Standard warnings apply. Actually, the site already has warnings. Just to make sure, here're more. ^_^ Most of this is actually fiction but some situations have been taken from real life. The names of the characters are made up/fictional - if there are people with the same names somewhere out there, that is purely coincidental.
As with most stories, the author retains all rights to this story. Without the permission of the author, no reproductions or links to other sites are allowed.
This deals with male homosexual love. If you are not of legal age (18 or 21, it depends actually where), or if you live/are in a place where material such as this is illegal, or if you are simply offended by homosexuality and/or homosexual themes, please leave.
This story has no sex scenes in it. ^_^
Chapter 5: Stormy Weather
I drove to school, feeling like a mess - possibly even looking like one, but I didn't care.
Despite feeling as if I were run over by a truck, as if all the energy had been siphoned from my body into some crack in the ground, I still couldn't sleep the night before.
I even tried counting the stars on my ceiling, but I found difficulty in doing so. Each didn't seem like glowing. Instead, they were blindingly bright - sharply contrasting against the dark canvass of my ceiling. They all pierced through me, pricking my eyes. Like cruel theives robbing me of sleep.
Outside the wind was picking up, the overcast sky was a dull gray. Actually, everything was gray - the pavement rolling under the car, the buildings flying by.
So the first typhoon of the year was about to arrive. Classes were cancelled for the elementary and high school levels, but I didn't receive any news about universities closing.
Besides, I didn't feel like being home just then.
Annulment. Mom has been thinking about it for weeks, seeing priets, lawyers, friends, she told me. Apparently, dad was fooling around - one of the reasons why he was gone for really long periods of time. She found out quite recently when in fact the affair had been going on for God knows how long. Since divorce wasn't allowed here, she opted to annul the marriage, or dissolve the marriage as if it never happened - as if it was flawed from the beginning.
Did that mean I was going to become a bastard in the truest sense of the word? I didn't know, but philosophically, if I were to look at it, if there was no marriage from the beginning, then my sister and I - we were conceived out of wedlock.
But maybe there was a loophole somewhere. I didn't know.
I know, though, that it meant a lot of things. Mom had been talking with dad's family - when they heard that he was fooling around, they didn't believe at first. Until she presented evidence. Hard evidence. Letters, recordings.
Even a confession from the mistress.
Her even efficiency scared me. She had hired a private investigator to gather the things up. When the mistress found out that this was probably her chance at marrying my dad, she immediately jumped into the pool without 'testing the waters.'
Eventually, when dad's family finally admitted that he was fooling around, they moved all the responsibilities to his younger brother. And the burden of management fell to his sons - my cousins.
Heck, I didn't have to take up management after all!
But the bottomline was it didn't bother them much. They only moved management to Uncle Willy because they didn't want the family money going to 'that woman.'
Concubinage was practiced in China before. This was just a modern incarnation.
Parking wasn't that difficult - there wasn't anyone else at school it seemed.
And leaving the house early proved to be a wrong decision. On my way to the Council's room, I found out from a janitor that classes were cancelled.
Seeing as the typhoon was intensifying, I decided to stay put. It was getting to be too dangerous to drive out. Armed with my backpack filled with assignments and other assorted paperwork, I tried storming the library. Unfortunately, it was closed. Luckily, I had a key to the Student Council's room, where, I remembered, I had left other things to work on.
It would've been fine - if only the storm drainage wasn't beside it. Hearing the constant rush of water, accompanied by an orchestra of frogs, just irritated me.
Croak. Croak. Whoosh. Whoosh. Croak Whoosh. Whooocroakooosh.
I couldn't concentrate even if I tried.
Walking around an empty campus felt acutely, yet strangely, comforting, beneath the covered walks, in spite of getting wet by the horizonal spray of the pouring rain. Hearing your footsteps echo down hallways and not drowning in a multitude of voices.
On a sudden whim, I trekked up to the top floor of the Arts Building where an exhibit hall was. The Arts Building sat on a hill, elevating it somewhat. From that exhibit hall, one could see all the important buildings within the main campus.
Luckily, the janitor was just on his way out, ready to retire after mopping. After promising to lock it when I was done, he allowed me to enter.
