Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 41

-----Matthew Santos-----

“What is wrong with you, Matthew!”

Her voice cracked through the stale air like thunder over still water. The kitchen reeked of garlic and old oil, sinigang left to die cold on the stove. I sat on the edge of the wooden bench, every movement tugging at the dried blood on my ribs. My shirt clung to it like regret.

The fluorescent light above us buzzed its usual complaint, flickering just enough to make the shadows on lola's face come alive. Delia Santos, my grandmother, five-foot-two, wiry, and relentless. The kind of woman who survived too much to believe in softness.

“You were never like this before,” she hissed, pressing a dish towel to my cheek. Pink bloomed against the white fabric. “Never like this.”

I clenched my jaw and muttered, “Let me be just this once, La. I’m tired.”

“Of course, you are tired!” Her voice pitched up, brittle with panic hiding behind the rage. “You go to school, you come home drunk, I can’t even stop you from smoking anymore. And now your face, look at you. What is going on, anak?”

I couldn’t meet her eyes. I stared at the cracked tile under the table instead. There’s this one line that splits the floor diagonally... I used to trace it with toy cars when I was a kid. Now, my sneaker toe followed it, as if it could lead me somewhere quieter.

“There’s too much going on right now,” I said, low. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”

“Yes... barely.”

She sighed sharp and angry, then gripped my chin harder than you’d expect from hands that old. She swiped a cotton ball over my split lip, pressing too hard.

“Ouch.”

“Good,” she snapped. “That’s how I know you’re still in there.”

I didn’t say anything. Just looked past her, toward the curtained window. Outside, a dog barked. Somewhere down the street, a tricycle groaned past, its neon lights casting flashes across the wall like dying stars.

I wanted to disappear into that noise. Just long enough to forget the ache in my chest, the weight in my throat. But Lola kept pressing that cotton into my lip like she was trying to scrub me back into the boy I used to be.

She didn’t realize that boy’s been gone a while.

I don’t know exactly when I changed. Maybe it started the moment I met Betty, when everything was supposed to get better but somehow only got more complicated. Or maybe it was the day I saw her and James, looking so perfect together, laughing as they took pictures on their way to the beach. That image stuck in my mind like a splinter I couldn’t pull out.

Or the time she almost drowned, and I wasn’t the one who saved her. I can still see James holding her afterward, like he was the only one who could keep her from falling apart.

Then there was when she sank into that dark place, and once again, James was the one who pulled her out.

The sportsfest, the moment I punched James, it wasn’t just his nose I broke. Something inside me cracked, too.

I remember the talent show, watching her kiss James after he sang. It felt like a silent verdict, like a closing door.

Then came her birthday. No invitation. Not even a text. A quiet but deafening confirmation: I wasn’t part of her world anymore.

Christmas and New Year passed without a single reply to my greetings. Ghosted.

All those moments piled up, a weight I couldn’t carry without breaking.