AURORA'S POV:
It never really stops hurting.
People assume that once justice is served, you get to move on. That the gavel hits, the guilty are sentenced, and life presses play again.
But no one tells you what to do with the silence that follows.
The kind that creeps into your lungs when you wake up at 3 a.m. and remember the look in Luis's eyes. Or how cold the marble feels every time i kneel by his grave.
I've been going there every week.
Sometimes with flowers.
Sometimes with nothing but guilt.
I talk to him as if he can still hear me.
"Luis, I'm so sorry."
"You didn't deserve any of it. And i promise i'll live a life that honors you."
It's strange how grief folds itself into your routines.
Like how i now pause before I enter a room, wondering if ghosts live there too. Or how i scan faces twice, once for danger, and once for memory. I'm still healing, yes. But it's not linear.
Lance never rushes me.
He lets me have my bad days.
On the really dark ones, he holds me without saying anything.
Just lets me fall apart if i need to. And somehow, his silence feels louder than all the noise in my head.
But i knew i had to start rebuilding. Slowly.
So i said yes.
"Beyond the Chaos." A Romance Drama.
The first taping day was hard. I hadn't stepped onto a set in months.
Everything felt unfamiliar, even though it used to feel like home.
I sat in the makeup chair and caught my reflection in the mirror, my eyes didn't carry the same shine they used to.
But there was something else there now. Something quieter. Stronger, maybe.
The director, Sir Miko, was gentle with me. "Let me know if it gets too heavy, okay? We work around you, not the other way around."
I nodded. "Thank you."
The role was raw. A woman mourning the loss of her brother after a tragic race crash. Falling in love with someone who reminded her of him. It asked for everything, tears, rage, even joy I hadn't felt in so long.
The kiss scenes? Yeah. I forgot how intense they could get. It's all angles and directions and trying not to burst into awkward laughter.
But Lance...
He tried to be chill about it.
"You're an actress. It's your job," he'd said the first time i told him about the script.
But when he picked me up after that first shoot and saw the lipstick still slightly smudged off the corner of my mouth, his jaw clenched just a little.
"You okay?" I asked, climbing into the passenger seat.
He nodded. "Yeah. Great performance today."
"You didn't even watch."
"I didn't need to. You're Aurora Zobel. You don't do half-baked."
I smiled. Reached over and touched his hand resting on the gearshift. "You're allowed to be jealous, you know."
His eyes flicked to me, amused. "I'm not jealous."
"You're also a terrible liar."
He didn't answer that.
Just brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles softly. "I trust you."
And i do trust him, too.
That's the difference this time around.
There's no pretending.
No trying to be okay when we're not.
No masking pain with politeness.
We sit with it, face it, and help each other through.
At night, when the cameras are off and the world quiets down, we lay in bed, his arms around me, my head on his chest and i feel something i never thought i'd have again.
Peace.
Still fragile. Still forming.
But real.
Some nights, we talk about the future.
It started small.
"Do you want to get a dog?" he asked one evening, completely unprompted, while we were folding laundry. A sock in one hand, a question in the air.
I looked up at him. "I'm allergic. But a dog?"
"Yeah. You like golden retrievers, right?"
I blinked. "You're asking me about dogs like we don't live in separate condos."
He shrugged. "We don't have to. Live separately, I mean."
I didn't answer right away.
My hands stilled on the folded towel, heart doing this weird stutter-step thing. Not because i didn't want to live with him.
But because moving in felt like admitting something huge, that i was letting myself be loved again. Fully. Fearlessly.
"You're not asking me to move in just because you want someone to split the cleaning," I teased, trying to lighten the weight of it.
"No. I'm asking because every day i go home without you in it feels...incomplete."
I stared at him.
He always does that.
Says things that feel like vows. Quiet ones. Ones that hit harder than grand gestures ever could.
And i realized, I wanted that too.
Not just to heal, but to live. Not just to survive, but to love, loudly.
So i said yes.
Not all at once.
Not right that minute.
But in the way i started leaving my scripts on his kitchen counter.
My coffee mug beside his.
My toothbrush quietly appearing next to his razor.
He noticed, but never rushed.
And i loved him even more for that.
-
Taping days were long.
Sometimes twelve hours straight under the sun or inside cramped sets. But it kept me anchored. It reminded me that i still had something to offer, that i wasn't just a story people whispered about.
"Scene 18! Let's take it from the bridge. Aurora, ready ka?"
I gave Sir Miko a thumbs-up. "Always."
My co-actor, Theo Ramirez, was an old friend.
We did a teleserye together when i was nineteen. He was easy to work with. Professional. Supportive. He also had a girlfriend who visited often, so Lance didn't have to silently murder him with his eyes.
Still, I noticed the way Lance would always show up fifteen minutes before wrap. Sit at the back. Read something on his phone.
Pretend he wasn't watching.
But the moment the kissing scenes were called, the air shifted.
Theo and I would run lines like normal, then the kiss would happen, the clapperboard would slam shut, and when i stepped off set, I'd always find Lance there, holding my water, towel in hand, jaw a little too tight.
"You sure you're not jealous?" I teased once.
He raised a brow. "I didn't say i wasn't. I said i trust you."
And that's the difference.
He never made me feel guilty for doing my job.
He just... stood there. Steady. Safe. Mine.
One night, after a particularly exhausting taping, I collapsed on the couch, head on his lap, legs sprawled.
"I think my spine is broken."
He chuckled, brushing hair out of my face. "I told you to stretch before that run-on-the-hill scene."
"I'm an actress. Not an athlete."
"You're both, babe."
I closed my eyes, letting his fingers comb.
I opened my eyes.
He was staring down at me like i hung the stars.
"You think the universe would've let you hide from me forever? Impossible."
"Bold of you to assume i didn't change my name and move to Antarctica."
"You'd be a terrible penguin."
I laughed. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
"I don't know," I whispered. "Sometimes i wonder what i did to deserve this... you."
"You survived," he said, without missing a beat. "You survived hell. And you came back with your heart intact. That's more than most people can say."
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Sometimes, love is loud. Sometimes it's flowers and fireworks.
But other times, it's this quiet affirmations. Steady presence.
A man who believes in your healing even when you don't.