Between the Waves

CHAPTER FOUR

I wake up to roosters arguing outside my window.

There’s something violent about how early they do it here — like they’re in competition for who can ruin your sleep first. It’s barely 5:30 a.m., and the whole house is already alive with sounds: frogs croaking, tricycles roaring down the road, the neighbor’s radio blasting a morning drama louder than necessary.

I forgot how alive rural silence can be.

Still half-asleep, I shuffle to the living room — barefoot, shirtless, dragging yesterday’s humidity on my skin. I collapse on the bamboo sofa and stare at the ceiling, half expecting it to fall in. It doesn’t, but a gecko does blink at me from a rafter like it's judging my life choices.

Then Camille barges in.

I mean literally. No knock. Just opens the gate, slides into the front door like she pays rent, and throws a pack of pandesal on the coffee table.

“Breakfast,” she says. “And gossip.”

“You have a key?”

“I don’t need a key. This is Biliran.”

“I could’ve been naked.”

“You were half-naked.” She plops down beside me. “Anyway, shower. You stink like regrets and unwashed memories.”

I groan. “What now?”

She sips her coffee dramatically. “People saw you and Elian last night.”

I sit up. “How?”

“This is an island. Someone always sees something. And you know Nanay Perla across the street has cataracts but still insists on peeking through her blinds.”

“I just took my water jug.”

“And received suman. That’s basically foreplay here.”

I throw a pillow at her. She dodges, grinning like a devil.

“Camille—”

“Nope. Don’t even argue. You’ve been back for less than forty-eight hours and already you’re radiating unresolved s****l tension from your pores.”

“Why are you like this?”

“Because someone has to narrate your love story when you inevitably screw it up.”

I’m saved by the sound of the front gate rattling.

I peek outside.

It’s a boy — lean, brown-skinned, and grinning with a mischief I immediately recognize.

“Migs?” I squint. “Miguel Dizon?”

“Sup, Kuya Harris!” He waves. “Your tricycle’s here. Camille said you’re volunteering at the beach clean-up!”

“I am what now?”

Camille grins. “Surprise.”

Ten minutes later, I’m jammed into a tricycle with Camille and Miguel, heading toward the shoreline where Elian and the barangay youth are hosting some “Save Our Coast” initiative.

“This is blackmail,” I mutter.

“This is community service,” Camille replies. “You want the people to stop side-eyeing you at the palengke? Be useful.”

“I didn’t bring beach clothes.”

“You’ll just take your shirt off. Like the rest of them.”

She doesn’t say it, but I know who she means by them.

The beach is crawling with students in neon gloves, plastic sacks, bamboo tongs. A few teachers hand out water. Elian’s already there, sleeves rolled up, pointing toward a patch of seaweed where someone’s found a discarded fishing net.

He sees me.

His jaw tightens — so subtly only I would notice.

“You actually came,” he says when I reach him.

“Blame Camille.”

“She always was pushy.”

We stare at each other for a moment too long. Then he tosses me a pair of gloves.

“Try not to complain too much. Princess.”

“You wish.”

Camille walks past, smirking. “You two done flirting?”

Elian glares. I just sigh and get to work.

For the next hour, we collect plastic bottles, straws, diapers, the occasional dead slipper. The sun scorches overhead, and the salt clings to every inch of my skin.

Beside me, Elian works in silence. Focused. Efficient. He gives orders, hauls sacks, ties bundles with expert fingers. The others follow him like he’s some kind of island messiah.

But then, during a break, he surprises me.

“Do you remember that summer before you left?” he says suddenly, voice low.

I pause. “What about it?”

“You, me, and Camille biking to Tinago Falls. You brought that stupid cassette player.”

I smirk. “It kept skipping tracks.”

“You made me swim in my jeans because you thought it was funny.”

“It was funny.”

He chuckles.

A pause.

Then, softer, “I missed that. Back then.”

I turn to look at him, but his eyes are on the ocean.

“Why did it change?” I ask.

He finally looks at me. “You know why.”

“Tell me.”

His jaw clenches. “You left.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He throws his gloves down and stands. “No. But it’s the truth.”

And just like that, he walks off — back to the crowd, back to his kingdom of biodegradable sacks and forced smiles.

Camille appears beside me, chewing a piece of pandan candy.

“Well,” she says. “That was intense.”

I stare at the gloves he left behind, sand clinging to them like something unfinished.

This island has too many ghosts.

And I think Elian might be one of them.