THE VOW Part 1 of 3 by Nelz Agustin
"The Vow" is part of an original unpublished novel I wrote called STARS. You can read it at < http://www.nelz.org/stars/ >. To read my other writings, please visit www.nelz.org. For comments or other pertinent information, please e-mail me at isaw@nelz.org. Your input and feedback are very much appreciated. Thanks for your time! -- Nelz
I was a junior in high school when Paul Morales joined our class. He had come from another all-boys' private school in Greenhills, and it seemed that his parents wanted to keep him out of trouble by transplanting him here. I could imagine why-he was already quite troublesome to begin with. Like in the first day of school, he was making some rude noises at the back of the classroom, much to our English teacher's ire. Or when he kept asking the most mundane questions over at History. It was not a pleasant sight seeing a teacher squirm for answers over a student's persistent questions.
I didn't know if it's by pure mischief or by loneliness that drove Paul to make me his best friend. I was in the library on one lunch hour, reading Percy Bysshe Shelley's biography. It was quiet and cool, and I would have been more than content to just sit there for one full hour undisturbed between the coolness of the shelves until Paul sauntered in. He definitely seemed out of place inside the library, even unsure whether to proceed inside or just step out again. The librarian was giving him a slight puzzled look. I started to move further down the stacks before he noticed me, but he was quicker. A broad grin spread across his rather handsome face as soon as he saw me.
"Hey Martin!" he suddenly yelled in the tomb-like stillness, making librarian and me jump. "Wait up!"
"Young man!" the librarian said sharply, also cutting through the stillness like a well-honed knife. "You do not shout inside the library, do I make myself clear?"
Paul paused and sort of genuflected in front of the librarian, who was glaring at him.
"My apologies," he mumbled, giving her a disarming grin. He stood up and walked over to me. I avoided looking in his eyes.
"Hey Martin," he said, shuffling beside me.
"What are you doing here?" I said, moving further down the stacks.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"If we're going to talk we better move at the back of the stacks," I said, motioning him to follow me. "Or else we'd be both booted out of the library."
"Nice!" he said, still grinning.
The end of the stacks was deserted, so I immediately sat down on the floor, wedged between the wall and the last shelf. Paul sat beside me.
"What are you doing here?" I asked again, opening Percy Bysshe Shelly again.
"It was hot outside," he said, looking at me intently. I didn't want to look at him, but I could feel his eyes on me, studying me. I found that I couldn't concentrate on Shelley's life.
"Do you always have your nose stuck in a book?" he asked. It was not a malicious question, but more out of curiosity.
"Alright, so I'm a nerd," I said.
"I don't think so," he said. I turned to him, and he was smiling at me. His face was tanned from being out in the sun too much. His eyes were glinting merrily, hiding unexpected mischief. His hair was longish, the bangs falling over his strong forehead. He was disarmingly handsome, the sort that you'd want to keep an eye on your wallet before he sweet-talked you out of your meager allowance. His hands were rather large, but very strong.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I think you're a rebel," he said quietly, stretching out his long, powerful legs. Thigh muscles strained against his dark brown uniform pants. "Listen, you didn't have your lunch?"
"I'm not hungry," I said. I wished he'd go away; he was disturbing my perfect hour of cool and quiet in the library.
He reached inside his pants pocket and drew out a banana. He handed it to me.
"We're not allowed to eat in here," I said.
Paul shrugged nonchalantly. "No one's looking," he said as he started to peel his own banana.
I sighed and put down my book. I started peeling my banana.
"I like the way you peel your banana," he said with his mouth full of banana. "It's like undressing a person."
"Don't start, alright?"
"Really," he said, swallowing. "It shows you're a sensual person."
"You read people's personalities with the way they peel their bananas?" I bit my banana.
"Love the way you bite," he said, still smiling.
Inexplicably, I blushed. In the dim light of the library, I hoped that Paul didn't noticed. But he was still looking at me intently.
"You don't like me, do you?" he asked.
"Why do you say that?"
"Most of our classmates are avoiding me," he said nonchalantly. "It's ok. It's like I fit in or anything. I'm in a class of nerds."
"I didn't say I didn't like you."
"So you like me then?" He was grinning broadly at me again.
I blushed again.
"Paul, I'm a loner," I said, turning away from him. "I don't usually mingle with my classmates."
"That's why I think you're a rebel. Like me."
"Probably." My eyes fell on his large hands again. They were playing with the banana peel.
"And you're talking to me. That means you like me."
"Does it matter, Paul?" I said. "You're new here, you just want to make friends, and there's nothing wrong with that."
"So you'll be my friend?" he asked.
I didn't know how to answer him. I wanted to be left alone, but his persistence was maddening. Then again, the guy's probably lonely too.
"Please?"
He suddenly reached out and took my hand into his. His hands were very warm and strong. I flinched at the unexpected warmth shooting up my arm. My heart was thumping hard.
"Alright!" I said, jerking my hand from his. "You didn't have to do that...."
He continued smiling at me. It was maddening. I blushed harder. I wished he'd go away.
"Thank you," he mumbled. "I knew you'd be a great friend."
"This is cheesy," I muttered.
"You'd never had a best friend, did you?"
"Doesn't matter...."
"Listen, maybe we can do a trade of sorts. Maybe you could help me out with my English term paper?"
I sighed. "Typical. User-friendly."
"No, really," he said, reaching out for my hand again, but I withdrew from his reach. "You help me out with my term paper and I'll help you out with your.... Uhm...."
"You see, there's nothing you could help me out with. I'm perfectly fine."
"Hmm. I heard that our basketball coach doesn't like you."
