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27. INT. DELGADO RESIDENCE – DINING ROOM – LATER

By the time Luis arrives at Joanna’s La Vista home, he is the angriest he’s ever been with her.

He finds her at the dining table, her dinner of lechon paksiw going cold before her. He stands, glaring at her; she sits, staring at her untouched food. They hold that tableau for a full minute, a minute that seems to last for an entire day, until Luis can stand it no longer.

“O, dali, sermonan mo na ako, para maka-alis ako ng medyo maaga, para rested ako for shooting tomorrow. Kung hindi, baka ma-fatigue ulit ako at yung mga commission mo sa trabaho ko `di ma-di-deposit sa bank account mo.”

Joanna looks up from her plate.

“Ikaw pa yung may ganang magalit! If not for me, you wouldn’t even be able to go near her!”

“Ha? Si Lilith? Pina-iyak mo siya, Jo. Alam mo ba `yon? She’s hurt because you don’t like her.”

“Wow. May feelings pala yung bruhang—“

“Jo.” Luis’ voice is hard. Cold. Filled with warning.

Joanna shakes her head, praying she’s wrong. “Ano? You love her? `Love’ na nga ba talaga `to?”

Luis frowns. “I don’t know, but why do you hate her so much? Anong ginawa niya sa `yo?”

“Umiyak siya, Luis? My God, she’s an actress! She was made to be an actress!”

“Okey nga siya umarte, pero hindi naman ako tanga na—“

“Worse,” Joanna interjects, “you’re in love.”

Luis glares at her. “Yes, she has feelings, Jo. Hindi `yon acting yung nakita ko kanina.”

Joanna lets out a long sigh, closing her eyes as if in preparation for a migraine.

She opens her eyes, looks squarely into Luis’.

“Look, L. Alam mo medyo weird yung buhay showbiz.”

Luis waits, silent. He crosses his arms over his chest, and Joanna thinks, Wow. Kamukha niya talaga si Habagat. Then, a corollary thought: Tapos ako yung arch-enemy niya: si Joanna, ang Loka-lokang Lesbyana.

Joanna’s jaw tries to lock, her tongue and throat shrivel, but she gets the words out, spits them up like bitter fruit: “L, hindi tao si Lilith.”

All Luis can muster in response is an eloquent, “Ha?”

“I told you. She was made to be an actress. Ginawa siya ni Kuya Sis, out of what I don’t really want to know.”

Luis shakes his head, looking at Joanna as if her madness could be catching.

“Sa Italianni’s, napansin mo ba kung may kinain siya?”

Luis’ gaze falls on Joanna’s plate, and he flashes on the waiter clearing away Lilith’s seemingly untouched dinner. Joanna, in turn, catches the look that crosses Luis’ face.

“Hindi, ‘no?” and there is a note of triumph there. “She doesn’t eat food, L. `Yun yung sinabi ni Kuya Sis.”

Luis swallows, fear’s cold fingertip running up his spine.

“So what does she eat?” he asks softly, then, looking back up at Joanna’s face, “And what did you mean by what you said kanina?”

Joanna looks away, unable to hold Luis’ gaze.

“`If not for me, you wouldn’t even be able to go near her.’” Luis’ delivery is measured. Precise.

Ang galing talaga ng memory ng bata, Joanna thinks wistfully.

Again, she forces the words past her lips.

“Yung pagkapagod mo noon. Yung fatigue? Dahil kay Lilith `yon. You wanted to know what she eats? Well, she was going to end up eating you, if I hadn’t given her something else.”

Luis is silent for a moment, trying to wrap his protesting brain around this new information.

“Ano,” he asks, “parang si Selina?”

At first, Joanna’s mind does not register the name, till Luis adds, “Yung energy vampire na kalaban ni Habagat. Yung episode na muntik na mamatay si Habagat kasi na-drain siya ng energy ni Selina, tapos binugbog pa siya ni Suspiria, at tinapon sa Mt. Pinatubo.”

“Siguro,” Joanna replies, slightly irritated they’ve slid back into the fictional side of the world they work and live in.

“So what has she been eating, Jo?”

Then, as Luis waits for the answer, Joanna looking down at her plate once more, a look of horrified understanding creeps across the young man’s features.

“No. Not `what.’”

Joanna looks up into Luis’ cold, accusing eyes, and he says one damning word: “Who.”

Joanna can see the supreme effort of will it is taking for Luis to rein in his anger, and there is a part of Joanna that does not blame him in the slightest.

“Who, Joanna?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies tiredly.

“Anong `It doesn’t matter’?! Of course it matters! Tao sila, Jo! I’m assuming na tao nga yung pina… pina…”

Joanna watches Luis struggle with the horror of what he is trying to say.

“Yes.” Her voice is not just tired now. It is dead. Stripped of warmth and feeling (like those three girls, Joanna, goes a gleefully wicked voice in her head, those three girls you lied to, lied to and used unto death).

