I woke up with a light pointed straight to my eyes. I panicked for a while, because I thought I was dead and seeing heaven—not that I believed I was really going to heaven if I died. The hallucination vanished though after I saw my brother’s face looming above me—maybe this was hell.
Yes, my brother’s room was definitely foreign. I couldn’t even distinguish if I was still on earth or on mars. His room had all sorts of these nerdy stuffs: books—several of them hardbound, a huge poster of the solar system on the ceiling, the map of the Philippines at the back of the bedroom door, a globe that stood in place of the bedside lamp, a really weird-looking picture of a balding man on the wall beside the window, and a telescope where the end pointed to the window.
Who did my brother think he was, Einstein? Or was it Aristotle? I really couldn’t tell.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I bolted upright, snatching a pillow from below my feet for defense.
As unfortunate as it already was, I sleep at my brother’s room every time I go to my mom’s house while my brother sleep with my mom. But since it wasn’t Friday and my brother didn’t know of my arrival, I had to make my bed on the floor beside his bed, right across his shoes and dusty books. It really was gross.
“Don’t you think I should be the one asking you that? Last night I remember I went to bed alone and now I wake up to see my sister sleeping right at the exact location where I know there should only be tiled floor.”
I put the pillow down. “This will never happen again. Anyway, who wants to sleep near your shoes? Jeez, if I know there are stuffs in there you feed every time you wear them.”
“You don’t call them stuffs. What you meant are bacteria. And excuse me, I don’t happen to be nursing one. I happen to change my socks everyday and I wash my feet as much as I could. Do you know how many bacteria you can—”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, stretching my arms above my head. “If I really want to get cozy with bacteria, I can always find them on Google.”
He frowned. “Google is not 100% accurate most of the time if not all the time. It’s—”
I motioned him to stop with both of my hands before he could continue with more nerdy stuffs. “I don’t care. If I were you, I’ll just leave me alone.”
“But I weren’t you, and I don’t want to be you, ever. And this is my room so I can say whatever I want.”
“What does that mean?”
“You make mom cry all the time. I hate you for that. I thought you’re cool, but you’re not anymore. So now, what are you doing here really?”
It felt like I wasn’t talking to my brother at all. Who was this kid?
“You’d better pay me some respect, brother. I’m still five years older than you.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Whatever.”
Then, he left. As soon as he was gone, I went to lie back down for a couple more minutes on the makeshift bed mom helped me make last night. King was only twelve. Before the separation, all thoughts of my brother were just he was the nerdy kid who didn’t wear eyeglasses, and the nerdy kid who seemed to scare my best friend. But after the separation, my brother seemed to be altogether different. I didn’t even know if he was the same brother I used to wrestle on his bed so he would wake up in time for school. I really couldn’t see the resemblance, except maybe, he has the same stuffs, only worse. He didn’t have toys anymore.
I went downstairs for breakfast. It was already six-thirty in the morning, but it felt like I never slept at all. Last night, I wanted to tell mom about Noah, but I soon forgot it as soon as we talked about dad, marriage, happiness, and life in general. I admit it was my first heart-to-heart with anybody. Even with Molly, I was too embarrassed to start talking about family.
I could smell the nice aroma wafting through the house even before I was near the kitchen door.
“Hey, I just remember, is it your uniform I saw in my hamper last week? Yuck. You should know not to mess your stuff with my stuffs. Do you understand how unhygienic that was?” King was already sitting at the dining table, putting fresh milk to his Coco Krunch.
“What is he talking about?” I asked mom who was transferring hotdogs from the pan to a plate.
“Don’t mind him. He just misses having you around.” My mom winked.
“Yuuuuuuucckk! I’ll never miss her! I hate her.”
“Oh, now, stop that. You don’t hate your sister.”
“I do,” my brother insisted.
I sat at the chair across from him, and looking straight at him, I said, “It’s okay, mom. I don’t like him, either.”
I saw my mom looked at me in warning.
“Fine,” I muttered under my breath, picking up a hotdog and putting it into my mouth, instead.
“See? I told you! She’s unhygienic. She doesn’t even wash her hands before eating,” my brother whined. Right at this moment, he suddenly looked like a twelve-year-old, again. He was my brother, again.
I looked at him with distaste, sticking my tongue for greater effect.
“Enough,” my mom said. “King, your class starts at seven and you haven’t finished half of your meal yet. You’re going to be late, again.”
I smiled, feeling like a winner. “See? At least my class starts at eight.”
“So? I’m sorry, but I don’t care. I would never want to be part of your freak-looking group, anyway.”
My mom sighed, sitting beside King. “What did I say?”
“But I don’t want to wear a life vest in school!” my brother continued.
My mom looked from my brother to me, and then back. “What life vest?”
My brother made a face. “The one she wears.”
My mom wrinkled her nose. “Oh, forgive me. I thought we’re already done with this conversation. You’re going to Luna East, and it’s final.”
