Chapter 10

Her room was so girlish. There were so many happy colors, such as pink and blue, on the wall and the furniture. Her blanket had a picture of one of those Disney movies. I believe it was Sleeping Beauty. Her father had a taste of humor when he chose that blanket. She also kept all kinds of dolls in her room. From Barbie to Bambie, there were all kinds of dolls in her room. Her desk was neat and organized. The room smelled fresh. Everything was in place. My interest was to look at her drawer, but I was too afraid to look into it. She went out to bring some tea for me, and it had been like ten minutes since she left, so she could come back at any time now. She had a big bookshelf. There were so many novels, which most of them were romantic ones. I wanted to try her bed. I wanted to see how she felt when she went to the same bed every night, so I lay down there. I opened my arms and spread them on the bed. The blanket was soft, and the mattress was a little bit hard. I noticed her bed didn’t have those suspensions under it; however, it was comfortable enough. Her bed smelled sweet vanilla. The Panda was sitting right on top of the bed. He gave the look of “Be careful, bastard” to me with the frozen smile on him, and I give him back the look of “Watch who you are talking to.” I looked at her window. The frame was pink in color. The window had a view of those tall buildings close to her apartment. Any pervert could watch her sleeping. It was a good view for the people who wanted to watch the city at night, but I wanted to see the stars and the trees. I wasn’t really a fan of tall buildings or skyscrapers.

Even though they were the art of architects and mathematics, they weren’t beautiful to me. I looked back to the bookshelf. I saw some mathematics books on the shelf, which made me smile. I was proud of her. She was my protégé. She changed. She changed a lot since we met. I don’t know if it was because of mathematics or hanging out with Marshal and me that she changed a lot. She became more mature. The Money that her parents gave her for spending in school, she spent for other classes. She liked to paint, so she signed up for it. Now and then, she went to cooking class.

I even remember the day we were talking about food. I told her that nowadays, women are getting too feminists that they are losing sight of the best art—the art of cooking. Today’s women lost the reason why cooking happened in the first place. Wasn’t it to make healthy food for yourself and the family and pass it on to the next generation? Today secret sauce is using too much oil or using store-bought dressing. What happened to the passion they had once? The girls were talking about persona, and they had no idea what it really meant. They are too afraid to hold a book and read it because other girls mock them as geeks or losers. If they want to learn how to sew a worn dress, they are considered as cheap people who don’t want to spend more money. People in the past knew how to fix things, so when the relationship problem came around, they tried to fix it together instead of being surprised by it. Now look at the society we are living in. The kids are growing up without either fathers or mothers. Why? Because their parents couldn’t solve the problem. They found an easy way out, and they took it. It was sad to talk about it. She told me about the women who got abused by their husbands, and in return, I answered that I wasn’t talking about those people. There were even some problems in mathematics that were not logical and didn’t make any sense. No one would blame the person who couldn’t find any solution for it, but because of some illogical problem, can we say let’s forget about the whole math? Let’s not solve any of them because there were some irrational problems in it, or even worse, let’s just find the easy problems and not do the difficult ones. We talked, and we learned a lot from each other. I learned to like her the way she was. I told her once that her outer beauty was a bonus for her inside beauty.

“What are you doing?” Calysta asked. She caught me on her bed. She had the tray in her hand.

“I am sleeping with Princess Aurora. Do you think she wakes up if I kiss her?” I responded. She laughed.

“What if my father found you like this?” she asked while she was smiling.

“I would say that it’s not what he thinks it is. I wasn’t cheating on you with Princess Aurora on your bed,” I answered. She laughed.

“Then you know what will happen after you said that,” she said.

“He would laugh while stabbing me in the heart,” I responded. She smiled but gave me the face that she didn’t want anything bad to ever happen to me.

“I think he just gets disappointed and, of course, sad. He likes you too much to hurt you,” she said with a proud smile on her face.

“I like your father too. I was wondering that I should start calling him father too,” I said while having a smile on my face. She turned red while having the most innocent smile on her face.

“Now you sound like a player,” she said while her head was down.

I smiled. That was the only thing that I could do. I stood up and took the tray and then put it on the desk. I kissed her forehead.

“I don’t play with other people’s feelings,” I said. I took the cup and sipped the tea. It was hot, just the way I like it.

