A/N: Things didn't end well last chapter. Let's see if Loki can fix it. (Spoiler alert: We know he can't.)

LOKI

OUR CONVERSATION on the rooftop obviously didn't end well. She didn't appreciate my methods, and I wouldn't blame her for it. I must have hurt her feelings or reminded her of something that she didn't want to recall. Whatever she's feeling toward me, a part of her should be grateful that I relieved her of the secret admirer dilemma.

Wait, did I mention that we're sharing the same unit? That night, when I came home to the apartment, I didn't find her in the living room and in the kitchen. I thought that she's busy accomplishing her schoolwork in her bedroom, but she didn't get out when dinner time came. We're not that close so I had no responsibility of informing her that it's time to eat.

Throughout the night, not once did she leave her room. She didn't even go to the bathroom for a toilet break. She locked herself in.

If I were a concerned roommate, I would have knocked on her door and asked if she's okay. But I was not. Her business was not my business. And it had been a personal policy of mine to not get myself involved in other people's problem, unless they allowed me.

It's ten o'clock. The living room was dimly lit as I turned off the lights in the unit. Only the lights from the hallway outside, as well as the light from my gadgets, enabled me to see in the dark. I sat on the couch with my laptop and watched a true crime documentary on YouTube. I opened a new tab on my browser and was about type something on the search bar. Then I noticed something: the link to my roommate's blog.

I thought of ignoring it, but my curiosity got the better of me. As I clicked on the suggested search, her blog loaded slowly on my browser. The internet connection in our unit sometimes sucked. She posted a new entry one hour ago. Which meant that she's still alive—at least, around nine in the evening.

My eyes skimmed through the post, reading as quickly as I could. Some of the paragraphs caught my attention.

When my secret admirer touched my chin, I felt a sudden jolt that sent shivers down my spine. I couldn't move an inch. The thoughts that I tried to lock away came rushing back to me.

My eyes were wide open. I was wide awake. But I felt like I was living through a nightmare. I closed my eyes, hoping that I'd snap out of it.

Then Loki appeared, kicking my secret admirer away from me. I would've been thankful and changed my opinion about him, but I found out he's the reason why I had to relive those bad memories.

Apparently, he wanted to lure my secret admirer to the rooftop, so he slid a note in my locker, expecting that the latter would read it. He was hiding behind some boxes all the time. What's worse? He waited for the guy to come closer to me and make me experience the worst feeling that I've had before. He recorded everything on his phone before jumping in and "saving me."

My secret admirer was bad, but Loki's much worse. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be put in such a position. I really had the misfortune of meeting him and asking for his help.

I leaned my back against the couch and looked blankly at the wall in front of me. She didn't explicitly mention it on her update, but I could piece together what might have happened to her before—the memories that she's trying to lock away. I kinda suspected it when I was deducing why she transferred all the way here in Pampanga instead of staying in Manila a few weeks back. But I wasn't sure because I didn't have any strong proof apart from her behavior.

Now it's almost confirmed. She didn't have to say the words. I read between the lines.

Should I feel guilty for what I did? I couldn't say. For the past six months, I'd been at the receiving end of psychological and emotional pain that my sensibilities became dull and numb to it. I could hardly tell whether I was giving the same amount of pain or not to other people.

But I'd be an asshole if I wouldn't acknowledge her feelings. Her pain. Her trauma. My instinct told me that there's something that I must do for her. Well, say would be the more appropriate term. Once I uttered the magic word, there's a likely chance that things would be cool between us. It worked on other people. It might also work on her.

I slept for only three hours that night. No matter how many times I turned in my bed, I couldn't get back to sleep once I woke up. It's a constant struggle—a fight that I'd always lose. There's no winning it.

Most of the time, I found myself in a dream. There's this girl with braided hair who always appeared in it. The way she looked at me, the way she called my name, the way she smiled—they made me feel as if I wanted to stay longer, that I didn't want to awaken from it anymore. But whenever that same dream turned into a nightmare, I always snapped myself out of it. I couldn't bear to witness what would happen next. That's how I woke myself up.

It's not a dream. It's a montage of happy and tragic memories combined in one recollection.

This had been going on for months. My mom asked me to consult a doctor about my condition. I loved my mom, so I followed her advice even if I was totally against it. On the day of my dreaded consultation, the doctor asked if there's anything that had been bothering me. I said none. Well, I lied. He gave me sleep enhancement pills to be taken thirty minutes before bedtime. I tried them, but they didn't work. I'd still wake up in the middle of the night, unable to return to sleep again. It felt like I was trapped in this cycle forever.

Instead of wallowing in despair, I decided to embrace my sleeping condition. What's the point of going against it anyway? I'd rise from bed earlier than most teens around my age and do something. And that's what I did this morning. I grabbed my laptop, sat on the sectional couch, and looked around me while waiting for my device to boot.

The best thing about waking up this early was the peace. No noisy neighbors engaged in a shouting match. No loud cars and tricycles driving by the road. No distracting light from the sun that permeated through the windows. All I had was me and my laptop. It's lonely, but peaceful.

When my laptop was logged on, I opened my browser and started composing an email. This had become my coping mechanism every time I almost fell into that nightmare.

To: Rhea ([email protected])
Subject: Just checking on you

How are you doing?