“It’s just a vest, nerdy,” I added for more emphasis, putting fresh milk in my glass.
My brother rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said, knowing there was no way he could win the argument, if there really was one.
It was seven-thirty when I stood on my mom’s front yard, looking at the sunflowers she had carefully planted around the house. It looked really nice. I knew my mom’s crazy about gardening.
I was busy looking at the sunflowers that I didn’t notice the car approaching. Right when I was about to bring out my cell phone and dial Molly’s number to ask where the heck she was, a car pulled up into the curb, right beside where my mom’s mailbox was.
It was a black ’69 Camaro. I’d seen one on my dad’s magazine before. He had a stack of it in his study. The magazines, I mean. The real one only a couple of steps away from me, looked slick, considering the year it was built and how many times it had hit the road. I expected a man who was as OC-looking as his car and the please-get-me-an-alcohol-as-I’ve-just-rubbed-arms-with-a-pizza-boy type to get out of the car. I was surprised when it wasn’t someone whom I’d expected.
It was Martin Santiago who got out of the car, followed by someone who went out from the passenger side, looking extremely like Molly. It was, indeed, Molly. Oh, my God. What did I miss? Was I too fed up with my own life that I totally missed my best friend getting really cozy with Martin Santiago from who-knows-where school? I didn’t really think it would come to this point. What have I done?
“Queen,” my best friend called, looking really red and excited as she came near to where I stood.
“I think the sun is already too hot,” I remarked, looking at her face with amusement.
She stopped, looking redder than ever. She knew what I was talking about. I was talking about Martin, her, and the unbelievable reality that they were both standing in front of my mom’s house on a Friday morning. What a really pleasant way to start the last day of the week.
“So this is where you live?” Martin said in what he supposed was a greeting.
He must have regretted his decision to speak at all since he soon turned even redder than Molly, if that was possible, when he realized he had actually spoken more than one word to me. And he asked me a question. A question? Well, I must have shocked him. He probably thought all people who study in Luna East live in a mansion. Thanks to my very endearing personality I haven’t really been into talking terms with the guy, let alone say a simple hi.
“Look, Martin’s being nice. He offered to bring us both to school today. How’s that sound?” Molly offered.
Show off. Instead, I said, “Cool. So we’re not paying for our transpo today or worse we’re not hiring a tricycle to get us off traffic,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could let out. “Really cool.”
Molly’s face suddenly went blank. She knew I was lying. But she turned to Martin and said, in that really saccharine voice that girls use whenever they talk to guys, “I think what she said is it’s a really brilliant idea.”
She didn’t have to repeat to Martin what I just said since I was certain that he wasn’t deaf. And I didn’t remember saying anything was brilliant. Not even close. I wondered if I ever sounded syrupy when I talked to Noah. Most definitely not. I would have had to consult a speech therapist if that ever happens.
Molly undoubtedly stopped talking to me in general as we climbed in the car. I willed myself to ride at the back of Martin’s car, careful not to bring with me any speck of dust from outside. And then, knowing Molly, as soon as we hit the road, she turned to me from the passenger side, holding out a piece of yellow paper.
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“Go ahead. It’s something I thought you might be interested to check before—“
Before I acted as if Martin wasn’t even human. Right. Got it. But I didn’t say it. Instead, I got the paper from her hand, and read. What else was I supposed to do? It was a loose leaf from the school publication. It has the logo of the school paper on top of everything else. I should know by now.
It was a very long article. It didn’t have a title. At first an idea of what Trisha Mendoza had suggested before we separate ways during my first confrontation with her popped into my head. It couldn’t possibly be an apology for her super frank writing style. No freakin’ way.
Then, as I got through the long introduction, I went on reading the rest. I used to skip the part after the introduction, but since it seemed to be a special article, I read every bit of it. As in, every word that I could literally taste the words in my mouth the moment I finished reading.
And it was no freakin’ way. I attempted to read the words again—just to be sure I wasn’t making up things—but the letters just seemed to dance and float in front of me. My vision started to blur and my body slowly loosen its grasp. I didn’t know what was happening, but it surely wasn’t good, especially when I was at the back of Martin’s car.
Then in a rate of probably 4 kilometers per millisecond I saw my soul leaving my human body. Don’t ask me how I knew, but I knew, right when I was wandering alone in a place where most likely nobody alive has even discovered yet.
And I didn’t know if I’d just imagined it, but two snakes had curled around my human body in a viselike grip, carrying it off the chair I was probably sitting when I still had everything within me intact. I tried to stop it, but I was too weak. As I’ve said, my soul had already left my body. As stupid as this might sound, it was what I knew had happened.
Then, everything went black.
I guess it was what most people would call blacking out. But I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t born to be a doctor to know such symptoms. And if it was, indeed, that I passed out, I knew that there was no way Martin Santiago would forgive me. I, Queen Sta. Maria, the Luna East freak, blacked out at the back of his black ’69 Camaro. How gross.
