“What do you wanna know?” Marco asked. I tried to observe if he was upset about my question or nonchalant like he seemed to be reacting. I leaned my back on the chair, and just like Marco, I turned only my head to look at his face staring back at me.“Anything… Or if you want, you can cut to the chase by telling me the very reason why you trust him like you do,” I answered.  Marco took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. I waited for him to speak in complete silence. If I am not mistaken, with the way these two behave toward one another, they have a bond that they have bowed to keep for life, but circumstances had been trying to shake their steadfastness. Nevertheless, in my opinion, based on what I have seen Gab had done to Marco, I do not fancy that man, not eve

“I did as he had advised. Adding to the need for me to clear my thoughts, your dad asked me to stay with you while he was out of town. I couldn’t be so rude to return his kindness of saving me through disobedience. Besides, he seemed to know the drill on what to do to keep me off the radar. He turned my phone off, so no one came to your place, tracing me. Until that day when we both went out for the interview….” Marco stated. “Dad used to be in the army. But he was not among the soldiers to be deployed on the battlefield. He was also an accountant there until his wife died, and he retired to take care of me,” I tried to clarify his thoughts about why dad knew what to do to keep Marco untraceable from his enemies.   “I see,” Marco nodded. Also somehow amazed. “I never saw his pics wearing anything to reveal his former profession,” he added with his e

“Do you have any dinner appointments or business deals to attend to in the evening?” I asked after a good thought. “I can always cancel any appointment for you. You know that, right?” Marco stated assuringly. “Besides, I don’t have much paperwork that needs my immediate attention. If you want, we can go there right now,” he eagerly suggested. I laughed at his enthusiastic mien. It felt like he was going home, to his home, not mine, which is the opposite of reality right now. I felt like Marco had to hold the reins of his horses, but instead of saying so, I teased him. “Why do you seem so set on going there?” I could not help my cackles slipping off my lips as I asked him. I was dying of curiosity. 

His photographs. His captured smiles in the camera lenses that we have made sure to secure in the hard copies kept well in many files of our family photo albums. “Gab, please hold the door.”I heard Marco’s voice speaking to Gab in a gentle tone. I could tell it was not for his best friend that Marco used the tone. It was his expressed sympathy for me as I might have appeared mourning in his eyes. A feeling of grief would only fill me immensely when we are in this place.My home. A home sweet home where my dad Ted and I used to live in perfect harmony as a father-and-daughter family. I realized why Marco had to ask Gab to hold the door only when he gently put me down on the three-seater couch in the living room, facing a fancy white Urn with

It took me a while to arrive at the room where I knew Gab and Skye were. I felt so weak. I felt so crestfallen. My emotions were all over the place. My knees could barely support my whole weight, so I had to grab hold on to the balusters to climb a flight of stairs. It was not just my body feeling so sapped with all the heaviness of my heart; I could feel my whole being wearing me down so overwhelmingly. Sad and disappointed. I was sad because although I sent those who had their hands on Ted that night, I am still disappointed that those who are behind all these tragic events are breathing and living freely in the same world Skye and I are in. But I did not stop walking up the steps. I need to reach Skye’s side to stay right next to her. Like I have promised Ted, I would. I put myself togethe