“Thanks for the tea,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she said while she was biting her lip. She sat beside me. I looked at her while she was looking down. I felt relieved. She trusted me enough that I would not do anything stupid, and I wasn’t going to do it anyway. However, it wasn’t an easy thing. Having my dream girl sitting on the bed right beside me, it was almost close to impossible to not have a dirty thought. She held the other cup between her hands, and I was jealous of that cup at that moment. There was this awkward silence between us. None of us knew how to get out of it, so we were silent for a while. I didn’t want to stand up first from the bed. What would she think if I stood up? And fearing that thought made me sit still.

“Did you mean it?” Calysta asked. I knew exactly what she meant by saying that. I didn’t know what to answer.

“I am not sure,” I said honestly. She looked into my eyes. Those sapphire-blue eyes looked inside my heart. I knew from the eyes that she was hurt, and before it got too late, I continued.

“Do you know the story of a flower that fell in love with a beautiful girl?” I asked.

“No,” she answered, but still, I could feel the hurt in her voice.

“There was this little flower who happened to fall in love with humans. As unusual as it was for the flower, every other flower told the little flower that falling in love with humans was crazy, but the little flower didn’t listen.

“One day that little flower fell in love with a little girl who came every day and passed by it without noticing the little flower. Days and nights passed, but the little girl overlooked the love of that specific flower. The flower bloomed before any other flowers, which was really risky, hoping that the little girl would notice the flower, but nothing happened.

“Time passed, and the little girl became a beautiful young girl, and the little flower lost its natural color because it got weaker and weaker. It was dying. The little flower selflessly gave away whatever it had to make the girl happy and make her come back to the place where it was, so it traded its nectar to the moth to come at a specific time so the girl could see a creature that made her happy. It was painful for the flower to see that no matter what the flower did for the girl, she didn’t notice its devotion and love.

“One day the flower got really weak that it could die at any moment. It tried its best to give its last nectar to the moth, but the nectar wasn’t ready, so the giant moth flew off to other flowers.

“The little flower was really sad. Not because it was dying, no. It wanted to see that girl’s smile for the last time.

“Sad and brokenhearted, waiting for its death. Suddenly, a hand came and picked it up. It was a young man who picked it up. The moment the flower thought that all hopes were lost, it saw the girl come with a big smile on her face. The young man handed in the flower to her. The flower died in her hand, and it gave away the best odor that is known between the flowers. She loved the smell of the flower, and somehow, it brought tears to her eyes.

“The girl kept the flower in a safe place from that day on. The name of the flower was Ghost Orchid.”

“Why ghost?” she asked while she had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t know for sure. It is said that the root of this flower is so blended into a tree that it seems it is flying like a ghost. You should ask Marshal about it. He knows a lot about it,” I answered.

“It is sad,” she said.

“Which part? Dying in the hand of the person it loved so much?”

“No, yeah. I don’t know. All of it. Why did it have to die? Did she find out that the flower loved her? Why it had to be sad?”

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“I thought it was a happy ending for the flower. It finally rested in a place that it wanted to be and be remembered by the one whom it loved the most,” I answered.

“You are so cruel,” Calysta said. Now she was wiping her tears. I reached for her head with both my hands. After I kissed her forehead, I asked her why she said it, but she didn’t answer me.

“Do you know a lot of people consider this story as a love story?” I asked her.

“I know,” she answered. Her head was pressed to my chest. I wished I could hold her like that forever.

“I am not cruel, but love is. It hurts. It makes people cry and makes them do unthinkable things. When I talked about love to your father and my father, they both laughed at me. I know why. It’s because they believed I had no idea what I was talking about, and I think it is true. I’ll be another stupid kid if I think I know more than them and not use their wisdom. I could see in your father’s eyes how much he loves you and your mother. He’ll do anything for you to keep that smile on your face, so he knows what he is talking about. When he advised me to wait until I grew up and learn it by myself, I thought I should wait and respect his advice. That was why I said ‘I am not sure,’ because I do not know the answer or have the wisdom for it. The last thing I want to do is hurt you just by not knowing,” I said it calmly.