I thought it only happened in the movies, blacking out and everything. I really didn’t believe it was possible. But hey, it didn’t feel good. At least, for me. Later on I’ve done my research and learned that most people who black out have high tendency to do so whenever they feel like what they were seeing or what they were doing tend to be too much of a thing to handle. They just went slack, and bam, they were gone. They didn’t need to know what was happening the whole time. Well, that was their soul purpose, anyway. They wanted somehow to escape and not acknowledge the truth that was happening right before their very eyes.
Okay, I might be talking alien here for all I knew, but I don’t go recommending people to just pass out and miss all the fun. First, it was cowardice. Second, it wasn’t something nice when people start talking about it. And third, it was just plain stupid. So sue me.
When I woke up or when my soul returned to my body or whatever people call it—getting back to consciousness and all that sheet—Molly’s face was the first I ever saw. Her face was above me. And to my great dismay, she looked genuinely relieved that I opened my eyes. Seriously, if I were to choose, I’d rather choose the one where my soul wasn’t in my human body. But of course then I would miss Molly, and my mom, and Noah, and everyone who cared for me, even my dad.
I tried to move my body and get up from the bed. My head started to throb and I was too late when I realized what I was attempting to do was totally nuts.
“Oh, my God! What are you doing?” Molly cried out, extending her arms to stop me.
“My head aches,” I tried to explain, trying my best not to pass out again. That would be double whammy on my part. Please, not on a Friday.
“Of course, beetch,” she said. “You don’t just get up like that after passing out.”
She helped lay my body back on the bed, moving the pillows together so they formed a mountain at my back so I could place my body in a half-sitting position.
When the pain in my head started to subside, I asked, “What happened?”
That was what I was saying. I just missed all the fun. I would have probably enjoyed looking at myself being careened off Martin’s car to the entrance of the hospital while a man in white tried to put my body on a wheelchair. Or do they put unconscious bodies on stretchers? Guess I would never know now. See? I missed the best part. I missed the fun. I wouldn’t black out, again, promise.
“You . . . are . . . so . . . busted,” Molly said. She was sitting on a chair beside my bed.
I knew what she was saying. She was talking about the recent article Trisha Mendoza wrote. “I know. I never liked Trisha. I mean, in a very professional level. But I don’t hate her personally. She wasn’t that bad the first time I met her,” I told Molly.
“And that was what, grade 1?” Molly looked incredulous, throwing her head back in exasperation.
I ignored the question, even though I almost wanted to correct her that we first met in kindergarten. “Anyway, if it’s not because of you, I wouldn’t be here. So what about school? Surely we missed first period now,” I said.
I heard a laugh. As in, a laugh. Molly laughed. There was no way I could mistake the sound.
“First period? Are you whacko? We just missed the entire Friday litany at school! Martin just left. I told him to go home already. I guess a day is enough for him. I didn’t want to drag him into anything more than this,” she said, dramatically using her hands to point at my body. “And I didn’t know you’d black out. So technically it wasn’t my fault.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Fine, I’m sorry. Anyway, it’s already six in the evening. But I called your mom and told her what happened. She was here, but she had to go home to take care of your brother. She’s really worried you know. You should have seen the way she paled after seeing you. I swear, it wasn’t a nice thing—what you did back there.”
What I did back there? What did I do?
Molly, sensing my utter lack of comprehension at the time, tried to explain. “The thing you did with the passing out and everything. It’s just way too—way too—”
“Vulnerable,” I supplied. I didn’t know where I got the word.
Molly nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s it, I think.”
“No regrets, though,” I said.
Molly’s hands stopped midair. She was about to tuck her hair in her ears, I think, but I stopped her. Whatever I said stopped her. Those flat, toneless and out of the blue words, stopped her. I must say I was astonished.
Then, recovering, she said, “No regrets? You’re totally whacked, aren’t you? You had me almost dying of panic attack here!” Her voice had reached her limit. She was now skeptical.
I breathed deeply. I didn’t know it would be her reaction. Inwardly, I felt a totally unexpected gratitude toward my best friend. Despite myself, I smiled.
If she had been confused, she looked even more confused. “Why are you smiling?”
I breathed another deep breath. Ignoring her last question, I said, “Well, I wouldn’t think I’d really want to read something about Henry in the paper, would you?”
“Yeah, that,” she said carefully. “I’m really wondering how Trisha knew.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, either. She seemed to be so nice, you know.”
“Nice? Again? Oh, please. I so don’t get it why you still hang on to that beetch. She’s a total flake. And she is so hard to get rid off. I really don’t think I can take seeing her face now.”
“Thanks.”
She looked confused. “For what?”
“You seem to be totally into fighting for me, so thanks.”
She looked offended. “I am your best friend.”
I smiled at her. “I know. And I think I know who spilled the beans. At least an idea.”
Her face suddenly went animated. “Really? Tell me.”