CHAPTER 1

I’ve never understood why I don’t feel things the way they say I should. It’s strange. They talk about sadness, loneliness, heartbreak as if these are storms that rip people apart. I wonder what that’s like, to break under the weight of feeling. I wonder if I’m supposed to care.

I wonder if I’d even notice it if it happened to me.

I was seven years old. I just got home from school. I saw my mother baking some brownie, I think, for snack. A silver colored utensil caught my eyes, I know this, it is used to cut bread. Impulsiveness wrapped my mind before I gave it a second thought, the sharp thing already pierced my wrist as I slowly dragged it, holding just amount of strength.

I bled.

I see lots of red liquid coming out from the two-inch cut. I squeeze it. It hurts. Physically, it hurts.

I called my mom who is carrying a tray of brownies into the oven. Her eyes went wide.

“Amelia! Oh my god! What happened to you!?” She cried. She always cried over small things. Her hands shook as she pressed a cloth hard over my wrist, shouting for my father. He arrived, mimicking my mother's reaction, asking what happened like someone had attacked me. She told him to call the doctor. He obeyed.

"What happened!?" He sounded like someone hurted him "Amelia!" His hands shake as he caresses my arm.

"Hon, call the doctor, bilis!"

"Okay, okay, I am, calm down—"

"Don't tell me to calm down! Ang raming dugo, what if a vein was cut, oh dear god! Amelìa what did you do!?" She cried. Her grip is getting tighter.

It happens fast they did not gave me time to speak. Dad obliged to her command and soon after a man in a white coat came.

"Mommy, I am fine" assuring the woman who is non-stop crying in front of me. I am puzzled by her reaction. She seems so weak. She cries in the smallest things.

"How can you tell me you're fine after that Amelìa? Ang lalim nang sugat na nagawa anak." She says in pain as if she was the one that has a cut.

Just when I would answer, dad went inside my room. His eyes lingered on my wrist, that was clinically wrapped with bandages? I don't know. He went straight to me and kissed my head.

"Why did you do that Amelìa?" He asked. Finally. I can answer. I blew the air out of my lungs.

"I was just curious, dad." As a matter of fact.

"Curious!?" My mother roared. While dad is calming her dow, "Curious Amelìa!? You cut yourself because you're curious!?" My father is mustering words trying to calm her down.

"Yes, mommy, I am curious."

"You cut yourself—"

"Yes, I did" she looked at me in disbelief, mouth hang open.

"Did it hurt anak?" My sight went to my dad just beside my mom. "Did it hurt when you cut yourself?" His eyes full of care.

Did it hurt? Yes, it did. But was I hurting? that I'm not sure.

"Yes, dad, it did"

"You did not cry..." My brows came together.

"Should I have cry?" genuinely asking. I hear my mom's audible inhale. "When people cut themselves do they cry? Should I have cry?" I looked at my mom and another pool of water are ready to come out of her eyes. They looked at each other before they hugged me.

I wonder why she's crying.

Morning after a doctor came again, a psychologist, that's what I've heard

Naalimpungatan ako when a strumming of guitar disturbed my REM. The clear sky welcomes my eyes as it slowly adjust to its brightness.

I hear a voice–singing?

I sat straight-up from the wood boxes I was laying. The wind blows my shoulder-length wavy hair, I bet I look like Mufasa right now.

I lazily dropped my sight at the right, and there, a meter away from me, is a pair of hazel eyes already melting me with its gaze.

"Your eyes are pretty," I say.

I fix my skirt and put my hair into a bun. He stopped, whatever he was doing, and smiled.

"Thank you! Your eyes have muta pa." He says imitating me. I stared at him and checked it using my forefinger. And right, there was none. He laughed.

"Got you." I stared at him for a while, his lips were upturned and two small hollows appeared on his cheeks, deep. I checked my phone for the tim

"Wag ka nang mag abala pang pumasok, uwian na din maya-maya"

"And you didn't bother waking me?" he looked shocked?, then smiled.

"Bakit? Sino ka ba para gisingin ko?"

"Amelìa Torelya" he looked at me lost, and then he burst into laughter.

I stood up to exit the rooftop. I left him there still in his bubble of joy.