“Yes, they were people. Three of them. We tried animals first, pero parang junk food yata kay Lilith yung hayop. Hindi talaga siya nabubusog.”

Joanna looks into Luis’ eyes, tries to find something there that is not condemnation.

“They were just three, L.”

“Anong `just’?!” he shouts, roars with hot bitter rage. “Yung isa sobra na, e!”

“But we stopped! We stopped, L. Kasi Lilith was… ewan ko, absorbing yung personality ng mga tao na…” and it is Joanna’s turn to trail off now, to flounder on the jagged rocks of revulsion.

Luis’ breathing is harsh, audible. Joanna can see his hands, held at his sides now, clenched in fists, the muscles of his biceps and forearms tensed.

“Tapos,” he says, controlling his voice, his tone, “what are you feeding her now?”

“Nakahanap ako ng supplier…”

“Supplier of what?”

Joanna looks about ready to cry, as if this is far worse than sentencing three people to death, and Luis thinks, Oh, God, why is this happening?

“Supplier siya ng mga kaluluwa.”

Luis stares at Joanna, wondering who this stranger is who looks exactly like her.

“Since Lilith was absorbing the personalities, I had to make sure na puro mababait yung kinakain niya. And this… the supplier, he can choose specific kinds of souls, differentiate the good from the bad…”

“Ano ka ba naman, pati pa ba yung mga patay hindi nakakaligtas sa `yo?!”

Joanna is shocked, seeing the vehemence and the rage (so much more than rage now, fury, like something from Greek myth) there, the veins in Luis’ neck bulging, his entire body tense, as if the slightest touch could cause some fundamental chemical reaction, fission, the blast surely decimating all within its vicinity.

“I did it for you, L.”

“Oh, no,” he says, eyes wild, “don’t say that! Don’t say that kasi magiging kasalanan ko pa yung ginawa mo!”

Neither of them speak for a time, the only audible sound, Luis’ harsh breathing.

Finally, Joanna sickens of the sight of her food, congealed on her plate, and she pushes it aside, then looks at Luis.

“For now, just listen. You can hate me tomorrow, but listen. Buhay mo yung nakasalalay dito.

“She wasn’t really aware of it at the start, what she needed to feed on, kaya yung nangyari sa `yo, yung fainting, yung collapse, accidental.

“I talked to Kuya Sis after your hospitalization, tapos kinausap ko si Lilith. We made a deal. Dadalhin ko siya ng makakain niya, and she wouldn’t do anything to harm you, which was easy kasi sabi niya wala naman siyang balak na saktan ka.

“So we tried animals first, pero `yun nga, parang wala siyang nakukuhang sustansiya. It had to be people.

“But then it was like she retained some of the people’s personalities for a time, siguro `yun yung digestion period niya, or something,” and as Joanna says this, she sees Luis close his eyes, shudder, and wince, but she forces herself to go on.

"So I talked to Kuya Sis again, and he suggested yung supplier nga, so we settled on that nung mukhang na-su-sustain na si Lilith doon.

"When she isn't feeling hungry, it's all right to be near her, to touch her, kiss her, whatever. Pero kapag gutom siya, when she feeds, her whole body absorbs her meal; hindi lang lips niya, pati balat.

"Are you listening, Luis? `Wag mo siyang hawakan habang kumakain siya."

Luis stares at Joanna coldly, in the most detached, emotionless way she’s ever seen, since they'd first made each others' acquaintances, and somewhere, somewhere deep inside Joanna, she knows they will never, ever, be the same kind of friends they were ten minutes ago.

Never.

And there is a cold, hollow space in her now, as she makes herself keep on speaking.

"Kumakain siya ngayon once every three days. Basta makakain siya ng maayos, she's okay to be around. Parang medicine niya, L. Think about it like that na lang."

Cold, his reply, arctic: "Hindi ako bata, Jo. I don't have to `think' about it in any other way except the way it is."

Oo, thinks Joanna, it was the only way I knew how to help you.

She sighs. "Kung ayaw mo na siya maging ka-love team—“

"Trabaho kaagad yung gusto mong pag-usapan?!"

"E, kailangan ko malaman, no!" she shoots back. "Kung ba-back out tayo, kailangan kong sabihin kay Kuya Sis."

Luis shuts his eyes, stands there, unmoving, for what seems to Joanna a very long time, then, "I need to think about this," eyes still closed, "so gawin mo yung gusto mong gawin for the meantime."

He opens his eyes and once again, he looks to Joanna exactly like Habagat.

"Aayusin ko `yung problemang `to."

And before Joanna can ask what he means, he is moving, and out of the house, without a proper goodbye.

And Joanna sits at the table, alone, for what seems to her like forever.

The tears don't come until much later than that.

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