September 1987 Three months. The rainy season had arrived without warning, the way it always does — and Riley had stood in the middle of it the first time, soaked completely, because he forgot that he was living in a year without weather apps.

Riley had been in the past for almost two weeks when he heard them fight for the first time.

He wasn't trying to listen.

He was sitting outside on the step of Miguel's house, eating a piece of bread, watching a cat cross the street very slowly like it owned everything, when he heard Melissa's voice from around the corner — sharp in a way he had never heard before.

He froze mid-bite.

He had heard his mother's voice soft. He had heard it tired. He had heard it thin and careful in hospital rooms when she was trying not to scare anyone.

He had never heard it like this.

He set the pandesal down.

It started, as most first fights do, over something small.

Miguel had promised to meet her after her shift. He forgot. Not because he didn't care — Riley would piece this together later — but because his friend had needed help moving furniture and time slipped away from him the way it does when you are young and haven't yet learned that some things cannot be rescheduled.

Melissa had waited for forty minutes.

"I was just standing there," she said. "Like an idiot. Waiting."

"Melissa, I said I'm sorry—"

"Sorry doesn't fix the forty minutes, Miguel."

They were standing at the corner of the street, not quite in front of either of their houses, the way people argue in places where they don't want to be overheard and end up being overheard anyway.

Riley stayed very still on the step.

He watched his father's jaw tighten.

Watched him open his mouth.

Close it.

Melissa crossed her arms. "Say something."

Miguel looked at her. Something moved behind his eyes — not anger, not exactly. Something more like a door closing carefully, deliberately, from the inside.

"I'm sorry," he said again. Quieter this time.

"That's all you have to say?"

"...Yes."

Melissa let out a sharp breath. "You're unbelievable." She turned and walked toward her house.

Miguel watched her go.

He didn't call after her. Didn't raise his voice. Didn't say the thing that would've won the argument or the thing that would've made it worse.

He just stood there until her door closed.

Then he turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Hands in his pockets. Shoulders slightly lowered. Going nowhere in particular.

Riley watched him disappear around the corner.

And sat very still for a long time.

He found Miguel later, sitting by the old waiting shed at the end of the road, watching jeepneys pass.

Riley sat beside him without asking.

They were quiet for a while.

"Fight?" Riley said finally.

Miguel didn't answer right away. Just exhaled slowly through his nose.

"She was right," he said. "I made her wait."

"So why didn't you explain? Your friend needed help, that's a valid reason."

Miguel was quiet again. In the distance, a jeepney horn. A dog barking twice then stopping.

"Because," Miguel said slowly, like he was figuring it out as he said it, "if I start explaining, I start defending. And if I start defending—" He stopped.

Riley waited.

"I have a bad temper," Miguel said. Simply. Factually. The way someone says I'm left-handed or I don't like the taste of coffee. "When I was younger I used to say things. When I was angry." He picked up a small stone from the ground and turned it over in his fingers. "Things I couldn't take back."

Riley looked at him.

"I don't want to be that with her," Miguel said. "I don't want to be that with anyone I—" He stopped again. Set the stone down. "So I walk away. Until it passes."

Riley didn't say anything.

He was thinking about every dinner table he had ever sat at. Every quiet evening. Every time a disagreement rose in the house like weather and his father simply — left the room. Went to the backyard. Came back twenty minutes later and said nothing more about it.

Riley had thought it meant he didn't care.

He had thought it meant he was indifferent. Passive. Too tired to try.

He had never once considered—

He was protecting her.

Every time. All those years. His father had been standing at the edge of his own anger and choosing, deliberately, to walk away from it. Not because the fight wasn't worth having. But because she was worth more than winning it.

Riley felt something shift in his chest. Something that had been sitting at a wrong angle for a very long time.

"She'll be okay," Riley said finally. His voice came out quieter than he intended. "She's just hurt. But she knows you care."

Miguel glanced at him sideways. "How do you know?"

Riley looked down at his hands.

Because she stayed, he thought. For decades, she stayed. Because she figured out what I just did — that your silence was never emptiness. It was the most careful kind of love.

"I just know," he said.

Miguel studied him for a moment. Then looked back at the road.

They sat there until it got dark.

Two people who loved the same woman.

One who was just beginning to.

One who was still learning how much he always had.