That hall was a little larger than a full basketball court. It could've been a basketball court, actually, if not for the fairly low ceiling and the large clear glass windows on both its sides. It spanned the whole building in width.
Its wooden floor, newly mopped, reflected my image as I walked across its surface - my face seeming small relative to my feet.
Dance organizations practiced here, plays were held here. But then it was empty.
Since I was searching for as much quiet as I could get, I sat right in the middle. Settling into the atmosphere, I laid my papers all out, arranging them like a sidewalk vendor does his wares. From where I sat, I could clearly see the sights outside, like a frozen moving picture.
Trees swaying savagely.
Branches coming off, flying.
Plastic bags looking like frightened doves - white, shivering in the wind.
It was all actually violently beautiful.
In the distance, billboard posters had been folded up, exposing their bare steel scaffolding frames. There were no cars on the roads.
Everything was strangely peaceful - from the scenes outside, to the sound of the rain on the windowpanes and the occasional, momentary howl of the wind, to the coolness of the thick air.
I was able to work like a demon - speedily, efficiently. The pile of things 'to do' seemed to flow into the pile of things 'done' like liquid.
It made me almost insanely happy.
Caught up in the flurry of accomplishing so much, when the exhibit hall's door opened with a click, I completely forgot that I wasn't the only person in the world.
Kyle stood there, jacket dripping wet, holding a soggy sandwich bag.
The next time someone arrives unexpectedly, I'll know it'd be Kyle.
"There you are." It wasn't the most moving thing he said to me, but it relieved me just the same. "I've been looking all over for you. I tried calling your house earlier to say that we didn't have class and for you to stay home but your mom told me you left extra early."
Soon he was seated beside me.
"I knew that the caf would be closed, so I brought lunch for both of us." He smiled.
It appeared as if he was planning to wait. "Kyle, I'm working. What'll you do?"
"Don't let me bother you. I'll just be here."
For a while all we could hear to accompany the rain was the soft, scratchy scribblings my pen made on paper. Scribble, scribble, scribble. The shuffle of sorting papers. Scribble. It was only after fifteen minutes that I heard him speak again.
"Os," scribble, "I heard what happened from your mom," scribble, scratch. The rip of tearing paper. The rip of new paper from the pad. "I," scribble, "I don't know what to say."
Looking up from my paperwork, I could see that he was scared. Worried.
For me.
"You don't have to say anything."
I didn't realize it, but I had started to cry. I couldn't stop it. They'd come, one by one, water droplets forming streams down my cheeks.
I hadn't cried in a long while. I couldn't even remember when the last time I cried was.
I never cried. I didn't. And then, there I was:
Crying like a child.
"Hey, hey," he said, comfortingly. "It's okay. It's okay," he pulled me to him and closed his jacket around both of us, whispering into my ear.
He was warm.
In fairness, my parents kept my sister and I away from the annulment process as much as possible. July turned into August, August into September, September into October. All was quiet at home.
At school, though, more and more things came popping up about Kyle and I. I honestly didn't know where they were coming from so I couldn't quell them. Kyle, for his part, was a bit worried as well - but mostly, he'd just pretend as if there was nothing going around.
Meetings those days were full of surreptitious looks my way.
As time went by, the looks got longer. And there were more and more of them.
Kyle's father, Mr. Lopez, had a heart attack late in October. Though I knew they weren't close, it still surprised me that though November had come, Kyle hadn't gone to visit him.
"He doesn't want me there."
"How can you be so sure?"
One afternoon, we were lounging about in his house - him watching TV on his bed, and sprawled across his belly was me - reading a book. By then, we had gotten used to affectionate physical contact.
It was a lazy day - the first semester had ended sometime the month before and the second hadn't begun.
"Os, he just doesn't."
"Kyle."
"Os, don't push it." As much as I was getting irritated myself, I think he was feeling it even more - I could tell by how tense his muscles got.
"Okay," I trailed off - and that seemed to get to him.
"What's it to you anyway? He's my dad and it's my life."
"Right, right," I started. At that point I was seated on the bed, trying to stare him down - a difficult task considering that he was standing already. "But he's your dad and you aren't really busy doing stuff, right?"
That wasn't what I wanted to say, but I couldn't form the right words.
"Os, drop it."
