think he’s got me in his sights, but I’d make sure he stayed a few steps behind. A couple of chapters wouldn’t hurt. I had this.

I was deep into what I was reading when the call came in. I ignored the first ring. Then the second. And finally, the third one, followed by Navida's frantic messages in the group chat.

Navida Leilani:

[I'M HAVING A CRISIS!] 9:10 PM

'More likely to be an Octavino crisis again.'

I sighed, clicked accept, and braced myself.

Navida's face immediately filled my screen. Her eyes were swollen, her hair in a messy bun, like she had just fought for her life.

"I can't move on. I TRIPPED IN FRONT OF HIM!" She started crying as she spoke, and I just rolled my eyes, placing my phone on the stand and going back to my studying.

Bien's camera blinked open next, revealing her bundled in a blanket burrito, barely keeping her eyes open.

"Not this again," she groaned.

"My marathon on the field earlier has spread all over our department. I can't take this anymore, I'm going to transfer to another university!" I just stared at her, letting her rant as she rolled around her room. It was her usual psycho behavior, we were used to it.

Bien just sighed, pulling her blanket tighter. "You're overdramatic. But I'll say this... the fact that you tripped and then ran away like that... classic Navida move."

Navida was wailing like a child, wiping her tears dramatically. Sometimes I wonder how she became my friend. May I never find that kind of love she has.

I gave her a flat look. "You're a disaster, and I don't love it."

I picked up my book again, trying to ignore the chaos, but of course, it wasn’t that easy to escape when Vida was involved.

"Wait—" Navida suddenly said, as if she just had an idea. "OH MY GOD, Why were you the one Octavino accepted on f*******:?!"

I barely looked up from my phone. "Huh?"

Navida's eyes widened. "How? Why you, and not me?!"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, Vida. We're close family friends, maybe that's why... we’ve known each other since junior high."

Bien raised an eyebrow, trying to stifle her laughter. "Right. You all know each other, maybe you've been f*******: friends for a long time. But seriously, you don’t even remember who added who?"

I sighed, scrolling through my feed. "I really don’t know. Maybe he added me. I don’t even remember how it happened. I’m not even good at sending friend requests."

Navida let out an exaggerated gasp. "WHAT? You don’t know how to add people?! Gosh, where did you even come from?!"

I rolled my eyes. "From my mom?"

She glared at me.

Bien chuckled. "It’s over, Vida. Face it—Octavino doesn’t want anything to do with you."

Vida lay back on her bed, looking defeated. "This is too much. I'm living in a drama series at this point."

I sighed as I tried to get back to my reading, but I knew—this study session was doomed the moment Navida tripped and brought her emotional baggage with her. She kept whining all over again, and we were stuck listening to her endless monologue. Bien was the first to knock out, rolling to her side on the bed and pulling the blanket over her head, and soon, Vida followed, crying herself to sleep over her hopeless crush on Octavino.

I couldn’t help but sigh. I’d known Ridge Octavino since I was a kid. I’d often seen him following his father, Senator Octavino, attending meetings and looking like a miniature version of him. The Octavinos were a well-known family with deep political connections, one of the reasons why Sebastian Guilermo was so close to them. They were both products of the same world, shaped by it in very similar ways, and I knew for sure they had the same mindset—both were forced to be perfect in the eyes of others.

Back in senior high school, it was painfully obvious that Vida was crazy about Octavino. He was her senior back then because they were in the same strand, but Octavino was... well, Octavino. He was a chick magnet, everyone knew that. But he didn’t let anyone get close. He had his friends, yes, but he kept everyone at arm's length. He built walls around him that no one could cross, not even Vida.

Even back then, I knew Vida didn’t stand a chance with Octavino, but there she was, fighting a losing battle. She kept trying, even managed to beat three martyr-priests with her hopeless pursuit. That girl was relentless in the worst way possible.

I started to look at the faces of Bien and Vida on the screen, both of them soundly sleeping, as if they had just come from a war. Bien looked like she had been hit by a truck, her blanket tightly wrapped around her body as if it could shield her from Vida's drama. Meanwhile, I just stared at them, unable to fall asleep myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to sleep, but I just couldn’t.

I’ve always had trouble sleeping. The weight of the day would press down on me, and my mind would race through all the things I needed to do, all the things I couldn’t escape. Sometimes, I wondered if I could ever fall asleep without the help of something stronger. But I didn’t want to rely on sleeping pills. I couldn’t. I hated the thought of being dependent on something just to escape my own thoughts, even for a few hours. Besides, what if I couldn’t wake up at all? The fear of losing control over even something as simple as sleep was enough to keep me awake every night.

I ended the call and closed my phone with a sigh. The chaos was over, at least for now. I tried to focus on my book again.

It was exactly midnight when I finally finished the last chapter of the book. My eyes felt dry, like I hadn’t blinked in hours. I grabbed the eye drops from the desk, letting the cool liquid soothe my irritated eyes. The sensation was brief, but it helped enough to clear away the fog of exhaustion that had built up over the past few days. Beside the eye drops was the small paper bag that Vida had given me earlier. I stared at it for a moment, almost hypnotized by the way the light hit the crinkled surface, the way the folds seemed to ripple, as if it was holding something much heavier than the contents inside.

I sighed, feeling a familiar weight settle into my chest. I stared off into space, my eyes unfocused as I absentmindedly traced the edges of the bruises on my arms. My fingers brushed over the tender skin, feeling the heat radiating from the swelling. The pain was scorching, but my body didn’t even recognize it anymore. It wasn’t numbness, no—it was as if my body had gotten used to the bruises. It had become a part of me, like a shadow that followed everywhere I went.

But beneath it, deeper than the bruises, was something else. The rage that burned so fiercely under my skin. My fists clenched in anger, the kind that lingers in your chest and makes you feel like your heart might shatter into pieces. It was the kind of anger that shakes your bones quietly, the kind that gnaws at you in the stillness, that refuses to let go no matter how much you try to push it down.

I want to kill Sebastian Guilermo so badly, the thought flared up like an open flame, but it was too much of a fantasy, too loud a move. Too final. Too... obvious. And there was no way I’d live like him. I wouldn’t become a monster just to take down a monster. The thought alone made me shudder. I refused to become him, even if that meant I had to carry this anger for the rest of my life.

I took off my shirt, looking at the fresh bruises across my ribs and shoulders. I applied some pain relief patches to the tender spots, the cooling sensation momentarily easing the tightness in my muscles. As expected, all the hits from Sebastian had turned into bruises. His hits were always like that—quick, calculated, with purpose. No wasted movements. Every bruise was a mark of my submission, a reminder of the power he held over me, even when he wasn't physically present.

I sighed, closing my eyes and letting the weight of it all wash over me for a moment. I opened the drawer beside my desk, fumbling for the burner phone I kept hidden under my old sketchpads. The one thing I still kept close, just in case.

"I need to release this anger," I muttered under my breath, my words hanging in the air like a prayer, a curse, and a plea all rolled into one.

I turned the phone on with trembling fingers. The screen flashed to life, and just as I expected, the message I’d been waiting for appeared.