Chapter Nine: Small Town Echoes
The sun was starting to set over Batangas, casting a warm golden glow over the fields and low-rise houses. Rachel sat on a plastic stool outside their family home, watching her father nap peacefully in the hammock, a bandage still wrapped around his foot. The surgery had gone well, and he was healing, slowly but surely. Her mother was cooking dinner, the scent of adobo and fried garlic filling the air.
It felt good to be home.
She didn’t expect to find comfort so easily after everything. But Batangas had a way of grounding her—reminding her that before heartbreak, before New York, before her tangled mess with Nathaniel Kingsley, she was just Rachel Flores from this simple town.
Later that week, her old college friends messaged her. They were organizing a