For the time being, I did.
But when, a week later, he was watching TV and I was going over project proposals for the Management Association (again in his room) and Maria came storming in, I knew I had to say something more.
"Sir Kyle. Your father," she was out of breath.
Immediately, I stopped what I was doing. Kyle acted like it was nothing at all.
"Maria, you could've told me over the intercom. You didn't have to run all the way up here."
I was struck by how bratty he could be.
"But sir," she tried, "something went wrong with his operation today. He's in the ICU."
Kyle was quiet for a while; I didn't want to open my mouth while Maria was there.
"Okay. You may go now."
That was it? That's all he had to say?
"But sir," Maria began to protest.
"Just go."
Looking dejected, she trudged out the door.
"That's it?" I asked.
"What's it?" He retorted, angry.
"That's all you're going to say?"
"What else should I say?"
"Kyle, he's your dad."
Quietly, but steadily, he answered. "You don't understand."
"Then make me." I really couldn't understand what was wrong. Fine, they might have had issues, but...
"When mom died, dad blamed me for it, okay?"
When he said that, even my thoughts stopped like traffic. "What?"
Slowly, shakily, he answered. "Mom died but she's been sick for a long time - since I was born."
"But that doesn't make sense." It was insensitive but it came out.
"It doesn't, but that's how he sees it, okay?" I was about to make him cry. I could see him fighting it.
It felt horrible.
"Kyle, I'm sorry." Meddling wasn't clearly my best subject. "But your dad's dying. You don't want to lose your dad before, I don't know, patching things up?" I tried approaching him, to hold him the way he'd hold me. But he didn't let me.
Choking a little, he told me exactly what he told Maria.
"Just go."
He didn't look my way.
At that, I didn't know whether I should've been angry at him or at myself.
I ended up leaving, cursing myself on the way home.
For two days I didn't hear from Kyle. I didn't know how his dad was doing either. Classes were about to resume soon - I wanted so bad to talk to him, but when I'd call him up, Maria would just tell me he was out or doing something - apologetically. If I'd ask her how Mr. Lopez was doing, she'd just say that she didn't know.
The third night, as I was contemplating on dialling Kyle's, he called, sounding somber. "Os, would you come with me to the hospital?"
Hospitals are places of healing, they say. But they could just as easily be places of death - even more than cemeteries. I couldn't help but think this as I was standing in the white hall, seeing nurses in white floating around as if in slow motion.
On our way up to the suite, I spotted a newborn, tiny and pink, wrapped in a soft blue cloth. The next floor, though, a really old man came rolling along, being pushed in a wheelchair by a nurse.
It's as if the old man's soul was ready to leave and maybe settle into the baby downstairs.
Trying to remain calm, to get the jitters out of my system, I leaned against the wall of the hallway, waiting for Kyle to come out. I knew he needed time alone with his father.
Isn't it strange? Almost all hospitals share a certain smell.
I was broken from my reverie by the metallic screech of the suite's tight door hinges. Kyle came out, red, puffy-eyed.
I hugged him as soon as I could.
Mr. Lopez was taken out of ICU and put into a regular suite for recuperation. It seemed as if the air between father and son was cleared up a bit, though I don't really know what they talked about while I was outside.
As soon as I entered with him, and as soon as I saw Mr. Lopez - for the first time - I knew I'd recognize him as Kyle's dad even if we were strangers passing each other by on the street.
He was a regular Kyle. Or rather, Kyle was a regular Mr. Lopez. Only younger.
They both had the same soft hair, straight teeth. Kyle was just slimmer - and it seemed as if Mr. Lopez's eyes had lost the sparkle of youth. At least partially.
Adjusting the bed so that he could sit somewhat upright, he said, "Hello, Osmond. Kyle's told me a lot about you."
Not as much as I think he should, I thought before saying good evening in return. If Kyle did say everything, I wouldn't have been called 'Osmond,' would I?
Mr. Lopez was actually quite nice. He even had food delivered up for us from a high-end restaurant near the hospital - I had to (politely) fend off his attempts at having crab fat. He just had a bypass operation and he was already thinking of clogging up his other arteries?
It would've been an altogether good evening - if not for the news he broke.