She put her hand on my chest and lifted her head from my chest. It was hurtful for me to let her do that, but what could I have done? I could still see the tears in her eyes, but there was a smile on her lips. Her eyes moved from my eyes to my lips. She then leaned over, and before I knew it, our lips touched. I could feel the fantastic heat from her breath on my lips and the soft tissue of her lips against mine. My heart raced. I could feel that my body temperature was rising. She parted her lips from mine, and I was aching to have those lips back where they were. I held her face between my hands and tried to reach her lips again. She didn’t resist, so our lips touched again for the second time. I was in heaven. I didn’t know what to do. Can I bite them? Can I eat it? Does she mind if I do that? What the hell am I supposed to do now? Swallow your goddamn saliva. Where the fuck did I get this much saliva? Calm down, you idiot. Do as she does. There you go. She is sucking your lips, then it is okay for you to suck hers. See, it is easy. It’s a piece of cake. Try not to do anything that turns her off, I thought.

She parted her lips again. She was smiling and biting her lips by her teeth.

“What is wrong? Did I do something wrong?” I asked anxiously.

“No, you did well,” she responded.

“Then why did you stop?” I asked. I saw her smiling.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, okay?” she responded. I didn’t buy it.

“You know what? It is unfair. I am teaching you lots of things, but you are not teaching me anything. It’s going to stop now. You have to teach me how to kiss. Deal?” I asked. She laughed hard. When she got her control back a little bit, she said with a mischievous smile,

“I don’t know why you made such a big deal out of it. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was afraid if I continued kissing you, I wouldn’t be able to control myself not to go further. Are you getting what I am trying to say?”

I turned red from embarrassment when I thought about it, so I looked down. Now I wasn’t sure what I would do if I looked at her again. She laughed at my reaction. Even the voice of her laughter was arousing me. She gave me some gratulation, which I had never felt before. I wanted it to happen again, but I didn’t want to push it.

“What are you gonna do tomorrow?” she asked.

“I’ll go to the site,” I answered. Still, my head was down. I knew she wanted to change the subject. She would be Panglossian if she thought that I would get over it that fast. However, I played along.

“Again?” she asked and seemed annoyed.

“It seems like you are going to work there, not me,” I responded with a smile.

“You are working too much, Agustin. Haven’t you learned all the trades in this world yet? Marshal told me that you learned other trades even before you met him. It is great, but when do you have time to be young and stupid?” she said with a frangible voice. I knew what she meant was having more time around her, but the thing was, I wasn’t learning those trades for my own sake. It was beneficial for anybody that I was with, mostly my father.

“Do you wanna know how I got to this mess?” I asked her sincerely.

“Uhuum,” she responded.

“Those days that I was alone and I had no friends, I remember one day that my father brought a plumber to our house. I was ten at that time. The guy started working with pipes, and he did nothing special. He opened a pipe and decluttered it and then put it back, and for just doing that, he received a lot of money. It was a lot of money for me when I was a kid. One day I asked my father what he would do if I did the same thing in the house. First, he laughed at me. Then he saw that I was serious. He changed his attitude and asked me if I wanted to be a plumber. I answered him that the job was too boring, but if he gave me a good amount of money, I would consider just learning how to do the job for our house and business. He laughed and made a deal. So from that day on, I worked for free as an apprentice in many different trades but charged my father for each one I used in our house. How do you feel that your boyfriend built up and modified everything in his car, computer, furniture, and so many other things? And now his car is the coolest thing that any man can dream of. Anyone can go and buy a new sports car, but building a sports car out of scraps is an art that not many people can do,” I said it proudly.

“I know. I like it. When I need a handyperson for anything, I don’t need to look far. He is right here, and he is my boyfriend, but I need you as a boyfriend as well. When do you have time to be my boyfriend?” she said with a smile.

“Handyman? No disrespect to the handyman, but handyman? Why is it everyone else sees it as an art and calls me an artist, but my beautiful girlfriend calls me a handyman?” I said with a disappointed look.

She smiled and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I’m sorry. You know that my vocabulary for this kind of thing is penurious,” she explained herself with a witty comeback. It worked. It made me laugh.

“Why do you have to be so cute and smart?” I said it, and without a second thought, I pinched her smiley cheek with care and love.

“Agustttttiiiin? Are you trying to distract me? Still, you have to explain to me why my handsome and ARTISTIC boyfriend doesn’t have time for me,” she asked.

“I think I gave you time, and the evidence for it is, right now, I am here with you. But if you mean to be available 24/7, well, welcome to the club, and you should go to the line where my parents are waiting too,” I explained happily, and I thought I was magnanimous, but she didn’t like the sound of it. She was angry about it, so we didn’t talk for a few seconds until her cuteness won me over, and I gave in by chuckling.

