THE HOUSE WE KEPT

Chapter 2: Two Weeks

Lina’s POV

I woke up to the sound of wood being cut.

Not an alarm. Not traffic. Not Mateo’s 6 AM calls he used to make even after we broke up.

Just a saw. Steady. Patient.

The room was gray with early light. The blanket Dreo left smelled like him. Wood. Soap. Something clean I didn’t have a name for.

The door was still locked.

The key was still in my hand.

I hadn’t slept. Not really. I’d stared at the water stain on the ceiling and counted it like a fault line.

But I also hadn’t run.

That was new.

I unlocked the door.

He was on the porch. Already.

Same gray shirt as yesterday. Hair damp like he’d washed it with cold water. Coffee in a chipped mug beside him. Sawdust in his hair.

He didn’t look up when I came out.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning.” My voice was rough. I cleared it. “You didn’t leave.”

“No.” He set the saw down. “Coffee?”

He nodded at the thermos.

I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was: stay away, pay him, leave.

I took the mug anyway.

It was black. Bitter. Hot enough to hurt.

Perfect.

“Two weeks,” I said. To remind both of us.

“Two weeks,” he repeated. He stood. “Today: roof. Then we board the windows.”

He said “we.”

I didn’t correct him.

---

*Day 1 became Day 2.*

Dreo worked like the house was a person bleeding out.

He didn’t talk much. He measured. Cut. Nailed.

I watched at first. From the tarp. From the doorway.

Then I got tired of watching.

“I can hold that,” I said on Day 2, when he was trying to line up a plywood sheet alone.

He looked at me. “You’ll get a splinter.”

“I’m an architect, not glass.”

A beat. Then he handed me the other side.

Our hands didn’t touch.

But we held the wood together for 10 minutes.

It was the longest conversation we’d had.

---

*Day 3: Aling Teresing came back.*

With rice. With dried fish. With questions.

“Anak, bakit ang payat mo pa rin?” she said, pinching my arm. “Dreo, pakainin mo nang maayos ‘yan.”

“I eat,” I said.

“You eat pansit,” she said. “Not food.”

She set two tupperwares down. “Adobo. For you. And for your… helper.”

She emphasized “helper” like she knew he was more than that.

Dreo just nodded. “Salamat, Aling.”

After she left, he opened both containers. Split the rice in half. Pushed one to me.

“You don’t have to—”

“I eat more when someone else is,” he said. Simple.

We ate in silence. On the steps. Legs dangling over the half-fixed porch.

The adobo was salty. Homey. It tasted like Lola Rosa’s kitchen before the mold.

I stopped halfway. My throat closed.

Dreo didn’t ask. He just took the container back, finished it, and went back to work.

---

*Day 4: The window.*

It was the bedroom with the pink wall. Lola’s room.

The glass was gone. Just a frame full of wind and memory.

I stood outside it for a long time.

Dreo came up behind me. Not close. Just… there.

“You don’t have to go in,” he said.

“I do,” I said. “If I’m selling it.”

I stepped over the threshold.

The pink was almost gone. Faded into gray. There was a drawing on the wall. Faded crayon. A house. A sun. Two stick figures.

Me. Lola.

I was six.

My breath caught.

Dreo didn’t come in. He stayed at the door. Hammer in hand. Waiting.

“Can you board it?” I asked. My voice was thin.

“Yeah.”

He did. Fast. Clean. No questions.

When he was done, the room was darker. Safer.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded. Then he did something he hadn’t done before.

He handed me a rag.

“For the dust,” he said. “On your face.”

I touched my cheek. There was dust there. From crying. From not crying.

I took the rag.

---

*Day 5: Rain.*

It came fast. Bukidnon rain. No warning.

We were on the roof. Half the new plywood was down.

“Down,” Dreo said immediately. “Now.”

I slid. He caught my arm. Not hard. Just steady.

We made it to the porch before the sky opened.

We were soaked.

He grabbed a towel from his bag. Threw it to me. Grabbed another for himself.

We sat on the floor of the porch, backs against the wall, listening to the rain hit the new roof.

It sounded different now. Not like leaking. Like protection.

“I used to hate rain here,” I said. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

Dreo looked at me.

“Lola would make me stay inside,” I said. “Said the mountain rain was ‘malungkot.’ Sad.”

He didn’t answer.

“She was right,” I said. “It is sad. If you’re alone.”

Dreo was quiet for a long time. Then: “You’re not alone now.”

It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t soft.

It was a fact.

And I believed him. For five seconds.

---

*Day 6: I broke something.*

I was trying to help carry a bucket of nails. I tripped on a loose board. The bucket went up. Nails went everywhere.

“s**t— sorry—”

I scrambled to pick them up. My hand closed around one. It cut me.

Blood.

Dreo was there in two steps. He grabbed my wrist. Not gentle. Urgent.

He pulled a clean cloth from his pocket. Pressed it to my palm. Hard.

“Don’t move,” he said.

He cleaned it. Wrapped it. His hands were steady. Warm.

He didn’t let go right away.

He looked at my hand. Then at my face.

“You’re not careful,” he said. Quiet. Not angry.

“I’m trying,” I said. And I meant more than the nails.

He let go.

“That’s enough for today,” he said.

---

*Day 7: One week.*

Halfway.

We sat on the porch at dusk. The roof was on. Three windows were boarded. The floor in my room didn’t creak.

I was supposed to feel like we were winning.

Instead I felt… scared.

Because the house was becoming something.

And I was still planning to leave it.

“You’re quiet,” Dreo said.

“Seven days left,” I said.

He didn’t answer.

The silence was different now. Not empty. Full.

“Mimi,” I said. Out of nowhere.

He looked at me.

“My cousin,” I said. “She used to come here every summer. She’d sleep in this room. She called it the pink room.”

Dreo nodded.

“She died,” I said. “Car accident. Three years ago.”

I hadn’t told anyone that. Not even Mateo.

Dreo didn’t say sorry. He didn’t say anything.

He just shifted. So his shoulder was closer to mine. Not touching. Just… closer.

The night air was cold.

He took off his hoodie. Handed it to me.

“Wear it.”

“I—”

“Wear it, Lina.”

I did.

It was big. It smelled like him. Wood. Soap. Rain.

I pulled my knees up.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He didn’t say anything. He just sat there. With me. In the quiet.

Seven days left.

And for the first time, I wasn’t counting down.

I was afraid of what would happen when we got to zero.

---

*End Chapter 2*