Chapter 6: The Thing We Don’t Say
1318 Words
Lina’s POV
There are things you do not say because saying them would make them real, and once something is real, you have to decide what to do with it.
For me, the thing I did not say was his name. Not when I was alone. Not when I was bandaging my hands. Not when I was looking at the red door we painted together and pretending it was just paint.
I did not say Dreo.
Because if I said it, it would sound like I was keeping him.
The house was quieter after we put the glass in the window. Not because the wind stopped, but because the room stopped echoing like an empty box. The light came in through the crack and made shapes on the floor that moved when the sun moved, and I found myself watching them instead of watching the door.
I told myself it was because I was learning to like the house again.
I did not tell myself it was because he was the one who gave it light.
---
He started working on the kitchen after that.
He pulled out the warped counters. He measured the cabinets that were still standing. He talked about wood and joints and how much it would cost to make it right, and I nodded like I understood. I did not.
I was watching his hands.
They were scarred in places I had not noticed before. A thin white line across his thumb. A burn mark on his wrist. They were hands that had been used, and I could not stop thinking about the way they had held mine when he wrapped the bandages, careful like I was something that might break if he was not.
“You’re staring,” he said, without looking up from the wood.
“I’m not,” I said.
“You are.”
I looked away.
He did not say anything else.
The silence was different now. It was not empty. It was full of the things we were not saying.
---
Aling Teresing came with food and with questions she did not ask out loud.
She set the tupperware on the steps and looked at the red door, then at me, then at him.
“Maganda,” she said. “Mas masaya tingnan.”
I said nothing.
Dreo said, “Salamat, Aling.”
After she left, he handed me the food like he always did. Half for me. Half for him.
We ate on the steps.
The food was hot. The air was cold. My hands were still bandaged, so he opened the container for me.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded.
We ate without speaking.
It should have been awkward.
It wasn’t.
---
Mimi came with more drawings.
This time she drew the kitchen. Me at the counter. Him holding a piece of wood. A small sunflower in the corner of the paper.
“Para sa bagong kusina,” she said, and taped it to the wall with a piece of old masking tape.
I did not take it down.
Dreo saw it. He looked at it longer than he needed to. Then he went back to work.
But his shoulders were less tight after that.
---
It rained again.
Not the hard, angry kind. The soft kind that sits on the roof and makes you want to stay inside even if you have nowhere to be.
We were inside the kitchen. The roof was not leaking anymore, but the air still smelled like wet wood and paint.
I was trying to fix the hinge on the cabinet. My bandaged hands were clumsy. The screwdriver slipped.
“Let me,” he said.
He came up behind me. Not touching. Just close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
He took the screwdriver from my hand. His fingers brushed mine.
He fixed the hinge in three turns.
He did not move away right away.
I could smell him. Wood. Rain. The soap Aling sold.
“Done,” he said.
His voice was low.
I nodded. I could not speak.
He stepped back.
The space he left behind felt colder.
---
That night, I could not sleep.
The lamp was on. The book Mimi gave me was open, but I was not reading it. I was listening.
To the rain.
To the house.
To the sound of him on the porch.
He was awake. I knew he was.
I got up. I opened the door.
He was sitting with his back to me, a blanket around his shoulders, looking at the dark like it owed him an answer.
“I can’t sleep,” I said.
He did not turn.
“Me neither.”
I sat beside him. Not too close.
We did not talk.
The rain fell.
After a long time, he said, “You don’t have to stay out here.”
“I know,” I said.
“Then why are you?”
I did not answer.
Because the answer was a thing I did not say.
---
The next morning, he was gone when I woke up.
Not from the house. From the porch.
His bag was gone. His tools were gone.
My chest dropped like I had missed a step.
I went outside.
He was by the mango tree. Digging. Alone.
He looked up when he heard me.
“I thought you left,” I said.
He shook his head. “I needed air.”
He did not explain.
I did not ask.
We worked in silence again.
But the silence was heavier.
---
Later, Aling came with thread.
“Para sa kamay mo,” she said, and showed me how to wrap the bandages tighter so they would not slip.
Dreo watched us.
When Aling left, he said, “Let me.”
He sat in front of me on the steps. He took my hand. He unwrapped the old bandage. He wrapped a new one. Slow. Careful.
His eyes did not leave my hand.
“My brother used to get hurt a lot,” he said, out of nowhere. “I was the one who always bandaged him.”
I did not know he had a brother.
“He died,” Dreo said. “Carpentry accident. Five years ago.”
The words sat in the air between us.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He nodded.
“That’s why I fix houses,” he said. “Because I couldn’t fix him.”
He finished the bandage. He tied it.
He did not let go right away.
“You don’t have to fix me either,” he said.
“I’m not trying to,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t know how to be fixed.”
He let go.
---
That night, I left the door open again.
Not wide. Just an inch.
I did not know if he would see it.
I did not know if he would come in.
I lay on the floor with the lamp on and the book closed and my hands bandaged and my chest tight with a thing I did not say.
He did not come in.
But he did not leave the porch either.
And in the morning, the door was still open an inch.
He had not closed it.
---
I made coffee.
I brought him a mug.
He took it.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
We stood there with the coffee steaming between us.
There was a thing I wanted to say.
I did not say it.
He did not ask me to.
---
The house was almost done.
The roof was on. The windows were in. The door was red. The kitchen had a counter that did not sag.
Two weeks was almost over.
And I still had not said his name when I was alone.
---
*End Chapter 6*
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