"He's here again," one of Selene's friends murmured, nodding toward the door.
Era glanced at the boy waiting in the hallway, then back at Selene. "Why the cold shoulder? You used to chase him."
"Just go," Selene replied, her voice flat. She walked out of the classroom, moving past Clarence as if he were part of the building. He didn't stay behind. His heavy footsteps echoed her own until he caught her arm, dragging her into a blind corner of the campus. As the brother of the Student Council President, Clarence treated the school's restricted areas like his private kingdom.
He slammed her against the cold concrete wall with a rough, careless force. Selene had once thrived on that edge—the bruised lips, the territorial grip. But today, the thrill was dead. Compared to him, Clarence was nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum.
"Are you playing with me, Selene?" Clarence hissed, his face inches from hers. "You've been dodging me for days. You want me to leak that video? Is that it?"
A smile ghosted across Selene's lips—sharp, clinical, and devoid of warmth. "Do it," she said calmly. "Let's see who gets ruined first."
Clarence's face contorted with a silent, impotent rage. He punched the wall beside her head, the thud vibrating through her skull. Selene didn't blink. She was used to his cycles of violence; it was the very thing that had drawn her to him in the beginning—the recognition of a shared, jagged darkness. Clarence bled his rage outward. Hers was a slow poison.
"You can't do this to me," he growled. "You belong to me."
"When did I ever belong to you?" She wrenched her arm free, but he lunged, his hand clenching the back of her neck as he crushed his mouth against hers. It was a kiss meant to punish, to reclaim. Selene felt the metallic tang of blood as her lip split, but a part of her remained cold and distant, already elsewhere.
Later, in the restroom, Era gasped. "What happened to you?"
Selene took the paper bag from her friend and ducked into a stall. Her uniform was torn, the white fabric stained with a few drops of red. She stripped it off and dropped it into the trash.
"I told you he was dangerous," Era said as they walked out.
"He is," Selene whispered, wiping a smear of blood from the corner of her mouth with a delicate fingertip. So am I.
She arrived for her tutoring session with her heart hammering with resentment.
"Is Ninong here?" she asked Mayette, trying to keep her voice light. Greg hadn't answered her calls or messages for days—a silence that felt like a slap. Even at his busiest, he had always found a minute to worship her through a screen. The rejection was a slow-burning fuse in her chest.
"He'll be late tonight," Mayette replied, her face radiant. There was a new light in her eyes, a softness to her movements that made Selene's stomach turn. "He has a series of meetings."
"You seem... different today, Ninang. Happy," Selene noted, testing the waters.
"I am," Mayette confessed, her smile widening. "It's finally happening, Selene. I'm pregnant. Our first baby... we've waited so long."
The room tilted. Selene felt the smile on her own face freeze into a mask. "I see," Selene said. "Congratulations."
"Thank you, Hija. Now, let's get to work." Mayette turned back to the textbooks, oblivious to the predatory glint in the girl sitting across from her.
Days passed in a blur of silence. Greg was a ghost in his own home, avoiding her with a cowardice that only fueled Selene's resolve. The finals ended, stripping her of her excuse to visit. In her room, she tore pages from her notebook—the very notes Mayette had painstakingly written for her—shredding them until the floor was littered with scraps.
When she walked into the living room, she saw her mother packing tupperware containers.
"Mom? Where are you going?"
"To Mayette's. She needs to eat well now that she's eating for two."
The resentment flared. Even her own mother was being pulled into the orbit of Mayette's "miracle."
"Can I come?" Selene asked, her voice sweet and irresistible.
"Of course. Hurry and change."
Selene chose a pale yellow dress—Greg's favorite color. She would make sure he saw her. She would make sure he remembered.
When they arrived, Greg's reaction was everything she hoped for. The shock in his eyes, the way he immediately looked away—it was a confirmation of his guilt. He thought a pregnancy could erase what they had done? He thought he could just turn off the fire he had started?
