POV: Lily Navarro

Lily Navarro had never been good at goodbyes.

She always smiled too much, made too many jokes, said things like “see you next week” even when she knew she wouldn’t. So when she posted that single Facebook photo two hours before her flight—just a grainy shot of her passport beside a pale pink suitcase with the caption: “See you on the other side 🌸✈️”—she didn’t expect the explosion in her group chat.

Group Name: Petsa de Peligro Crew 💸🍜

Mae: “EXCUSE ME WHAT THE HECK DO YOU MEAN SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE 😭😭😭”
Lavenia: “GIRL IS THIS A SOFT LAUNCH OR A FLIGHT TO THE AFTERLIFE??? 👀”
Jona: “Wait wait wait you’re LEAVING?!!”
Lily: “🥺✈️💖”
Mae: “NOT THE EMOJIS YOU TRAITOR 💀”

She giggled softly, rereading their reactions for the fifth time. The plane hadn’t even taken off yet, and her chest was already a tangled mess of excitement, dread, and something warm and aching that she didn’t quite know how to name.

The first leg of the flight—Davao to Manila—was over before her nerves could catch up. She barely remembered the terminal change, only that her heart hammered like a drum the moment she stepped onto the international flight.

From Manila, she flew to Doha. The layover was seven hours long.
Seven hours of cold airport seats, overpriced bottled water, and trying to sleep with her tote bag wrapped around her leg like a seatbelt.

“Are you seriously in Qatar right now?”

Lily squinted at her phone. Lavenia was awake. It was 2:37 AM in Davao.

Lily: “Yes 😭 There are so many tall people and I feel like a moving piece of luggage.”
Lavenia: “TAKE A VIDEO. I WANNA SEE YOUR EYEBAGS.”

She flipped the camera around and grinned. Her hair was a puffball of airport-static, her hoodie sleeves stretched over her hands, and her ring—the one her mother gave her—still cool against her finger.

She lifted the camera to show her sketchbook: a doodle of a sleepy-eyed girl in a plane seat surrounded by thought bubbles full of coffee cups and clouds.

“Still sketching huh?”
“Even turbulence can’t stop me,” she whispered to the screen.

The last flight—Doha to Berlin—was a blur. Thirteen hours in the air, cramped beside a couple who slept shoulder to shoulder like a K-drama poster. The food was... edible. The coffee smelled amazing, but she didn’t dare drink it. Not now. Not with her stomach already flipping from nerves. She stuck to tea and smiled at the flight attendant like she wasn’t completely unraveling inside.

She tried to draw again during the flight, but the turbulence made her lines go crooked. Eventually, she curled up with her tote as a pillow and stared out the window instead, her breath fogging the glass.

She was really doing this.

She was really leaving behind Davao sunsets, tiny food stalls she used to design logos for, the sound of tricycles echoing through sleepy streets at night. She was leaving behind everything—except the ring. The one thing her mom left her before COVID stole both her parents. A quiet goodbye. A promise.

When the captain’s voice crackled to announce they’d begun their descent, Lily blinked down at her trembling fingers.

No turning back now.

The Berlin sky was steel-gray when she stepped off the plane, a sharp contrast to the warmth she left behind. The cold air nipped at her cheeks as she wheeled her suitcase through the airport, still half-asleep and barely functioning. People bustled past with coats and boots and business calls, while she walked like a pastel puff of exhaustion in her pink hoodie and sketch-covered tote bag.

Her phone buzzed.

Julian Becker [Local Time – 8:24 AM]:

“Car is waiting at the arrivals area. Black SUV. Driver’s name is Anton. Can’t wait to finally welcome you in person.”

Lily smiled, even though her lips were chapped and she was definitely one wink of sleep away from fainting.

Mae: “Show us your first Berlin selfie or I’m blocking you from the GC.
Also—don’t fall in love with your boss. Or do. Just tell us everything.”

Lily:  “He’s not even here yet 😭 and also no thanks. My love life is fictional, remember?”
Mae:  “Not for long 😏”

Lily laughed under her breath, turning her phone on silent.

Outside, the cold hit her harder. But it was quiet. Beautiful, even. Different in the kind of way that made her heart ache.

Her car was already waiting. The driver smiled and helped with her bags, and she collapsed into the warm seat with a grateful sigh.

As the city of Berlin unfolded outside her window—stone buildings, narrow streets, people with places to be—she clutched her sketchbook close and let the silence settle in.

Twenty-one hours.
Two airports.
One brave, impossible leap.

She had no idea what waited for her at the studio. No idea that the man sitting quietly across from her desk, who hadn’t smiled in years, would be the one to shake her world in ways she couldn’t sketch or script.

But for now, she let herself breathe.
She was here.
She made it.