Ernesto sat half naked on his bed, his elbows resting on his knees, and his head hanging low.
Ernesto took deep breaths to calm himself down.
Set your pride aside. Your baby comes first. You need to hear the truth and you need to apologize, he thought to himself.
He looked up to stare at the family portrait Juan painted for them. Ernesto did a shitty job at reframing the canvas but it held the painting decently.
La Familia deLos Reyes
Before everything fell apart...
It was his daughter's idea that they get a family portrait in their best Filipino regalia.
"A beautiful reminder of what we have"
"While we still have it", she said.
They took that photograph for Juan to copy onto canvas a little more than a week before Ernesto and Sandro left.
Ernesto took another deep breath. He stared at every single detail on the painting.
The crows feet on his Anita's eyes, proof of how much he made her laugh over the years.
The smirk on his son's lips, those lips that he used to recite poems and serenade the ladies he liked with songs he wrote himself.
Ernesto's own clean face that Anita demanded to be freshly shaved the day they took the photo... The freshly shaved face that she enjoyed that very same night.
Ernesto stared at Butch's innocent, smiling eyes, and his bright, bright smile. Blissfully ignorant of what was to happen in the future.
And lastly, Ernesto stared at his daughter.
She was poised, she was calm, she was polite, she was elegant.
She was regal like her mother. Regal like the rest of them.
Ernesto knew that Y/N was a good daughter. Heck, she was more than just a good daughter.
She's a disciplined young lady that is so full of love and kindness and grace.
He stared at a girl that was quickly growing up to become a bright young woman but all he could see was the baby that he used to bathe over a basin.
The baby that he used to wake up with kisses and tickles.
The baby that looked out for him when he went home drunk because her mother was too pissed off.
The baby that's just always so desperate to help in any way that she can.
In her mother's clinic, in her father's home office, with her kuya's songwriting, with her little brother's lessons.
All Ernesto could see was the baby that he loves...
And the lady that he hurt...
Ernesto sighed and pulled himself together.
He closed his eyes and breathed.
He racked his brain with ways to apologize to his daughter.
His eye caught the guitar resting in the corner of the room.
"Tay, haharanahin ko sya", Sandro's words echoed in his mind.
He remembered when Y/N ignored Sandro for keeping secrets.
It was the one grudge that his daughter held in her whole life.
The one grudge that immediately faded because her brother serenaded her the night before they left.
أنت تقرأ
His Mariposa (Camilo Madrigal x Filipina!Reader)
أدب الهواةHeneral Luna is dead. With Y/N's father being one of his most trusted men, he flees with his family to a magical safe haven his former colleague mentioned to him. The Madrigal family helps them settle and a budding romance forms between two certain...
