❦ . ❦ . ❦

"Why do we still have practice today? Be careful when you lift me into the air, huh? It's Friday the thirteenth. Unlucky things are bound to happen."

"The hell are you spouting about, dude? I've always been careful. And that's just some stupid superstitions. I don't even believe in any gods."

From the banquette of a coffee shop, Laurence Villegas eyed the warm-up jackets of the pair of male varsity cheerleaders in front of him.

An apologetic smile took shape on his lips when he noticed that one of the students was frowning in his direction. Laurence couldn't blame the young man. He knew he had this bad habit of absentmindedly staring at anything and anyone that sometimes made people uncomfortable. The faded burn scar on his left cheek didn't help either.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Just some weirdo."

Laurence brought his gaze somewhere else, pretending not to have heard the lad's response to his friend. He noted that some of the holiday decorations in the place had been taken down now that they were in the middle of January. Only the string lights on the glass walls remained.

He sipped his americano, its warmth and nutty aroma consoling him. Placing the cup back on the coaster, he caught sight of the unusual wrinkles in his hand; just another unwanted remembrance left by a horrible event that had stolen a lot of precious things from him a decade ago.

His family was not rich, but he had loving and supportive parents who'd always done everything to provide him and his younger brother with a healthy and happy life. High school had not been bad either. Only Mathematics was his big enemy at that time.

He had had a wonderful life then, albeit imperfect.

Yet, just a single huge fire, and he had been left with nothing. Not even with a positive dream.

For years since losing his family and home, he had wondered what his life could have been if it was like a game where he could opt to restart once a certain stage became sticky and tough to handle.

He could have stopped the fire. His family would not have lost their lives. He would not have acquired burn injuries while trying to save at least his little brother. His talent in sports could have improved, instead of declining while he was recuperating. He could have had a big chance of going to college, and he would have been able to get a better job had he had stronger credentials.

Bad luck would not have fallen upon him one after another like dominoes.

If only he could go back to the starting line and redo everything.

Laurence vacantly stared at the half-empty cup of americano as he recalled the harshest days after he had been discharged from the hospital. At barely eighteen, he had taken a lot of odd jobs, so he could pay for his necessities and clear the debts he had acquired from his medical treatment and the cost of his family's funeral. He could not even keep any shop attendant jobs for several months because of the customers who would always try to complain and pick on him only because they didn't like the scar on his face.

"Hey, I knew you'd be here earlier than the agreed time." A bright male voice broke through his thoughts.

Laurence raised his head, just in time for a man to pull out a chair and sit across from him at the table.

"And I knew you'd come at the last minute, Kian," Laurence tossed back good-naturedly. A quick glance at the digital clock at the corner of the shop's counter told him that the time was 3:07 p.m. His coworker-slash-friend had actually been seven minutes late. "This is exactly why I always set our meetup at least thirty minutes before the actual time."

Kian let out a dismissive snicker. "C'mon, there's no way you've been waiting for that long. You haven't even finished your coffee."

Laurence shook his head, giving his friend an incredulous smile.

"I was slowly drinking it to avoid ordering a second once I'm done with this," he said and picked up the drink from the table.

Peering over the rim of the cup, Laurence could not help but compare his close colleague with the other students in the coffee shop.

With his round, baby face, it was no surprise that Kian would often be mistaken for a teenager. He had the appearance of a high school boy, despite already being in his late twenties, like Laurence.

"Why does Engineer still want us to go anyway? It's not like that new boss will care if some nobody laborers like us are there to celebrate with him or not. I don't even know the name of that new guy, and I'm sure for him, our existence was just mere letters on the payroll," Kian began, leaning and draping his arm over the chair back.

"Engr. Abel said neither he nor Foreman could make it, so he's sending us as his proxies. You know, just for formalities."

A scoff came out of Kian's mouth. "It's been, what? Six months since the acquisition, so why are they only doing this now? It's long overdue for a welcome party."

Laurence shrugged. "Heard it's the idea of the department leaders who wanna kiss ass with the new big boss."

