Effeminate Within

Chapter Five

                                                                                             Chapter 5

SEAN DID NOT interrogate about the silence between Greg and me on our way to school. He stopped when he noticed that he was too noisy for his two voiceless friends. Greg and I did not talk about what happened about that night with the girls. We talked, but not so often like we used to. Like something had changed. I wanted us to talk about it. I wanted Greg to ask me, to clarify it. But he did not, so when Sean left and it was only Greg and me at the second storey of the CAS building...

"Does he know it?" I asked, finally.

"Know what?"

"That I'm, you know, gay." I said, but still contemplating if I should have said that. I was not so used to this coming-out thing.

"So you really are?" Greg laughed, but it died away when he saw that I was taking it seriously. "No, I am not going to tell him. But I have this feeling that he already knows it. He was mentioning that before."

"Really? Oh, just tell him I'm not. And please I don't want to talk about it anymore. Thank you." I said and I started walking away until he grabbed me by my hand.

"I am sorry. I must have known that it's private and a big deal to you. I'm really sorry." He said, squeezing my hand, imposing sincerity.

"Forget about it."

During my vacant time, I usually went to library, but I didn't feel to read books or to study now. My thoughts consumed me. I went to the school's open field which seemed to serve like a dating place for couples. Kisses, public displays of affections, hugging and cuddling were all open from the eyes of the judgmental world here. It was only the second time I'd been here. First was when we had the warm up exercise during the physical education and now was the second time. The place had shifted into something romantic like I was not in a school. Those couples were not appropriate to study here in a medical school. They were unsuitable and the complete opposite of the students I met in the laboratory. Cheesy. Some of them were high school students dating senior college students.

I didn't even know why I chose to be here rather than to be in the library just to judge these lovebirds. But in the pool of couples, I found myself alone and that made sense, really. They were not the one who were pathetic. Being here was like letting myself looked abandoned and desperate. I was an exile of this place. I must not be here. This place belonged to them.

So I turned my eyes back from where I was sitting, looking for some place to go, a place for someone like me. And from a distance, a familiar figure was coming near to my direction. As he got closer, I recognized. Greg.

"In the morning, they call this place an Open Field, Oval, Grassland, Ground, but every afternoon, they call this The Sucrose Factory." Greg explained as he sat beside me in the lawn of so-called The Sucrose Factory.

"Like the couples themselves literally produce sugar by cuddling." I smiled at the sight of his curved lips. "Great. I feel like I am having Diabetes Mellitus."

Greg chuckled. "Exactly,"

The distance between him and me was intimate. And I hated myself for liking it. I could smell his perfume, the smell of Gregory.

"I believe for days that you hate me for asking you that stupid question I didn't really want to ask. Maybe I was just way too curious. I felt distressed especially when the door shut." He said, looking at the farthest place.

"I believe for days that you are ignoring me because you feel disgusted and you hate me for not telling the truth at the first place." I replied, smiling as I looked at his face.