Chapter Twelve: The Weekend Things We Keep
Lyra's POV
The house smells like fresh paint and my mom's cinnamon coffee when the doorbell rings.
"Lyra, can you get that?" she calls from her study.
I already know who it is — there's only one person who texts me "prepare snacks or perish 💅🏻" before showing up uninvited.
"RINAAAAA!"
I barely have time to open the door before my cousin Rina Solene barrels into me, half-hug, half-tackle. Her strawberry-scented hair smacks me in the face.
"I missed you, nerd," she says, eyes sparkling. "Now tell me everything. How's the new town? The fancy school? The—" she waggles her brows "—boys?"
I groan, tugging her suitcase inside. "You've been here for thirty seconds."
"And that's thirty seconds too long without gossip."
She follows me to my room, mid-rant about her own classes, until she stops dead. "Whoa."
Her eyes take in my half-painted walls — pale lavender fading into cream — and then land on the shelf by my bed. Specifically, the small caramel-brown teddy bear sitting next to my sketchbooks.
She points. "Who's Mr. Fluffball?"
"Evan won it for me," I say before realizing my mistake.
Her grin is immediate. "Evan. As in the golden boy? The one you accidentally tripped during your first week?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" she gasps dramatically. "Lyra Evadne Solene. You're keeping a boy's teddy bear. On your bed. That's basically emotional marriage."
I throw a pillow at her. "It's just a stuffed animal."
"Sure, sure. And the moon is just a rock."
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks burn.
We spend the afternoon with sheet masks on, legs tangled in blankets, watching a Filipino drama she insists is "important cultural bonding." Between episodes, she keeps circling back.
"So," she says around a bite of chips, "if you two were to date, do you think Tita Maya would finally drop the boy ban?"
I pause. "Maybe. She's been… lighter lately. Happier I'm settling in."
"Because she sees you smiling again." Rina's voice softens. "You didn't, for a long time."
I swallow hard, pretending to focus on the screen.
She leans closer, bumping my shoulder. "You deserve happy, Ly. Promise me you won't run from it this time."
I nod. "Promise."
Later, after Rina's asleep beside me, I lie awake staring at the teddy bear. Its little ribbon is fraying from where I've held it too tight.
My sketchbook rests open beside it — an unfinished drawing of the festival lights, of laughter and warmth and that moment when Evan handed me the bear like it was nothing.
Except it wasn't nothing. Not to me.
Downstairs, I hear my mom on a late-night call, her voice calm and sure — the architect of everything I'm starting to rebuild.
For the first time since we moved, I don't feel like a guest in my own life.