A pause settled in between them. Kian's lack of comment about the information only meant he couldn't have cared less about the business of the administrative people.

Laurence understood. Those people were just a bunch of egocentrics who liked to look down on those they considered inferior to them anyway. Even the ordinary office workers already saw themselves in a completely different league than the field laborers like him and Kian, regardless if they were all the same rank-and-file employees. How much worse if they were in higher positions.

"Hey, you better finish your coffee quickly, so we can get this over with sooner."

"Who was it that arrived late?" Laurence muttered, but complied, emptying the coffee cup.

They walked out of the shop, side by side, with Kian grumbling about how Laurence always made him look like a dwarf with the couple of inches he had over him.

Laurence sometimes wondered if his five-feet-ten was that really tall or if Kian was just short, even for an average Asian guy.

The heat and brightness of the sun greeted his face, making him instinctively bring a hand over his forehead to protect his eyes. He turned to the gradient blue sky.

A sense of hope filled Laurence as he relished the comforting sight. The idea of restarting his life hit him once again. This time, with a more optimistic notion.

He had to come to terms with the reality that the past could never be changed. There was no way to do it again from the very beginning, but that didn't mean he could not start over from where he was at the present.

He had finally paid off all of his loans two years ago, and he had been starting to save money as he planned to invest in a small house of his own. After that, he wished to put up a small business like the one his mother had before everything was eaten by fire.

"You guys are not getting any younger, so you should be hurrying to look for someone and consider settling down soon." Their foreman's words echoed in Laurence's head.

He had slept with a few men and women once in a while, but he had never let himself be attached to any of them. With his situation, he knew he did not have enough liberty to enter into a committed relationship.

But maybe he didn't have to tighten the reins on his love life anymore. He could finally open the door to a more serious romance without worrying about being a burden to his partner.

"Hey, are you getting in or not?" Kian peeked his head through the rolled-down window of a gray pickup.

Not bothering to respond, Laurence climbed into the car with a good feeling about his future plans.

❦ . ❦ . ❦

The universe must have hated him. Just when he thought he had found the hope of rebuilding a new life, it seemed like everything would crumble down again before he could even set up the foundation.

"I'm so sorry, Rence," Kian blurted out in a frantic voice, his face pale while his foot kept pressing hard on the brake pedal to no avail.

"What—"

The main beam of an oncoming vehicle and the loud non-stop beeps distracted Laurence from talking. An invisible force yanked his upper body to the side just as their car abruptly swerved. His head struck against the front door glass.

Tires screeched. The incessant sharp noise of horns drowned out the screams of nearby people.

Laurence lurched forward and slammed into the dashboard, knocking the wind out of him. Glasses shattered. An excruciating pain stabbed his chest and temples. Crimson shrouded his vision, hot, sticky, before he drifted off to oblivion.

❦ . ❦ . ❦

His consciousness went on and off, and he could no longer tell how much time had passed. Fraught orders were being issued amidst the wails of sirens. He wanted to open his eyes, but he could not.

Was he going to die? This wasn't the ending he had wanted. He had yet to get his revenge on the world by taking back the peace and happiness, which had been denied from him for so long.

I still want to live.

"Rence! Laurence!" a distraught voice pierced through his barely present mind.

And then, everything went blank.

When he finally came to, Laurence found himself in a seemingly private ward with a doctor, two nurses, and another unfamiliar lady, who started introducing herself as his older sister.

He eyed the patient's record, from which he had espied the name Florence Villena a moment ago. His head was still in chaos from the conflicting information that was thrown at him upon waking up.

The woman, who was scribbling on the chart, paused, frowned, and turned her head toward the wall calendar. "Huh, isn't it the twelfth of the month today?" she asked no one in particular.

"Aren't we on Friday duty?" the male nurse wondered, his eyes following the direction of his coworker's gaze. "So it's already the thirteenth of October."

"Ah, I wrote the dates wrong then." The nurse brought back the tip of her pen on the chart, possibly to amend her mistake. Laurence then heard her mumble, "Friday the thirteenth, huh? Hope nothing weird happens today."