Prologue
Some journeys begin with a suitcase and a destination. Mine began with a goodbye.
At Seventeen, I left behind the noisy streets of Pasay, the cluttered warmth of our family home, and the hands of my younger sisters waving from the port. I boarded a passenger ship bound for Iloilo, unsure of what waited on the other side—just a promise of schooling, a quieter life, and a chance to start again after my father fell ill and everything we knew began to unravel.
I thought the hardest part would be leaving.
But I was wrong.
Because somewhere between the decks of that ship, beneath stars I had never truly seen from the city, I met someone who made me feel things I didn’t yet understand. A stranger with a name too familiar. A smile too vivid. And a voice that sang like it remembered me.
What happened next wasn’t in any itinerary.
Some stories are written in ink.Mine was written on water—and in the silence between songs.