She watched him. Just weeks ago, they had used every wall and surface of this house to satisfy their hunger. She could still feel the phantom heat of his hands on her skin. She didn't believe for a second that the flame had died; it was just being smothered by his fear.
"Mare, you shouldn't have bothered," Mayette said, embracing Selene's mother.
"Nonsense. I want you and that baby healthy."
As the women laughed, Mayette glanced around. "Hon? Can you go to the storage room and grab some tupperware for Mare? I have a surplus in there."
Greg moved quickly, desperate to escape the room.
"Selene, why don't you watch a movie in the living room while we chat?" Mayette suggested. Selene nodded, waiting until they disappeared into the kitchen before she turned, not toward the television, but toward the storage room.
Greg dropped a stack of plastic containers when he saw her slip through the door. His face went pale with a mixture of terror and desire. "Selene? What are you doing? Get out of here."
She blocked the door, her hand resting on the lock. "Don't," she said quietly. "I'll scream."
Greg stared at her. This was no longer the compliant goddaughter who had simply surrendered to his hunger; this was a stranger with a gaze like a winter storm. He saw the hurt, the abandonment, and the dangerous resolve behind her eyes.
"Listen to me," he hissed, his voice trembling. "We promised this would stay a secret. I'm going to be a father, Selene. It has to stop."
"Do you really think I'm just a girl who makes dumb promises?" Selene's hand moved to the hem of her yellow dress. She slowly began to lift the fabric, her eyes locked on his. Innocence had never belonged to her. She reached down, sliding her lace underwear over her hips and letting them fall to the dusty floor.
"Selene..." Greg's voice was a broken whisper. He balled his fists, fighting the urge to reach for her. But the scent of her, the sight of her in the dim light of the storage room, was a drug he wasn't strong enough to quit.
She stepped closer, grabbing his collar and pulling his face down to hers. "Take me," she said, her voice sharp with challenge.
The last of Greg's restraint didn't just break; it disintegrated. The sight of her—the sheer, defiant audacity of her standing there bare beneath that yellow dress—obliterated every vow he had ever taken. He lunged for her, his hands bruising the skin of her waist as he hoisted her up, slamming her back against the wooden door with a force that made the hinges groan.
Selene didn't flinch. Her legs snapped around his waist, locking him in, her heels digging into the small of his back as if to brand him. He didn't waste time with the dress; he simply bunched the fabric upward, his breath coming in jagged, animal growls. When he entered her, it wasn't with the tentative care of a lover, but with a violent, punishing desperation. He drove into her with a speed that bordered on cruelty, a rhythmic assault fueled by a toxic cocktail of self-loathing and a lust so deep it felt like a terminal illness.
He moved her from the door to the unforgiving concrete of the side wall, the transition rough and frantic. Every strike was a collision, his body seeking to drown out the noise of his conscience. When a cry began to tear from her throat, he smothered it, burying his mouth against hers, tasting the salt of her skin and the copper of her bitten lip.
The storage room, once a mundane pantry for plastic containers and household surplus, became a furnace. The air grew thick and stagnant, heavy with the scent of sweat, and the musk of their shared transgression. In the crushing heat of that moment, the world outside ceased to exist. Mayette's pregnancy, the decades of friendship with Luis, the very concept of a future—it all burned away. There was no Greg, no goddaughter, no father-to-be. There was only the friction of skin on skin, the frantic pulse in his veins, and the terrifying, hollow high of a man who knew he was finally, irrevocably ruined.
An hour later, Selene sat in the passenger seat of her mother's car, a secret smile playing on her lips. She sat with her legs crossed, the absence of her underwear a private thrill as she felt the cooling evidence of their encounter between her thighs.
Back at the house, Mayette was cleaning the corners of the storage room when she found it—a small, delicate piece of lace tucked behind a crate. She frowned, holding it up. It was far too small to be hers.
She stared at the fabric, the first seed of a terrible realization beginning to take root in the silence of the room.