It's been three weeks since I sent my last email to you. You haven't got back to me yet. It's either you're too busy to check or you don't open your email as regularly as I do.

My fingers froze above the keyboard and my eyes stared long enough at the screen. I couldn't find the right words to type next. It's as if my mind went totally blank. Darn it. This didn't happen very often. If this was something else—a reaction paper or an essay—I'd be vomiting words by the hundreds with ease.

What should I write?

My consciousness was dragged back to the present when I heard a metallic click. The door to Lorelei's room creaked open, and she walked out of it. My eyes met hers. She cut her gaze away quickly as she went to the kitchen just right behind me. I could tell by the clinks and clanks that she's brewing her morning drink. Unlike me, she's not a coffee person. She must be preparing a hot mug of chocolate. She needed a serotonin boost after that upsetting episode.

She must still be angry at me for what happened yesterday. Not surprising.

I slammed my laptop's lid shut and set it aside on the couch. I got to my feet and walked toward her in the kitchen. But I maintained a meter distance just so her hot chocolate couldn't reach me if she decided to throw it at me.

For a minute or two, I stood there awkwardly, waiting for her to turn around and acknowledge me. But she seemed to be deliberately moving slowly. When she's done stirring her mug, she walked past me, went to the living room, and avoided making eye contact.

She's ignoring my presence intentionally. She's pissed off. Perhaps I should make the first move.

"I'd like to say sorry," I spoke with a clear and loud voice. "What I did on the rooftop was wrong."

She stopped dead in her tracks before turning to face me. The squinting of her eyes suggested that she couldn't believe she heard me say those words.

"You think a sorry can make up for what you did?" She scoffed before placing her mug on the center table. "Sa tingin mo ba'y mabubura ng sorry mo ang trauma na ipinaalala mo sa 'kin?"

It's not easy for me to say sorry—and even thank you—to people, so she should appreciate the effort that I took to make that word escape my lips. Only one other person could make me do it. "There's nothing I can do if you choose to not accept my apology. I felt compelled to say the magic word."

"Compelled?" Her left eyebrow arched. "Napipilitan ka lang na mag-sorry sa 'kin?"

"That's what people do, right? If they've wronged someone, they're required to say sorry." Still, I stood by my belief that my method wasn't wrong. I was only saying sorry out of courtesy to her and her feelings.

"If you don't mean it, better not to say sorry at all," she said.

"I thought people need to apologize so their chances at making mistakes will be reset?" My eyes narrowed into slits as I caressed my chin. "Like thank you. You express gratitude to the person who helped you so you can ask them for more favors in the future."

Her eyebrows furrowed so deeply, her face told me that she couldn't believe a single word that came out of my mouth.

"You're wondering where I got those notions," I explained. "I observed them from my classmates. Whenever they make a mistake, they only say sorry, then they can commit another mistake again. And the cycle repeats endlessly."

"How about sa mga kaibigan mo?"

I raised my right index finger. "Before I answer that question, do we have the same definition of the word friend? We might be reading different dictionaries."

She chuckled. Something funny? "You don't have friends, do you?"

If she thought that's an insult, she's very well mistaken. "Who needs friends anyway? They're nothing but excess baggage." I settled down on my usual spot on the couch and opened my laptop again.

"That's a line someone without friends will say," she replied. "Tatanggapin ko ang sorry mo, but you will owe me a favor."

My fingers paused from typing as I looked up at her. "And why will I owe you a favor? Just to remind you, I put an end to your secret admirer dilemma. If you think about it, you're the one who should owe me a favor. Speaking of which."

Since she's open to conversation, it might be the perfect opportunity to raise my concern about her latest blog post. I showed her what's being displayed on my laptop screen. She leaned closer to get a better look. Her eyes went wide. I knew what's going on her mind: "Why was he reading my blog?" and "How did he find it?"

"It's easy to search stuff on the Internet as long as you know the right keywords," I explained even if she didn't ask for it. I might as well satiate her curiosity. "I've been reading your blog since the day you created it. This is how I found out that a secret admirer was troubling you the past few days."

"You're stalking me online?"

"I ran an online background check on you." I turned my laptop back in my direction. "I wanted to know if my roommate has a suspicious background or is a serial killer. No offense meant. Just a standard procedure. I also did it on my previous roommates."

My eyes flicked up at her. She's shaking her head slowly in disbelief. Would she prefer that I lied? At least, I was being upfront to her. What I did was not illegal.

"Back to the favor that you owe me, I want you to revise this blog post," I spoke again when she did not. "Your prose is good, your descriptions are vivid, and you can keep your readers at the edge of their seats. But you made me look like the villain here. 'Loki's much worse'? Was I the one who annoyed you with gifts? If you make the necessary revisions, I'd consider us even."

"No."

My eyes squinted at her. "No . . . ?"

"No, I won't change anything," she spoke with conviction. "You don't have control over my writing. It's my blog, not yours. I can write whatever I want. Kung gusto mo, gumawa ka ng sariling blog mo at i-share mo ro'n ang version mo ng story."

She grabbed her mug from the table and walked back to the kitchen.

I reclined on the couch and puffed a sigh. This was the second time that things didn't go exactly as I had hoped. I thought she'd forgive me the moment I said sorry. I thought she'd be good with my request to revise her blog post. But I was wrong. Again. I miscalculated her.

—to be continued—

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