Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 1

“Thank you,” Betty murmured, blinking fast.

“We’re just next door,” the woman added. “If you ever need anything… don’t hesitate. My grandson, Matt, he's your age, too. He studies at the high school. Maybe you’ll be classmates.”

Betty gave her a soft smile. It would be best to know someone in her new school tomorrow, it would make her feel less an outsider.

After Tita Delia left, they ate dinner together, hot chicken tinola with rice, just like her mom used to make. The table was quiet at first, but soon stories started spilling out.

“Remember when she burned the first tinola she ever made?” Mikhail said, laughing softly. “She forgot to add water and just dumped the chicken in the pot.”

“She said it was 'chicken toast,'” Betty recalled with a small laugh.

They washed the dishes together and then drived to the small church at the end of their street. The road was alive with vendors selling grilled corn, gulaman, and balut. Children darted between parked motorbikes, and the air smelled of smoke, sugar, and rain.

They lit candles at the altar, the flame flickering as Betty whispered a silent prayer. Her mother’s favorite song was being played softly on the church's speakers, an old kundiman.

“I think she would’ve liked this place,” Betty said.

“I think she would’ve loved it.”

Afterward, they walked to the town plaza and bought ice cream, dirty ice cream in sugar cones from a cart pushed by a man with a wide straw hat. Betty got cheese and ube. Her dad got mango.

They sat on a bench watching the bustle: couples walking hand in hand, students laughing in uniforms, others are practicing some dance routines under a lamppost. The town was noisy in a comforting way, alive with life, but not overwhelming.

It felt small, but not suffocating. Like maybe, just maybe, it was a place where you could be heartbroken and healing at the same time.

On the ride home, Betty rested her head against the window, the night breeze brushing her face. The car passed through quiet streets lit by flickering yellow lamps, and in the distance, she could see the outline of the hills surrounding the town, dark, steady, protective.

“Dad?” she asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m ready for tomorrow.”

He smiled. “Good. I think your mom would be proud of you.”

Betty smiled back, the first real smile in weeks.

Maybe this wasn’t the life she had imagined—but maybe it could still become something beautiful. Maybe, even in this unfamiliar town, she could still find her place in this world.

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The house had quieted. Even the wind that earlier tapped its fingers against the glass now curled itself into silence.

Betty sat on her bed, knees pulled to her chest, the soft pink cotton of her nightgown wrinkled and warm from her skin. Her room smelled faintly of old wood, like the inside of an antique jewelry box, dusty yet delicate. The floorboards creaked occasionally beneath the weight of memory, not footsteps.

She hadn’t turned on the lights. The soft amber glow of her nightstand lamp cast a halo over the boxes she hadn’t unpacked. Shadows clung to the corners like cobwebs. Everything here was unfamiliar, but it didn’t feel menacing. Just... waiting. Like the room was holding its breath along with her.