Between the Waves

CHAPTER SEVEN

Biliran is the kind of island that feels alive. When the wind doesn’t blow, you feel it in your bones — like something’s missing. Something big.

That’s how today feels.

Off.

Too still.

Too quiet.

The community center is packed when I get there. Decorations for the Barrio Fiesta hang half-done. Camille is on a ladder, shouting at Miguel to stop eating the kutsinta before the guests arrive. Luis is pretending to help, mostly flirting with two girls from the barangay choir.

And Elian?

Elian is pretending I don’t exist.

I don’t blame him. Not really. After what happened behind that chapel, after the almost-kiss-turned-mess… how do you go back to being civil?

But pretending I’m invisible?

That hurts more than I want it to.

“Hey, help me with this tarp!” Camille calls out. “You’ve got long arms, Harris. Make yourself useful!”

I head over, reaching to pin the corner of the banner she’s wrestling with. The plastic smells like dust and old sun.

“Did something happen between you and Elian?” she whispers.

I hesitate. “Why?”

“Because he’s acting like someone stole his coconut pie.”

“I didn’t steal anything.”

“Did you give him something then?”

I glance at her.

She wiggles her brows. “A little kiss?”

“Camille.”

“Okay, okay.” She smirks. “But seriously… he’s been weird. Like, more broody than usual.”

“That’s just his face.”

“Nope. That’s guilt. Or jealousy.”

“Of what?”

She shrugs. “Luis, maybe.”

The thing about Camille is, she’s right more often than she’s wrong.

So when Luis walks over during break, handing me a cold bottle of soda, Elian does look.

Just once.

Quick. Sharp. Like a match striking a flint.

Then he walks away, out the side door, into the bright heat of the afternoon.

“What’s his deal?” Luis asks, watching him leave.

“Which one?”

“Elian. The moody one. He always look at you like you kicked his puppy.”

“Maybe I did.”

Luis smirks. “You’d know if you did.”

There’s something in his tone I can’t quite name. Teasing, yes. But also… interested.

And when his fingers brush mine as I take the soda, I feel it.

Something shifting.

Later that evening, I go home through the back path — the one through the rice paddies and quiet, crumbling shrines.

That’s when I hear it.

Not wind. Not birds. Not insects.

A voice.

“Elian?”

He’s sitting on the stone bench by the old sungka table, head down, hoodie pulled over his hair.

“You followed me,” he says.

“No. You just picked the only path I walk.”

He looks up.

“Why does it always have to be complicated with you?” he asks. His voice isn’t angry. It’s tired. Broken.

I sit beside him.

“Because you make it that way,” I say.

“I didn’t mean to. I just… I didn’t think you’d actually come back.”

“And I didn’t think you’d still make my chest feel like it’s being squeezed in a vice.”

His eyes flick to mine.

“I never stopped thinking about you,” he whispers.

“Then why do you act like I don’t exist?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then, finally, he says, “Because if I let you in, even a little… I won’t be able to stop.”

We don’t kiss.

We don’t touch.

But for the first time, we don’t lie either.