The Adventures of Peter Valentine

November 17

On the first week that Valentine met Luke online, likely the fourth day of their online affair, Pierre Vargas from Iloilo, Peter Valentine's Call Me by Your Name fling back in 2019, just out of the blue, called Valentine on Messenger.
On the video call, Pierre was naked down to his waist, clearly drunk, and crying. His wavy black hair that is noticeably receding was pretty disheveled. He didn't look good, and even appeared older than Valentine at 51. The background scenery placed him on a badly lit verandah with a table of emptied bottles of Red Horse, chewed out chicken bones from thighs and legs cooked a la adobo, and scattered cigarette butts.
"Hey, P! What's up?" Valentine said as he smiled his greeting. "Wait, are you crying?"
"I just miss you. I really, really miss you," Pierre slurred and cried. "When are you coming home?"
"Wait, why are you crying? What's wrong?"
"I just missed you, damn it! And I got drunk."
"Who's with you?"
"What do you mean who's with me? No one. I'm alone! There's still Covid, you know."
"And you have to drink that much alone?"
"It was my birthday yesterday, you know. I finally turned 36. You didn't even remember, did you?" He crumpled his face. "You really didn't! You didn't remember."
Valentine started to feel like a real jerk, but how could he have known? Pierre didn't put his real birthday on Facebook so there were no birthday reminders. And in truth, including the shared night under the thousand stars on the Jannah Glycel beach front in Guimaras, they only went out for a whole week, a full seven days.
"I'm really sorry, P. I didn't know. I forgot. I got distracted. This pandemic has thrown everything in chaos. Please forgive me."
"It's okay. Except for Mommy and Daddy, nobody else really remembered," Pierre took a swig of his beer before adding, "and you are right, this pandemic messed up everything. None of my friends and co-teachers could come. Everyone was busy for the opening of classes."
"How are you with that, by the way?"
"Meh! You know me, I'll deal with whatever shit DepEd wants to do. They won't listen to the call for academic freeze anyway." He finished off a bottle, and opened a new one.
"Shouldn't you be getting reading for the reopening of classes?"
"I already did what I needed to do. I'll just have to wake up and distribute the modules tomorrow."
"Will you be able to wake up okay in your condition? You seemed to have finished a whole case of beer."
"It's not like I'm going to give a lecture or anything. There's really nothing much to do but to hand out the modules in the afternoon. That's our new normal. I'll probably be busier on the weekends checking the students' work."
"Or, you can keep your weekends free, and check the work during the weekdays for when you are exactly being paid actually," Valentine knew he was talking to a drunk, but he talked to Pierre sensibly anyway. "And you always have the option to work smart, and just close your eyes as you grade your students' works. Give them a break! Give them a 100% grade whatever their answer is. Covid is not their fault. And especially that ill-prepared and rushed modular approach of DepEd."
"You know what, P? You are absolutely right. And you just made me miss you more. I miss your smarts, you sensible ideas, your real talk. God, I miss you! Shit, I'm drunk, but I really miss you—my forever P. My Call Me by Your Name P." And Pierre cried even more, maybe from the vulnerability of drunkness, maybe from too much longing.
Valentine only knew those feelings too well—that of being touchy-feely when one is drunk, and that of being too pained by an intense longing one needed to scream or wail.
Valentine liked that they were both calling each other P, and that means that they were "calling each other by each other's name." But more and more, he saw that they could not be. Still, he asked Pierre the hard questions, "Whatever happened to us, P? Why didn't you like me enough to choose me?"
Pierre cried some more before confessing, "But I do like you."
"That's not what I felt," Valentine said while feeling a disgust for Pierre. "And also, you never talked to me again after Guimaras. I texted you several times here on Messenger, but you hardly replied. I was also hurt to just seen zoned, you know."
"I'm sorry, P. I'm very, very sorry. I'm just messed up. I like you, but I'm not really sure. Please come home so we can talk about this again. Come home to me!"
Valentine's heart was crushed by Pierre's drunken pleas. But in a way, he also realized that he has moved on from him. He was finally over Pierre!
Damn Pierre for ignoring him after Guimaras! Damn Pierre for not choosing him when he wanted to be chosen. Damn Pierre for coming back when he has found a new joy, and a new possibility, in Luke.
Pierre pleaded some more, promised this and that, confessed his loved and admiration, but Valentine was unmoved. Every word the drunken Pierre said, real or just drunk talk, pushed him further and further away. Pushed him to a decision.
So, finally, Valentine addressed Pierre by his real name, because when they made the deal about calling each other by each other's name, they also said that to break the enchantment, they only have to stop calling each other by each other's name. "Mr. Pierre Vargas... Mr. Pierre Vargas, sir, please listen to me. I have met someone... I love you, but I really think we are done. You have had your chance, and you know how you blew it!"
There was only a slight shock and puzzlement in Pierre's face, and then he cried like a baby.
Still, Valentine remained unmoved.