Yesterday was an interesting day but exhausting at the same time, meeting two people who were a link to the story of Villa Mercedes. It just made the story even more confusing. I couldn’t wait to meet Gabriel to tell him about Lucia and Victor.

I was surprised when Chloe approached me at lunch. I was eating by myself in the garden outside the cafeteria when she came to sit beside me with her half-eaten tuna sandwich. It was really awkward to sit beside someone who was just yelling at you the other day.I quietly prepared myself for her insulting remarks. For a second, I was expecting her to be rude but I was surprised when she greeted me with a sweet smile.

“Hello, Denise. How are you?” she asked, making herself comfortable in the free space beside me.

I didn’t know how to answer her. I wanted to tell her to leave me alone but I didn’t want to create a scene. “I’m fine. Thank you.” I replied, not sure if she noticed the coldness in my voice.

“Where is Flora?” She asked, smiling mischievously. I could tell she was planning something against me and I wasn’t about to let her put that plan into action.

“What do you want?” I asked, making it obvious that I didn’t like her company.

“I just wanted to apologize for shouting at you the other day.” she said with the most solemn face. “Let’s forget everything and start over.”

I laughed in a sarcastic manner. “Are you serious? Do you really think I would believe that insincere apology of yours?”

Feeling embarrassed, Chloe’s face turned red with fury. She stood up and faced me.

“I don’t care, stupid girl. Do you think I would really care to apologize when I haven’t done anything wrong?” she smirked. “ I better go and find Flora.”

Thinking that Chloe might do something nasty to Flora and remembering how nice Flora was to me the other day, I grabbed her by the sleeve and with the most angry expression I could master, I warned her. “Leave Flora alone, you little bully.”

She wasn’t fazed by my angry expression and was even furious than before. “Are you trying to scare me? Because I’m not afraid of you.”

“Why are you so selfish?” I asked, trying hard to control myself not to slap her fat cheeks.

She looked at me so hard, as if she was trying to see how far I would go to defend Flora.

“Let’s make a deal.” she said, grinning.

I wasn’t enthusiastic to make dealings with the little devil but I wanted her to stop bothering Flora and me.

“What’s the deal?” I asked, trying to read her mind and avoid getting in trouble without knowing it.

“I want to challenge you and see how brave you are.” She looked at the school building and pointed at the second floor where there was a small concrete balcony, over-looking the school ground.

“You see the balcony over there?” She asked. “I’m going to jump from there to the next building. You’ll do the same. Only brave people can do that. I bet you can’t.”

She’s totally right. I could never jump across the next building. I could feel the fear rising just by looking how far it was from the main building’s balcony. One wrong move and I could land below the concrete school ground with broken skull and everyone would hear about my death the next day.

As if Chloe could read my mind, she smiled and teased. “Oh come on! It’s not that far. Trust me. I’ve done this a couple times before. I’m the only girl in my class who can do this.”

There was no way I could trust her. I thought. Annoyed by her superiority complex, I finally agreed to her challenge. “Deal.”

She smiled and asked me to come with her to the balcony.I followed her to the school building like some fierce bull fighter, ready to show how brave I am but deep inside I wanted to take back my words.

I was thinking of a clever way on how to trick her into changing her mind and cancel the challenge. I wished the bell would ring and she would forget everything about it.

On our way to the main building, I caught sight of a familiar face which I was grateful of. I stopped and told Chloe to go ahead and I would follow her in a few minutes. She was annoyed and accused me of backing out and being a scared cat but I could careless. I really needed to talk to him.

“Gabriel!” I called the tall guy in uniform, standing beside the guava tree.

I left Chloe who was yelling at me, asking me to come back. After a while, her voice seemed to fade and sounded so far away. Strong wind blew, sending a few strands of hair on my face. I tried to fix it by tying my long hair with a spare ponytail. I looked back to see Chloe but she wasn’t there anymore. I felt u sudden chill.

There was a voice inside me that was telling me to follow her but I was torn between knowing where she had gone and talking to Gabriel.

“Hi, Denise.” Gabriel greeted me, looking at the main school building. “Is everything alright?”

“Uhmm.. Yes.” I said, still looking at the place where I left Chloe. “It’s just I left someone over there but she suddenly vanished.” Then I realized how crazy I sounded and shrugged.” She probably went inside the building without me.”

But Gabriel looked worried more than me. “You need to be careful of the people you’re dealing with.”

“What do you mean?” I asked although I already thought that he must be talking about Chloe. He probably saw me and Chloe arguing a while ago.

“Don’t trust her.” he said in a serious voice.

I smirked. “You don’t have to warn me. I know I couldn’t trust her. But you see, I needed to follow her because we made a deal.”

As I was telling the entire story to Gabriel about my deal with Chloe and how it started, we saw a group of students gathered in front of the school building. They were all panicking.

Deja Vu

“Help the little girl!” a student shrieked.

“Call the police!”

We barely approached the crowd when suddenly, a small figure jumped from the fourth floor of the school building and landed in front of the crowd.

“She’s dead!” yelled a panicking voice.

I didn’t have to see in order to know who the student was but thinking about how I left her to her death made me weak and numb, I felt the world turned upside down and everything went dark.

“Denise...” I heard the worried voice of Gabriel.

Then everything went dark again.

“Someone fainted!”

The last memory that I had was a girl asking for help, a distant sound of an ambulance and being picked up by an unknown person.

I swear I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this place. I just can’t remember when and what exactly happened but I was here. Everything about this place reminds me of a distant memory. I am not suffering from amnesia. I am sure of it. But it seems there is something I could not remember. Memories that belong to the past. It did not happen just yesterday for me to remember every detail of it. Everything is a blur. Just a faint nostalgia. But somehow I feel that this place holds memories of a past life. A life I can no longer remember. But the breeze, the trees, the same quiet sound, the pink flowers and the faint flowing of the river keep reminding me of everything I could not understand and I know I will never recall, but it will remain familiar and will forever stay in my heart.

I was sitting in a rock below the shade of the old, mahogany tree, staring blankly at the view below the hill. Villa Mercedes was a lovely place but it made me missed home even more.

“Helen! Where are you?”

I could hear someone calling me from afar but I didn’t bother looking up and continued removing weeds from the huge rock where I was sitting. I didn’t want to be here in the first place. I wanted to go back home. To my real parents. To the one who brought me up and loved me till the last days of their lives. I didn’t want this woman who claimed to love me and took me in the orphanage with her in order to live with her new husband and my sister. I like my sister and that woman and his husband were nice but they could never replaced my real family. But I was too stubborn. If only I didn’t get mad at them for hiding the truth. I wish I could change the past. Then none of these would have happened.

I didn’t deserve any of these and I don’t want her to suffer because of what I’ve done. I wish I could be there to warn her... to warn myself not to do the same thing in my next life...

“Helen, come back.” said a gentle voice of a woman as I run away from her blurry face.

“Helen, I’m sorry!” A familiar voice of a young boy called me from far away.

“It’s not my fault.” said an angry voice.

“You disrespectful child!”

Strange voices suddenly came out of nowhere that made me panicked and forced me to cover my ears to avoid hearing them. They seemed to be shouting at me and blaming me.

“They’re dead, Helen!”

“You have to leave this place!”

“He wants to kill your mom and your sister!”

“It was all your fault, you pushed her!”

From out of no where, I heard myself screamed. “I didn’t kill her!”