“I’m sorry. I should have asked first what you meant by asking me to have more time,” I pleaded.

“Well, I don’t have anything to say to you,” she responded with disgust. It just made me love her more. Not that I like her being in that state. No, it just showed how innocent and fragile she was, and I had to take care of her carefully like anything precious in this world. I reached for her head with my hand. She resisted a little bit and tried to be playful, but when I reached for her, I put her head right where I loved the most—on my chest.

“I wish there was a taste for the feelings—the actual taste. For example, chocolate is for forgiveness and a rotten taste for grudge and hate. Ice cream is for being happy, and outdated milk taste for being sad, and so on . . . ,” I said it sadly, but it brought a smile to her face finally.

“What can I do to you now, huh? You come and say something like that to me, and it makes me feel like a bad person if I stay angry at you. I wish you weren’t this much good, so I didn’t have to be this much sad when you aren’t around,” she said with a smile but with a sad voice.

“Scheduling is everyone’s nightmare. People don’t realize how little time we have in this world and how much work needs to be done. I’m not talking about making a better future or those kinds of crap that magazines or motivational speakers are trying to sell. I am talking about all the passion and love I have, and I have to make time for all of them. I love painting, and I love to spend my whole life just doing it, but I also love composing music, and I want to do the same for it. You know how much I love mathematics. You know that I have to put the alarm on when I do the mathematics, I lose track of time, and It takes me to another wonderland. You know what I am talking about. You got interested in math too. Then there is the cool stuff I reaaally, really want to learn, such as different trades. I want to open things up like a surgeon and revive them. The joy of it is unimaginable. I love cooking, sleeping, learning new techniques in Wing Chun, hanging out with friends, being with family and you, traveling, and who knows where the list ends? However, I’ve got twenty-four hours, and it is not even enough for just one of those passions I love,” I said it with a sad tone.

“So the time is cruel, not you. I got it. But do you know the reason why I attend so many other classes?” she asked me.

“I believe you like those classes and the skills,” I answered.

“True, but the reason is, the main reason is, when I look at myself and you, I see that I’ve got nothing. I am not smart like you. I can’t paint like you. For heaven’s sake, I can’t even cook better than you. So it is more like a pretty face for you, and I hate that. I’m embarrassed. I see how you like to learn new things. You actually dive into it, but I have to be forced to do anything at all. I’m not too fond of this feeling—the feeling that I am not good enough for you,” she said.

Well, that was unexpected. What was I supposed to tell her now? “Don’t worry. Everything is fine, and I like you the way that you are”? One wrong statement and I was out. She would think that I am not serious enough for her or, even worse, I don’t care about her. What was I supposed to tell her? I didn’t know, and it was scary. I didn’t want to be alone again. Now that she was with me, I knew that I couldn’t be alone again.

“I have a different perspective than you about my skills. I see loneliness. I see that when I wanted to play with other kids, they didn’t let me in their teams. I see they wanted to hurt me because I was smarter than them. I was an outcast from anything that meant teamwork. I see the nights that I was crying in bed because I didn’t want to let my family know how weak I was. I see a brokenhearted girl in front of me who is sad that why she is not like me? It is more like people see a warrior. They see how big and skillful they are with swords, but they don’t see scars or how many people have lost their lives for that skill. They don’t know the nights those faces haunted him. I have changed a lot. A year ago, I wouldn’t care if I was alone, but not having you in my life would be another sad moment in my life. In the beginning, yes, you are right. You were a pretty face for me. But know that I got to know you, trust me when I tell you that you aren’t just a pretty face for me anymore. You are precious and beautiful like a diamond, mature like Mother Teresa, and smart like Madam Marie Curie than any girls I know in our school. Don’t beat yourself up because you are unique. I see your uniqueness, and I love it. I don’t see and feel that I am better than you. It is the other way around. Do you want to know how many people hate me just because you are my girlfriend? I hear them say, ‘Look at that bastard, how he got so lucky to be with Calysta. She is smart and beautiful, and look at him. He is another sorry ass who got so lucky,’” I said with my head down. She laughed and then smiled. She looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes, which I would never get used to, and then kissed me again on the lips. I lost track of time for the kissing. When we came to ourselves, it was her mom that was calling us for dinner.