By Blood We Live

It has been six months since Kian (or Christopher, as he has decided to be called again) and Katherine hooked up. Each time that you see them, it's like a needle is being driven deeper and deeper into your chest, just above where your heart is located. You are waiting for the day when, in the middle of singing "Hanggang Saan," you suddenly keel over the microphone stand, tangling up in the skeins of wires swirling around your feet. When your bandmates turn you over, they will find a small hole just above your left breast, trickling blood down your chest and soaking your blouse. It's an appealing thought, you decide, while watching Kian steal a kiss from Katherine's lips.

You decide to turn your back on them and help Paolo out with the equipment. Since Katherine started following Kian around like a faithful (puppy?) girlfriend, their nights out as a group has been severely limited. You feel like the odd one out: Paolo and Lia have been a couple since the begi

Tonight's different, though. Kian offers you a ride home, even though Katherine lives in Parañaque and he lives in Makati now, while you are still at your old neighborhood in La Vista. He shrugs off your protestations and instead gallantly escorts you and Katherine to his car. Paolo and Lia wave goodbye, and you find yourself sitting at the back seat of his souped-up Toyota Corolla, sharing the space with the long, hard length of Tobey, his guitar, because the front seat has been taken over by The Girlfriend.

The drive is silent along EDSA, with only Death Cab for Cutie playing on the CD player. Katherine is half-asleep, and the digital read-out on the dashboard tells you it's past two in the morning, and your parents have gotten used to you going home even later (or earlier, whichever strikes your fancy) and have resigned themselves to that fact. Kian hums along, his thumbs occasionally following the beat on the rim of the steering wheel. You are lulled by the lamp lights sweeping past the window at regular intervals, and Kian pushing the car to almost ninety, and the way the car flows along the avenue, almost as if it were flying.

Katherine lives on a sleepy street inside an exclusive subdivision. The guard already knows Kian, and waves him inside without an ID (just like at your place). The gate is white and tall, and the greenery outside is trim and neat. Beyond the fence, you can see an expanse of brick and glass. Kian carefully wakes Katherine up and kisses her tenderly. You stare out the window, focus on the stray dog wandering down the opposite sidewalk, occasionally raising up one hind leg and pissing on the side of the wall. The street lamp makes the dog's coat shine like amber. You bite your bottom lip, playing with the tender bit of flesh. They said that in the olden days, when food was scarce, your kind would feed on dogs to survive. You are glad that you have never had to deal with such a problem.

You move into the front seat when Katherine vacates it; you give her a friendly peck on the cheek and resist drawing blood. The door closes with a definitive click as you slide into the front. Kian keeps the engine on as the both of you wait until the gate opens for Katherine. Then Kian puts the car into gear, and you feel it growl to life.

The drive is smooth until you hit EDSA again, just past the Magallanes Station. For some reason, the stretch is filled with heavy-loading trucks and busloads of people on their way north, and half of the avenue is blocked by workmen and piles of rubble. Kian swears and swerves to another lane, only to be hit by another tangle in the mounting traffic jam.

"I don't think we'll get you back home so quickly, Chel," he says sleepily. You can recognize the warning signs from when you were younger-Kian would become more talkative in an effort to stave off the drowsiness. "I'm sorry."

"You can just drop me off at the next station," you say nervously. "At least you can go home and sleep, right? Not a problem."

"What kind of a best friend would I be if I don't bring you home properly?"

You laugh. "The kind that would kill us in a traffic jam because he could barely keep his eyes open."

"Well, either way, your parents would kill me," he says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands and leaning to the front (Sign Number Two). "I can't leave you here, but I sure as hell don't think that it will clear up soon."

"Who knows?" you tell him, falsely optimistic. "Maybe it will clear up after this stretch."

But thirty minutes later, the car barely moved ten meters. The world seems to have stopped. Kian is staring straight ahead. You adjust your skirt modestly around your thighs, clasping your hands in the middle like a proper Catholic schoolgirl. The air conditioning sputters and spits out small clouds of cool air. The CD has stopped; the interior is quieter than what you imagined a tomb to be like.

Kian peers outside. "My turn's coming up soon. I don't think this traffic will clear up."

You shrug. "If you have a couch and a spare toothbrush, I don't mind crashing over at your place."

He looks exceptionally relieved that the suggestion came from you. "If you're sure…" he says, his voice trailing off hopefully.

You nod, your fingers surreptitiously trailing across the fabric of your shirt, right above the scar. He knows about the operation, but he has never seen the scar. You hope the night won't come to that.

You were fifteen and stupid, and already three months into the pregnancy when you discovered the situation. The boy was also fifteen and stupid, and promptly stopped returning your increasingly panicky phone calls and text messages. Twice, you went to his house, but the maid answered both times and denied emphatically the presence of the Drs. Hernandezes'

único hijo.

Desperate, you remember the story of one of your friends about the illegal clinics that litter the side streets of the city, and resolve to visit one of them. You bring three thousand pesos and the girl who told you the story, and take a jeep to Sta. Mesa. It started raining lightly then, making the streets look like pea soup, the street canals carrying with it the vestiges of the city: candy wrappers, plastic wrappers of all colors of the rainbow, dead rats and bloody cats gutted by careless drivers.

You didn't know what pain was until you fainted from it. Later on, you remember your friend telling you that there was blood, too much blood, and they had to give you a transfusion. But it was a black market clinic, and the blood was tainted, and it was only three weeks after the operation that you realized that it wasn't just any kind of disease known to man, but something other than of this world.

At first, the bleeding refused to stop. You had to buy rolls of gauze and change your bandages every hour just to avoid staining your clothes. Suspicious, your parents assigned a chaperone, Ate Babing, who spent more time chatting up the tricycle drivers at the corner store than watch you go off with your friends. There was no pain, which surprised you, just a damp feeling around your midsection, like a patch of grass after a summer shower.