I frowned. Yeah, the coach was sort of giving me a hard time. He's taken to calling me a wimp every time I pass him.
"Alright," I said. "Though I wonder what you could possibly do with Physical Ed."
"Leave it to me," he said. "You're looking at a star athlete!"
"I wouldn't argue," I said. "I mean you're tall, you've got muscles in the right places...."
"So you noticed my muscles?" he preened. He pulled back his sleeve to flex a beefy bicep. His arm was smooth and beautiful.
"Such conceit," I muttered.
"Come on, you can touch it," he said. When he saw that I wasn't moving, he grabbed my hand and placed it on his bicep. It was hard and warm. I blushed and quickly withdrew.
"It was nice," I said nonchalantly, but the touch of his skin was burning me. I wanted to feel him again but I drove these thoughts out of my head.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" he exclaimed. "Do you want to see my chest?" His hands were already on the buttons of his shirt.
"No, I don't think so," I said hurriedly. "We can examine that some other time, alright, but not in here." I was breaking out in cold sweat.
Paul kept grinning at me, but he sat back against the wall.
"Thanks for the banana," I mumbled, suddenly shy.
He snorted.
We both fell silent. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. His handsome face was starting to burn in my mind, and I looked away. He didn't say anything. He just leaned back against the wall and sat in silence, while I opened Percy Bysshe Shelley again and started reading. We just sat there in a sort of quiet, comfortable stillness for fifteen minutes before the bell rang. We made our way of the library. The librarian glared at the banana peels we were both holding. I started to smile, and when we both outside the library, we were already laughing hard.
Paul was indeed a star athlete. The coaches took notice of his brawny prowess, and he was immediately signed up as part of the school's soccer team. He was also true to his promise. If anyone would ever care to see my marks in Physical Education, they would have thought I'm some sort of a wimpy shrimp. Not that I cannot run, or unable play basketball or anything, but the coaches were simply giving me a hard time. By the third grading term of our junior year, it had seemed that I had remarkably passed Physical Education with above-average marks. I'd have to admit despite him being a smooth-talker, he was also a natural charmer.
That meant I had to perform my end of the promise. English in junior high was something of a scourge in most classes. While most of my classmates were born mathematicians and scientists, they plodded horribly in English. Being true nerds, they cannot even try to comprehend the significance of English term papers in their lives. It was quite the opposite with me. I, for one, cannot comprehend (although I recognize the significance) of abstract concepts in mathematics or how many atoms should go with another atom to make a particular compound. And it was in English where I shone. I had already finished writing my own papers when most of the class had even hardly begun with their paper outlines. We were given a particularly difficult task of analyzing poetry (that was why I was boning up on Percy Bysshe Shelley). Paul admitted he wanted to do Allen Ginsberg, but he's unsure whether Ms Calderon, our English teacher, would find him acceptable.
"Why not?" I asked one lunch hour. We had taken to camping in the back shelves of the library with several books sitting with us. Paul had also taken to smuggling food inside the library, but I didn't even try to tell him off. It was cozy enough munching fruits while we browsed through poetry books.
"I don't think our teacher would want anyone radical," he said.
"I like Ginsberg," I said. "Everyone's doing the Victorian poets. It would be nice if you'd do a paper on Beat Poetry."
"You think so?" He nonchalantly tossed his apple core among the stacks.
"You're a non-conformist," I said, frowning at him. "Who else but a non-conformist should write about another non-conformist?"
"Alright, you said so," he grinned, flipping through a book on contemporary poetry. "But I don't think I can do HOWL," he said. "It's simply so long!"
"A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA," I said. "It's hilarious! Now, I've drawn up the outline of your paper for you. All you have to do is fill in the blanks...."
"You mean I have to write?" His puppy-dog eyes riveted soulfully at me.
"Don't give me that look!" I snapped. "You're being lazy again! If I wrote your paper, Ms Calderon would think I've done your paper for you. She knows only too well how I write!"
"Ok!" he sighed. "How about typing them for me? I dictate, and you type?"
"Oh, since when did I become your executive secretary?" I lifted an eyebrow at him.
"Please?" He gave me one of his disarming grins.
"User-friendly!" I snapped at him, but I was smiling.
"You know what?" he said, closing the poetry book with a snap. "You've been so nice to me I could just kiss you!"
I stared at him, unmoving.
"Then why don't you?" I jokingly challenged him.
Paul stared back, and then he sniggered.
"Can't do it, can you?" I retorted, standing up. "It's ok. Typical guy. All talk and swagger, no action...."
"Hey, I do what I say, it's just that-"
The bell rang.
"Come on, we'll be late for class!" I said, hurrying to pick up our books.
I was about to march to the center aisle when Paul grabbed my hand and pulled me back. I turned to him, about to give him another retort how we're supposed to line up for Chemistry, when he pulled me closer with his strong arms. Before I could speak another word, he closed his lips over mine.
I felt the poetic cliche of time standing still. Warm shivers were tingling down my arms, down to my legs. And I never wanted that sliver of a second to end, wanting to remember his warm, wet mouth caressing mine, his strong hands holding me in place. In that moment, another poetic cliche dazzled me: that the universe suddenly spun around dizzyingly in a heady rush of unexpected emotions-all wanting to burst free from the center of my chest.
Paul withdrew first, and I felt myself snap back from that sliver of a dazzling eternal moment. I felt dazed; I didn't know what to say.
"Well don't just stand there!" he exclaimed, smiling broadly. "We'll be late for Chemistry!"
End of Part 1
Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 by Nelz Agustin. www.nelz.org