Colin asks for my number, saying he wants to stay connected. When Ray finds out, he shrieks inside our locker, jumps with joy, and says, "You finally found a man worth your time!"
"It isn't like that, Ray. He's just a friend."
"I have been watching you and that super hot Colin Verne from the kitchen. He has his eyes on you the whole time!"
"It's because we're talking. One way to have good communication is to maintain eye contact. Maybe he's just practicing it." What a lame excuse! Even I noticed how keenly he fixed his eyes on me.
"Nonetheless, he still asked for your number. What's next to that? A date maybe?"
"Ray, I have school, two jobs, multiple loans to worry about, and Dad and Mom, I just don't have time for dates or anything like that." I pick up my bag and together we walk out of the diner. We make sure the doors and windows are locked, and the power is turned off.
Moments later, we are still waiting for a cab.
"Angel, a little inspiration won't hurt."
"Not this time."
Ray clasps my hands. "Colin might just be the right person you've been waiting for. Don't let this opportunity slip out of your hands, dear Angel."
Just like how I didn't forego the opportunity with Damien. Now, I can't pull him out my life so easily. I don't want any more regrets, especially because of a stupid question and Damien's infantile behavior.
"What's Etheridge doing at the counter by the way?"
"The usual."
"I thought you'd say you're discussing de Vere," he mutters as he interlaces our fingers and leads me for a short walk. He can squeeze the truth out of me this way.
"Alright." I hold onto his arm. "I wasn't in his car because of assignment or Shakespeare or for whatever pathetic excuse. I went to him last night."
Ray pulls me to a stop.
"Hold on right there! Don't say a word until you hear me."
He falls silent. I can almost read what is running through his mind, and I must correct it as fast as I can.
"Nothing happened, but we were this close. "I show him my index and thumb fingers with an inch gap. "Nothing happened, I swear to God."
"You mean you almost did it?"
"Yes, but I stopped him."
"You went there just to stop him?"
"What are you trying to say?"
Ray breathes heavily. "Why did you even go there in the first place?"
"I was tempted. I'm sorry. I'm just human."
"Because humans make mistakes and nobody's perfect, let's say you're forgiven by universal law. But Angel, never ever do that again!"
"I promise."
"Okay, enough of this older sister me." He smiles at me while jiggling his head. "Let me be Ray this time. How's Damien?"
"What?"
"Damien and his body and his touch and his... you know." He winks at me.
"Oh, God! I can't believe you!"
How can he reprimand me and still want to hear about last night's mischief?
"Angel, I lost my innocence the very moment I first laid my eyes on Etheridge."
"You never told me that."
"It was from five years ago, and we didn't know that he'd be going to Princeton. He was on TV because he was jailed for smoking pots in a club."
"It's good that he didn't put that on his resume or he wouldn't have won the Student Council."
Damien was and is infamous. He was all over the television five to six years ago because of his non-conforming behavior. At the age of seventeen, just right after graduating from high school, he was involved in several drug dealings and lots of other troubles. When all this happened, I was just fifteen and still in high school. For the next two years, Damien was shunned away by colleges, so by the time he entered college, he was a couple of years older than me. But because he got powerful and influential back-ups, he was cleared of his past discretions and the rest was history. Despite all his mischief, he won the Student Council presidential run. How ironic!
"Did you see him smoking pots?"
"No, maybe he's changed." I don't really know much about Damien except for a few facts I saw on TV and the newspapers. He was in rehab for months, so I guess it was enough to change him.
"Did he kiss you?"
"What kind of kiss?" I innocently ask.
"Kiss! Touching of lips, or his lips touching any part of your body." He didn't really kiss me in the mouth. It was more of light brushing. I don't think it can be called a kiss, was it? But he did suck on my breast and my torso, and at the thought of it, I blush.
"I know what a kiss is!" I reply as soon as realize I am burning at the memory of that steamy night.
"So, did he kiss you?"
Do I have to tell him? It's a very personal matter, even if Ray's my best friend. So I answer him the way I know I can escape. "Isn't kissing the first thing or the foreplay couples do before they perform the highest form of union of two bodies?"
"Cut it, Angel! I don't need a lecture from you on the applied philosophy of sex. I just want to know if Damien is one damn good kisser!"
"Ray, your question is just like asking me the relationship of sex and biological reproduction!" I insist. I know he hates philosophy, so I'm going to batter him with what he hates the most. "Can one exist without the other?"
"Which you find a difficult question to answer!" Looks like he found a loophole to my counterattack.
"What?"
"That's a theoretical question. It has really no definite answer. Thus, we only have opinions from the experts."
"And so?" What is he trying to prove now?
"So how did the question about Damien's kiss become so difficult to answer?"
Now, I get what he means. He is trying to connect his kiss question with my philosophy question. If Ray's sexual preference wasn't male, then I would have definitely chosen him as my boyfriend. He's smart, and he's got the entire attitude to be someone's man.
"I shouldn't have undermined your intellect, Ray!" I say, shaking my head as I applaud him silently in my head.
"Sometimes, Angel, I think you are a sapiosexual."
"No, I am not!"
"You are! You like to twist the brains of all the males who talk to you, and you make your selection, and then come up with the top five most intelligent men, then you choose from them who wins the top plum," he replies.
"I don't do that!"
"You do! You just think you're rambling, but the truth is you're sizing up the person you're speaking to. And no one â no one â has ever caught your attention so far because those axons and dendrites in your head are crazily fast to think of a witty rebuttal."
"Ray, I just like a good conversation."
