The city always smelled like old coffee and ambition.
Lara Domingo had forgotten that smell — the mixture of asphalt, exhaust, and something faintly metallic that clung to the air of Mandaluyong. It reminded her of her twenties, when she used to believe the future was something you could schedule between paydays.
Now, at thirty-four, she stood outside a three-story apartment building whose walls were painted a hopeful shade of beige. A cat slept on the steps, too tired to care that she was dragging a suitcase that looked heavier than her entire body.
“Finally,” a familiar voice said behind her. Jonas Rivera appeared, wearing a gray shirt that looked one wash away from retirement. He smiled, all dimples and charm, like the boy she had once worked beside in the same marketing firm. Back then, he was the office comedian, the one who made Excel sheets sound like performance art.
“Hey,” Lara said, smiling back. “You didn’t say your building had stairs like these. I might lose a lung.”
Jonas laughed. “Free cardio. You’ll thank me later.”
She wanted to say she already did enough cardio running after her deadlines and expectations, but she kept quiet. It was too early for sarcasm; politeness still had a job to do.
Inside his unit, the air smelled faintly of garlic and floor cleaner. It wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t exactly clean either — like someone who made an effort only when expecting guests. The furniture was minimalist: a couch, a small wooden table, one laptop on the counter.
“Welcome to Casa Rivera,” he said with a mock bow. “It’s not much, but it’s rent-controlled.”
“It’s okay,” she said, meaning it. There was something peaceful about the space — until she opened the refrigerator. Inside sat half a jar of peanut butter, two eggs, and a bottle of soy sauce.
She closed it quietly, pretending she had seen nothing.
—
They had met again a few months before through a mutual friend’s birthday dinner. He was still funny, still magnetic, but there was something quieter about him now — a kind of restless calm, like a man standing at the edge of something he couldn’t name. He told her he had “resigned to focus on his side projects,” which sounded noble then. She had admired his courage to “choose freedom.”
It wasn’t until weeks later, when she had already agreed to stay with him temporarily, that “freedom” began to look suspiciously like unemployment.
“Sit down,” Jonas said now, setting two mismatched mugs on the table. “Coffee?”
“Sure,” Lara replied, taking one. It was instant coffee — three-in-one, overly sweet, the kind she only drank when too tired to care.
“So,” he said, sitting across from her. “You’re really back in Manila.”
“For a while,” she said. “My company’s finalizing my transfer. HR’s slow as ever.”
He nodded, stirring his coffee lazily. “You’ll kill it there. You always do.”
It was easy to smile at that. Compliments were his currency — smooth, generous, and often used to distract from what he didn’t want to say.
—
That first week, everything felt like pretend domestic bliss. Jonas cooked. He made her breakfast — garlic rice and eggs, sometimes sardines. He told stories about clients who promised to “pay soon.” Lara didn’t ask too many questions. She had always been taught not to intrude on a man’s pride.
But small signs began to whisper louder each day.
The grocery bags she bought didn’t last long.
His phone calls with “clients” always ended with “next week, bro.”
The electricity bill sat folded on the table for days, waiting for someone brave enough to open it.
Still, when he kissed her forehead one evening, saying, “I’ll make it up to you soon,” she nodded automatically.
She didn’t believe him — not fully — but love, she realized, was a good editor. It deleted inconvenient sentences before you could read them twice.
—
One Saturday night, they sat on the balcony, legs touching, watching the chaos of the street below. Lara sipped her canned beer; Jonas smoked quietly beside her.
“You know,” he said, “I really think this freelance thing will work out. I just need one big client.”
“You’ve been saying that for months,” she said gently.
He looked at her, mildly offended. “You don’t believe in me?”
“I do,” she said, too quickly. “I just… I want you to have something stable. Something sure.”
Jonas leaned back, exhaling smoke. “That’s the problem with people who stayed in corporate too long. You mistake routine for stability.”
She didn’t answer. She wanted to say, I mistake laziness for freedom, but she bit her tongue. Mo Bao Fei Bao would’ve written her pause as elegant silence, the kind that hides the earthquake inside.
The truth was, Lara wasn’t sure what she believed anymore. She had once prided herself on emotional intelligence — the ability to read people’s needs before they said them. But lately, it felt like that same skill had turned into a curse. She could sense Jonas’s disappointment before he voiced it, his defensiveness before he justified it. She adjusted herself around his moods like a careful dance.
