Effeminate Within

Chapter Nine

                                                                                                 Chapter 9

IT WAS NEW Year's Eve later and Mom and I were busy for food preparations though we were not expecting guests other than my mom's colleagues. New Year was my favorite event of the year and not because it meant start and hope but because it silently whispered me a congratulation. Congratulations, Dominic! Brace yourself for another disastrous year.

We seldom prepared bacons for breakfast and I requested for it on New Year's Eve. Mom said it was very unhealthy and I must not eat it, so I grew up eating bacons only when there were special occasions like this. It's not cooked yet, but my mouth was watering as I looked at it behind its transparent packaging.

Mom cooked the main course while I made the desserts: Banana pudding and Ice cream cake. Both were easy to prepare, it's just like chemistry laboratory experiments, only that you don't taste the spoon in the laboratory. Pastry making was my expertise and I as excelling with it since I was ten.

When I came out as a gay, Dad started to be curious about what I loved to do. I told him that I wanted to bake, so he enrolled me at a workshop school for kiddies one summer when I was ten. I enjoyed it. I used to tell Lance that mom was the one who made the cupcakes he and me eat for snacks when in fact, I was the one who made those.

Hours later, after my afternoon nap, mom's guests were already at the living room. I could hear them chatting and their voices jumbled that I wondered if they could still understand what one was saying. They were all single except to Emily who was divorced which made her technically a single. If I was correct, I knew she had a son.

I looked at the mirror first and cleaned my eyes and hair before stepping out of my room. They all smiled at me as they saw me. I heard one of them said OMG, he grew up fast. And I turned to the source of the voice.

"Hey Dominic," Amber greeted as I stood after the door, squinting at them. I got acquainted to them once, that was on my senior year when they came here to celebrate my graduation.

"Hi Amber," I greeted back "Hi Tina, Hi Emily, Hi Sheila."

The rest just nod, but Emily came to my direction and hugged me and I kind of hug her back. She was the youngest among them, twenty-four. They were all cool people and I liked them, but I just couldn't imagine sitting with them and join whatever conversation they had.

I went to mom at the kitchen to eat my post-lunch/pre-dinner snack and I also informed her that I would just hang out outside and she said yes.

The snow was thawing and not too thick. The sun was already setting below the horizon and some of my neighbors were trying and lighting up their firecrackers and fireworks which was really entertaining to watch. I sat at the bench at the front of our house so I could watch them better. I sat there for a while and ignore whatever conversation they were having inside with my mom which could slightly be heard from where I was sitting.

I felt lost in watching for a while because the next thing I knew was Andrew, our neighbor whose house was just beside ours, was lighting the sparkler fountain. I just then knew that it was totally dark here outside. Andrew nodded on my direction when he saw me watching, arms-crossed. He knew I was gay, though not the entire neighborhood knew I was gay. Some of them were curious but thankfully, they didn't ask.

It was dark by now, so I started walking back inside when a voice called my name. It was Lance coming to my direction.

"Hey." I said.