"Admit it, you're a sapiosexual. Let's just hope that Colin is a highly intellectual Homo sapien who can keep up with that crazy brain of yours!" He flashes a smile at me.
"I can't believe you're slapping labels on me!" I roll my eyes at him.
"Actually, I'm letting you see the things you deny to see. You like intelligent people. You are attracted to intelligent men either in its romantic or platonic sense!"
"I'm not choosy." It's not like I'm looking for geniuses or a partner in life whose IQ is greater than Einstein. Where is this conversation heading to?
"I'm just asking you about Damien's kiss, and what did I get? Some theory that half of my brain can't even tolerate!" he complains as he calls for the approaching cab. "I swear, I need some glucose!"
Am I really choosy when it comes to men? In elementary, all my crushes were nerds and geeks. In high school, I was in love with a fictional character in the person of Sherlock Holmes. I find their way of talking so amusing that I thought they can talk all day without getting exhausted and running out of ideas. Plus, they can explain things thoroughly until an average person understands what they are saying, even if it takes a lifetime. I'm not into the professor-types, but I think I just want someone who can pique my curiosity, someone who can stir my brain to look for answers or someone who I can listen to all day telling things I do not know. Maybe I am what Ray says I am. Maybe it's the reason why I never have boyfriends because I haven't found the one who can make me feel what highly intellectual boyfriends do.
Speaking about my love life, I am not looking for one... then Colin Verne crosses my mind. If he asks me to go out with him, what shall I do? Can I even afford to have fun while pretending that everything's okay in my life right now? Can I even go on a date?
Before I proceed upstairs to Dad's room, I visit the finance department to see Dad's tentative bill. My eyes pop out of their sockets when I see tons of zeroes. I'm exaggerating, but having four to five zeroes on these papers is a big deal for a destitute like me. The cost is larger than what I have in my savings. Not even my monthly paycheck can help.
Then my eyes widen even more when I read laboratory test requests I find unusual for Dad's case.
"Why did Dad need a biopsy and a CAT scan?" I ask the clerk on the desk.
"Those were requested by Dr. Martin this morning."
"Why did he request them?"
"It's a doctor's prerogative, Ms. Mohr."
"But they are for..." I pause. I cannot stomach the realization.
"We need the down payment after tomorrow, Ms. Mohr. The amount you need to pay before we perform other tests is in the bill."
"Other tests?"
"Dr. Martin is the only one allowed to tell you. He hasn't given us the list of new tests," says the lady clerk. "It's a rule that the patient consents to the tests before they are done."
So Dad consented to be biopsied and CAT scanned? Only one crazy and horrifying thought run through my mind. It can't be! It just can't!
With dread, my legs brought me to the seventh floor where Dr. Martin's hospital clinic is located. It's almost eleven in the evening, and I know that doctors usually don't see clients after five, but I am hoping to see him clarify some things. I want him to tell me that I am just overreacting, that the biopsy and the CAT scan meant nothing but just random tests.
The clinic is closing, and from the corridor I see the lady secretary fixing herself, her bag, and some papers. I enter without permission.
"Sorry, ma'am, but we're not receiving patients anymore."
"Is Dr. Martin here?" My eyes recklessly search the glass-walled room and soon find a door which I think leads to Eric Martin's office.
"Dr. Martin is leaving."
"Can you let me talk to him even for just a couple of minutes? My dad is his patient." My tears are welling up the corners of my eyes, and my voice is cracking up.
The stern-looking secretary stares at me with her hawk-like eye. She's giving me the feeling that she doesn't want me there.
"Angel?" The door opens, exposing Eric Martin in his normal clothesâa pair of trousers and black printed long sleeved polo shirt that is unbuttoned three inches from his neck.
"I need to talk to you," I say in one breath.
"Sorry, Doctor, but I tried..." the secretary tries to defend herself.
"It's okay, Melanie. I think I'll take this." Eric Martin lets me into his office.
It's wide and has lots of medical stuff, just like what he has in their downtown family clinic.
"Doctor, please tell me I am wrong about this." I show him the bill of laboratory tests, all shaking and anxious.
He shows me the way to his long divan.
For seconds, his attention is just on the paper, prolonging the waiting and my agony.
"Your hunch is right, Angel." His eyes are full of remorse. "We tested your father for cancer."
It's just too much to handle. I let it out. I cry in front of him.
Cancer? How is it possible?
Eric Martin starts to talk, but my ears seem to shut down and just allow the voices in my head to fill my being. I try hard to focus on his mouth to try to get a grasp of what he's saying, but it is impossible. It's like his words and his voice don't even exist. It's just my reason doing all the talking.
How on earth did Dad develop cancer? Cancer of what? Is it hereditary? Did he get it from his parents or grandparents? Is it because of stress at work or the chemicals he inhaled as a plumber? There aren't even chemicals involved in his job. It's about water and pipes, and...
I am overthinking things again. My head starts to ache from my forehead to my occipital lobe, like a club hitting on it. My skull is just about to break. I just can't help it. I need to know everything. I always hate to be in the dark, especially if it's about my family. I need to know what's happening and why these misfortunes kept happening to us. It's the only way to find an answer â trace the root cause and solve it.
"Angel?"
Finally, Eric Martin's voice brought me out from the profundity of mindlessness.
"Are you listening?"
I nod, still fazed and unsure.
He lets out a deep sigh, pauses for a while as though waiting for me get a grasp of myself, and says, "We need to do surgery or chemotherapy as soon as possible."
I freeze.
"Or else..."
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