Crossing

Chapter Five

The Arcilla farm wasn’t grand. No endless rows of sugarcane like the haciendas of the rich families, no tractors humming through measured fields. Just a stretch of earth fenced by bamboo, dotted with carabaos grazing like old souls and coconut trees swaying as if gossiping with the wind.

To Abbie, it was everything.

The air here carried a different kind of life, damp soil, crushed grass, the faint sweetness of ripening fruit. No campaign posters. No crystal plates. No Roxanne. Just land that didn’t care who your parents were.

Abbie crouched beside a row of eggplants, brushing soil from her hands. The dirt clung to her skin like it wanted to stay. Beside her, Pia sat cross-legged, stringing wildflowers into a chain. Joey leaned against the fence, pretending to nap but listening, as always.

“One day,” Abbie said quietly, “I want this place. The whole farm. Not to sell it or fence it off, I want to make it grow. Smarter. Greener. Better.”

Pia looked up, a blade of grass stuck in her hair. “You mean, like… run it yourself?”

“Yeah.” Abbie’s eyes glinted like sunlight through the leaves. “I want to study agriculture at Bicol State University. Maybe specialize in agroecology. Learn how to work with the land, not just on it. Imagine turning this into something people visit, workshops, learning farms, gardens. Something that matters.”

Joey cracked one eye open. “So no business degree in Manila? No condo with aircon and overpriced coffee?”

Abbie laughed. “Hard pass. That’s Roxanne’s world. She can keep her Starbucks and spreadsheets. I’ll take mud and mangoes any day.”

Pia smirked. “You sound like a contestant in Miss Earth.”

“Then my advocacy is soil,” Abbie said, tossing a lump of dirt at her.

Their laughter rose into the wind, blending with the rustle of the trees. For a moment, it felt like the world existed only here, the farm wide and golden, the afternoon sun slanting across the fields.

Abbie sat back and looked at it all, the carabaos, the distant mountains, the nipa hut where her grandparents once sat peeling boiled corn. Here, she wasn’t “the other one.” She wasn’t Roxanne’s shadow. She was just Abbie, the girl who could build something from dirt and dreams.

And in that moment, she believed it. That this could be her place. Her legacy. Her version of home.

The phone buzzed in the dirt beside her, slicing through the calm.

She wiped her hands on her shorts and picked it up. One glance at the screen, Mama, and her stomach twisted.

“Hello?”

Her mother’s voice came sharp, clipped, almost breathless.“Abbie. Come home. Now.”

Then the line went dead. The abrupt silence felt unnatural, like the call had been swallowed by the air instead of ended by a button press. For a long moment, she just stared at the phone, her reflection warped on the smudged screen. The world around her kept moving, but slower somehow. The carabaos shifted their weight. The leaves whispered among themselves. Even Pia and Joey looked up, sensing the shift without needing to ask.

Abbie felt her chest tighten, that quiet panic that doesn’t explode but expands, spreading through her ribs like cold water seeping into cracks. She didn’t know what waited at home, but her mother’s voice echoed in her head, refusing to fade. Something had happened. Something real. Something that wouldn’t let her stay in this moment of sunshine and soil.

She stood up slowly, brushing the last bits of dirt from her palms, grounding herself one last time in the place that always held her steady. The farm felt different now, as if the shadows had lengthened without the sun moving at all. She tucked the phone into her pocket, feeling its weight like a promise she hadn’t made but was already bound to keep.

Whatever waited on the other side of that command, she knew her life had just shifted. The quiet afternoon had cracked open, and she could almost hear the future calling her name, urgent and uncertain.