"Oh, Kyle. I just remembered. Sandy Montemayor - you remember her, Sara's mom? They said they'll be visiting for a while. I think they're planning to move back," he happily announced.
I didn't know what Kyle registered right then: he wasn't happy, or sad, or angry, or anything.
He just looked surprised.
Mr. Lopez noticed. "You know, Osmond," he proudly said, "Sara and Kyle, well!" and started laughing heartily - proudly - like a father usually does when it comes to the topic of sons and girls.
I'd stopped going to school with Kyle when the rumors got out of hand - sort of to nullify them. In the afternoons, though, I'd just go to his house, arriving there about an hour after he'd get there himself.
When school started, Sara'd accompany Kyle all over the University. They'd both see their mutual friends; she'd go off finding her own old friends while he'd be in class.
She'd ride home with him - and sometimes I'd follow them. Though not in a stalker-sense.
Sara.
Those lazy days at Kyle's were still lazy days at Kyle's. Only now, there was a girl there with him.
I can't lie. It secretly made my blood boil, seeing how she'd play with his hair, or how she'd kiss him softly on the cheek when her mom would come to pick her up in the evening.
Those times, I just held back whatever I could hold back.
And what made it worse was that she was perfect. Virtually perfect.
Pretty. Witty. Smart. Rich.
She had everything I didn't have, from money to uterus, as funny as it sounds.
And Kyle. For some reason, he turned cold towards me. Not immediately, sure. But when we'd be alone, sometimes he wouldn't talk or initiate conversation. When I'd phone him, he sometimes couldn't come to pick up for one lame reason after the other. 'Sometimes' turned into 'oftentimes.'
We were drifting apart.
We were drifting apart for legitimate reasons.
That made it worse.
Since that party I caused a ruckus in, Lara and I haven't been talking much, which is why I was a bit surprised that she came marching into my room one day.
"Ossie."
Flustered, I tried to hide the box of two shirts I was wrapping behind my back. I just ended up ripping the gift wrapper.
Kyle's birthday was sometime in December - I got him one shirt for his birthday and another one for Christmas, saving up my allowance since that time he gave me the dark blue shirt for my own birthday.
Like the last time we talked, Lara wasn't in the best of moods.
"Ossie, you know, it's bad enough that you ruined my name at that party. But you know what's worse? When they start talking about 'Lara's brother'!"
I honestly didn't know what she was talking about, except for the vague impression that it had something to do with the rumors going around.
"Ossie, fix up your act, will you? God! If I haven't heard from Chastity and her cousin, I would never have known! You know it's bad enough to have a fag brother? But you really strive for the best, don't you? You're not just a fag, you're also a gold-digger."
"What?!" I screamed.
"They say that you and Kyle would meet up and drive home together. Can you explain that? And how about the time at the hospital? What was with your PDA in the hospital hallway?"
This was really getting out of hand. "It was an innocent hug, that's all."
"Well, how can you explain how - in the span of one summer all of a sudden you're the greatest chums? Huh?"
Clenching my fists, locking my jaw, I just kept quiet.
"What did you do, Ossie? Did you promise him high grades to get into his pants?"
Now that hurt. Really. "What?!"
"Just stay away from him. People are talking. I couldn't care less but it's ruining me."
"We're just friends." Actually, that's what we called each other.
"Don't give me that cliched excuse. Just stay away from him."
Running into Kyle at the cafeteria, I simply had to ask, "Where's Sara?"
Stopping, standing in the middle of the caf at lunchtime, I knew people could see us, but I didn't care.
"Oh," he said, feeling a little self-conscious, "she's visiting her grandmom in the province."
"Oh," I replied. I didn't move. Some part of me was hoping that he'd to invite me over like he used to - a little shrewd, but I wasn't the aggressive type at all.
Besides, I wanted assurance that we were okay. Maybe not good, but at least 'okay.'
"Os," he started, taking a deep breath, as if readying himself for what he was about to say next, "Os, I don't think we should be seeing each other much anymore."
And he left.
I tried my best to keep from crying and I was partially successful.
It was only when I lay down to try to sleep that night - it was only when I saw all those stars on my ceiling.
It was only then that I felt the warm trails cutting through the dryness of my face.
I've never felt as small as I did then.
Never.