Chapter Two: Rent, Rice, and Regret
The walls of their home were too thin to hold secrets.
Mia arrived just past 8 p.m., her hoodie still zipped up despite the Manila heat. The tricycle ride from the studio to their small barangay in Marikina had been silent. No music. No podcasts. Just the low hum of exhaustion ringing in her ears.
She twisted the doorknob and stepped into a dimly lit space that smelled like rice and sun-dried laundry.
“Te, may pasalubong ka?” came the eager voice of Pia, her twelve-year-old sister, running barefoot on the tiled floor.
Mia forced a smile and handed her a cold Jollibee burger. Pia squealed like she had just won a prize.
Their mother, Aling Mercy, peeked from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a faded dish towel. Her face was lined with age and disappointment, though she never said a word about the job Mia did. Not directly.
“May bayad na ba si Aling Taba sa utang nating kuryente?” Mia asked.
“Wala pa rin. Pero naniningil na yung Meralco,” Mercy said with a sigh. “'Wag ka mag-alala, anak. Kayang-kaya natin ‘to. Baka may masideline ako sa kabila.”
Mia didn’t answer. Instead, she opened her bag and pulled out an envelope—her talent fee for a three-day shoot. She placed it on the table without looking up.
Her mother stared at the thick wad of cash like it was a curse and a blessing all at once.
“Galing pa rin ba diyan?” she asked softly.
Mia didn’t answer.
She just headed to the bedroom she shared with Pia and her younger brother, Mark, who was already fast asleep, snoring lightly beside an open math workbook.
Mia sat at the edge of the bed and stared at her phone.
No messages. No missed calls. No one knew where she really went during workdays except for two people: her handler—and Clark.
She glanced at her brother’s tiny hand hanging off the side of the mattress.
She hated that she could give him milk and vitamins, but not the presence of a real father.
She hated that Pia looked up to her, without knowing the full weight of what it meant to survive.
And she hated that no matter how many fake orgasms she moaned through on camera, the pain of living in quiet sacrifice was the one thing she couldn’t act her way out of.
Later that night, while everyone was asleep, Mia sat by the window with a notebook on her lap.
She scribbled lines under the flickering glow of a dying fluorescent bulb:
I sell my body to protect yours.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡufctMZfPuZ
I moan, so you can sleep.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGS2eN3BvWI
I undress, so you can be clothed.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcEO3KXLU34
I die in bits on-screen8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEsFfv1ERcr
just to keep you alive off-screen.
She stared at the page, then slowly tore it off and folded it neatly into a box under her bed.
Another poem for no one to read.
Another truth she couldn't speak aloud.
