Conflicted Eyes, Confusing Feelings | Complete

t h i r t y - s e v e n

Xander's mind rolled back in the past like it did ever so often, but that time, he ditched the hurt and recursion of his mother's death, to happier memories; despite that those too were hard to say out loud. He almost groaned.

Taking a deep breath, Xander began.

"Well," he still didn't know what to say. Because he seldom spoke about himself, he didn't exactly know how to do so when the need arose. "Mom ... her name was Vanessa, and she...fuck,this is hard. Do I have to?" he asked, pulling away a bit to glance up at the adorable boy in his lap. They met eyes, and Sage reddened, but he nodded nonetheless. "She was born in Brazil, and lived there for most of her life, and that's when she met my dad, in some foreign exchange program when she was like thirteen or something. Around sixteen ... she migrated here and she had me here when she was twenty-five.

"I'm half Portuguese, but mom always taught me her language. I learned it before I did English, I think." he paused to think for a second. "Yeah, I did. They homeschooled me until freshman year."

Sage gasped. "Homeschooled?"

The older boy merely rolled his eyes at Sage's dramatic reaction. "Don't let me have to flick you, Sage."

"Hehe."

Xander really wanted to flick him for that. However, he continued his story instead. "Going to high school was a big deal for her. She kept worrying that I'd get bullied, 'cause I barely talked to people and mostly stayed home, and in her mind, American high schools were 'uma abominação'." a smile played across Xander's lips at the fond memory.

"Uma bomico ... huh? W-what does that mean?"

"'An abomination'. Uma abominação." he slowly said, ensuring that he enunciated clearly enough so Sage could catch onto the word. "Mom loved football. Even more than Xavier, and she even almost made it into the national female football team once, but grandad told her to focus more on her studies. That's what made me get into football when I was ten. I realized that it must've been in my blood, because I liked it, and I made the team in no time. Mom came to every single one of my games, and whether or not we'd won, she'd take me to Target to buy me some lame action figure, or we'd just go to Burger King to celebrate it."

Xander began speaking absentmindedly after that, and Sage listened attentively, to every time Xander smiled while speaking, or laughed. Though the underlying sadness in his voice was hard to ignore, Sage urged him on whenever he trailed off or abruptly stopped talking.

"O-oh, by the way, a picture c-came out earlier when I was looking," Sage said. "I-it's over there."

With one hand still around Sage, Xander leaned across the bed, soon finding the photograph nestled in the sheets. It was one that entailed the whole family - father, mother, and son. While Xander scrutinized the picture, Sage did too, and it took him a while before he realized that it was actually a painting. "W-wow," he breathed. "Who did this?"

"Mom. She ... she loved painting."

Turning his face a little, Sage glanced at Xander staring down at the photo with a pained look in his eyes. "Xander?" he softly whispered. "D-do you?"

"Hm..." Xander tilted his head back a little. "Well, I did. But now I suck balls at it."

"C-can I see?" Sage inquired. An inexplicable surge of excitement brimmed within him at the thought of seeing something Xander painted. Sage had his doubts, but he knew that Xander must be a much better artist than he was.

Xander chuckled. "Another time, yeah? It's been a while," he said, and Sage nodded. At the silence that followed, Sage's continued perusing the photo until the silence in the room made him aware of Xander's watchful gaze. Almost instantly, his anxiety reawakened.