Catherine

     Catherine’s eyes fluttered open with the buzzing sound of the alarm clock blaring from her nightstand. There were prickles of sweat tracing down her neck, so she used her duvet in order to wipe it off. She also noticed her heart beating rapidly, and about two seconds later there are footsteps heard from the other side of her door; then pounding.      “Catherine! Are you all right?” asked her mother. “I’m going in.” And so, she did.”      She caught a glimpse of her daughter breathing heavily, her eyebrows furrowed and gazing at her familiar surroundings. Anita grew even more concerned by this sight, pulling her daughter into an embrace.      Catherine felt it was a bit of an odd gesture. She isn’t sure when the last time Anita had hugged her, but she is quite sure that it was such a long ti

Saturday classes are something that Catherine had been dreading. She’d very much rather work on her own and spend the entire day in the library for the Related Literature part of her thesis, or patching up news articles of missing children—something she had been doing for so long, and ate up her summers for the past nine years—in order to see if there are similarities between the missing kids and Felipe’s. She made it a point to finish all her works in order to play detectives always. She refused to let this case rest.      It doesn’t matter whether Felipe’s dead or alive at this point—though she prays to God that he is well—all she needs is his presence. Her beating heart resented to stop aching for ten years now until Felipe’s found, and she fears the most that her soul might stay bothered for the rest of her life.      She could do all of those&m

Ever since she found her heart captivated by this unnamed ballerina, Catherine had been finding time in order to catch a peek of the dance hall where this ballerina mostly practiced, at the same time hoping to know her name too. Catherine imagined scenarios of chance encounters with this girl and formally introducing herself, but she thought that these imaginations are too good to be true. She thought that she’s too shy to even introduce herself, and the chance encounters she imagined are far from possible from happening.      As mentioned, eavesdropping wasn’t really her thing, until the moment she saw this girl perform. She had to learn more about her, though the only thing she gets was a heavy heart whenever the same instructor who criticize her movements. She cannot remember a time where this man complimented her. It’s always harsh inputs and Catherine could have sworn that one time, she saw tears trickling down her rosy

Catherine was running late for her class when she passes by the dance hall and hearing the unnamed professor say something about the auditions. There, Catherine already knew that it was Lyra who’d been receiving this unnecessary lecture, so she gathered all her guts, took a deep breath and pushed the door open, entering the dance hall. Everyone in the class looked at her with their eyes widened, including Brittany, who was looking at Catherine with flirting eyes, Lyra, whose eyebrows were furrowed and nearly in tears, and the instructor with a confused expression plastered on his face.      “Pardon me, but I can’t help but overhear about Lyra’s audition in my mom’s production.”      “Catherine Hernandez! Daughter of that amazing Anita Hernandez. What about the audition?”      “I don’t mean to interrupt

School holidays were when Catherine felt absolutely grateful because after her thesis works, she finally gets to attend to the mystery she’s been wanting to solve for years now. Finally, she’s got her hand on the flash drive that contained the CCTV footage, and she reached Tacky’s apartment door.      She knocked in a special pattern for Tacky to know that it was her. After a few seconds, the knob of the door twisted and Tacky welcomed Catherine with a smile.      “So,did you have it?”      “I have, and God, do I hope that this solves our case once and for all.”      Tacky held the door open and Catherine stepped in. She, once again, observed her surroundings and admired how nerdy Tacky is with his outrageous amount of devices around, most of which she doesn’t know the name