That, psychologists, would call people-pleasing behavior, often rooted in anxious attachment.
—
Days passed in quiet compromises.
Lara paid for the groceries.
Jonas cooked to “make it fair.”
When he needed fare for errands, she “lent” him cash that was never mentioned again.
“Thank you, babe,” he said each time, like the words themselves could cover the debt.
And each time, she said, “No worries.”
But inside, a quiet resentment began to stack up like unpaid bills.
—
One rainy afternoon, Lara came home early from her errands. Jonas was sitting at the table, typing furiously.
“Client deadline?” she asked.
He nodded. “This one’s big. If it pushes through, we can finally relax.”
We. The word made her chest tighten. She wanted to believe that “we” meant partnership, but it was starting to sound like shared poverty.
“Do you need anything?” she asked instead.
He looked up. “Actually, can I borrow some for load? I need to follow up another client.”
She hesitated. Her salary hadn’t arrived yet, and she’d already advanced part of her savings for her Manila move.
“Jonas…” she began.
He smiled, that disarming smile that always made her rationality dissolve. “Just this once.”
“Okay,” she said finally, opening her wallet. “Just be sure you follow up the client, okay?”
“Promise,” he said.
She placed the bills in his hand and felt a flicker of unease, like watching herself from outside — the observer self psychologists call metacognition.
—
That night, when he fell asleep, Lara sat quietly at the foot of the bed, scrolling through her phone. She opened her notes app, where she sometimes wrote things she couldn’t say aloud.
Day 12.
I feel like I’m mothering someone who’s only pretending to be my partner.
Is this what they call emotional fatigue?
The sound of his breathing filled the room — steady, innocent, like a man who believed the world owed him another chance.
She wanted to wake him and ask, What do you really want, Jonas? What do you want to become?
But she didn’t. Because sometimes, asking a question was more dangerous than living with the answer.
—
On Sunday, they went to a small carinderia for lunch. It was one of the few places they could both afford without mental math.
Jonas ordered silog meals and smiled at the waitress like he was auditioning for charm school. Lara noticed. She also noticed how he conveniently forgot to bring his wallet again.
When the bill came, she reached for it automatically.
“Babe,” Jonas said, stopping her hand. “Let me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He fished through his pocket dramatically, then frowned. “Oh. I think I left my wallet at home.”
Lara laughed — not out of amusement but disbelief. “Of course you did.”
“Next time, I’ll pay,” he said quickly.
“Sure,” she replied, smiling thinly.
She wasn’t angry. She was tired. There was a difference. Fatigue, after all, was the body’s polite version of surrender.
—
That night, as they lay in bed, Jonas traced circles on her arm. “You’re quiet,” he said.
“I’m just thinking.”
“About?”
“Money.”
He chuckled. “You always worry too much.”
“Someone has to.”
He rolled over, facing her. “You’re saying I don’t?”
“I’m saying we have different definitions of ‘worry.’”
He stared at her, his pride already pricked. “You know what your problem is, Lara? You treat everything like a project. Even me.”
Her throat tightened. “At least projects have deadlines. You don’t.”
Silence.
A heavy kind — the kind that fills every corner of a room until there’s nowhere to sit.
Jonas turned away. “You can leave if you’re that unhappy.”
Lara wanted to say, Maybe I will. But she didn’t. Because leaving required courage, and right now, she only had guilt.
—
That night, she dreamt of drowning in receipts — every paper stamped PAID except one.
When she woke up, she realized it wasn’t the money that hurt.
It was the imbalance — the quiet erosion of respect disguised as understanding.
And that was when she began to recognize the pattern — a slow psychological drift toward codependency, where caring becomes currency and silence becomes survival.
—
(End of Chapter 1)
—
Author’s Note:
The first chapter mirrors the beginning of many unequal relationships — where love, guilt, and hope coexist in uneasy silence. Like Lara, many people confuse empathy with endurance, not realizing that one nourishes, while the other drains.
Psychology Fact:
Studies on codependency show that people who overextend themselves emotionally often suffer from compassion fatigue — the burnout that comes from giving more empathy than one can replenish.
—
Amazon Book:
📘 “Codependent No More” by Melody Beattie — A groundbreaking guide on breaking free from one-sided relationships and reclaiming personal boundaries.
