WHO'S READY FOR THE LUCIO'S TALE?

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Pelham didn't know how to perceive his feelings when he discovered that his mother, who was always in the kitchen during breakfast, didn't show up, let alone pass the kitchen. Of course, he was reasonably disillusioned to see this, especially when he simply wanted to talk. It particularly didn't help the fact that she returned home late the previous night - way past curfew. And Pelham's mother was the type of woman who tucked herself in at exactly ten o'clock, shutting out the world like children do.

Pelham had been sitting in the living room then, a book open on his lap and his phone sitting on the coffee table before him. It had been an adequately atypical sight of a teenage son - who was almost an adult anyway - simply waiting for his mother to return home. But fatigue had dominated his body, and he had dozed off right there on the armchair he was occupying earlier than he had expected.

His father had informed Pelham that his mother had left early for her book club meeting - earlier than his father himself, to be fair. Pelham wanted to question, for it was a rare occasion for his mother to leave home as early as seven in the morning, but he thought better of it. Judging by the look of discomfiture plastered across his father's face, he reckoned it was something that he knew they both didn't want to chew over.

Though, as he sat there on the stool by the kitchen counter all by himself, he couldn't help but muse whether his mother, like Roshon, was simply avoiding him.

No, he told himself. She can't be. Pelham simply believed that his mother had other things to do, and that him coming out and his mother getting suddenly wrapped up with her work were merely coincidental. Though, there was some part of him that said otherwise. Not that he paid it any attention. The last thing he wanted was the whole universe turning its back on him.

Aside from that, there was also the thing with Lucio, who couldn't seem to find a way to stop apologising to Pelham regarding his actions. Even though Pelham knew that Lucio Alves was a boy with issues at controlling his impulsive actions, he couldn't help but send the boy a text message asking the only obvious question that popped into his head after he went home the previous day;

Pelham: hey

Pelham: about today...

Pelham: do u like me or something?

It had taken a while before Lucio replied;

Lucio: no

Lucio: i dont.

Lucio: not at all

Lucio: dont worry about it.

Lucio: you're just cute idk maybe its just me

Lucio: saying you're cute doesnt mean I like you, right?

Lucio: wont do it again.

Lucio: good night, Pelham.

To say Pelham had been slightly nonplussed was an understatement.

It was an abnormally dreary morning, especially without Oris for Pelham to talk to. Not that the child was cognisant of all of the words that poured out of her step brother's mouth despite constantly bombarding him with questions that made him ill at ease. But at least she was a good listener. Other than that, Pelham couldn't talk to April, knowing well that she hated to be interrupted in the middle of a lesson. And Pelham clearly wasn't in the mood to wind people up.

In the end, too overcome with lassitude to read or finish his homework - he honestly couldn't endure the palpable solitude with only his raging head being his main source of entertainment for the entire day - Pelham resolved to go out.

There was a food parlour down the street that served the most delectable crispy waffles Pelham had ever had. He hardly ever went there for the past year, due to the number of customers swarming in - particularly during the weekends. But today was a weekday, and most of the townspeople were either at school or at work. And that served Pelham his best chance at going to the parlour without having to wait for thirty minutes for his food to arrive.

Just as he had expected, there weren't that many people in the parlour once he entered. The indie interior welcomed him with its mandala wallpapers, as well as the incandescent bulbs hanging low from the ceiling - though, not low enough for towering people like Pelham to hit their heads like a clapper clanking against the tubes of a wind chime. Despite the sunlight spilling through the window wall, the parlour was still cast in a golden hue, what with the patchwork tub chairs and the walnut parquet.

In all honesty, Pelham thought the whole place seemed too 'hipster' for him. But he was there to eat, not to make a critique.

The only customers there were an elderly couple sitting together near the windows, young parents and their small daughter, who looked about four, and who seemed to have a facial paralysis - Pelham, upon seeing this, realised that the little girl must have a Moebius syndrome. On the other side of the parlour sat a woman in her middle thirties with her laptop on the table in front of her, while her food sat untouched - and possibly cold - next to it.

"Morning! Are you eating here or ordering for a take-out?"

Pelham, for the first time, paid attention to the cashier standing behind the counter. His breath caught a little as he looked at the boy. Pelham had never seen him around town before, and he assumed the cashier was new. He looked taller than Pelham by a few inches, but was enough to make Pelham tilt his head back at a slight angle despite the distance that the counter provided. He looked no more than nineteen or twenty, with his short blond curls and dazzling hazel eyes.

Pelham realised he was staring. He blinked. "What?"

The boy shifted on one foot, and his nametag pinned on the left torso of his shirt caught the light. Errol. "Eat here or taking out?"

Pelham swallowed. "Here."

The boy, Errol, grinned at him, flashing straight white teeth. Pelham fixed his gaze on the menu board hanging behind Errol - an unnecessary action, for he was simply there to order the same thing he always did whenever he came there.

"What's so funny?" Pelham asked when he heard the low chuckle sounding from Errol's throat.

The taller boy shook his head. "You look lost just now. How old are you?"

"Seventeen,"

Errol cocked an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

"Can I have a set of crispy waffles with hot chocolate topping?"

Errol gave an indifferent shrug and took Pelham's order, clearly sensing that it wasn't his job to ask people about their life. "Anything else?"

Pelham didn't think. "Tea."

Truth was, Pelham was nervous in front of Errol. The boy was, in all honesty, downright striking. There was also the fact that Errol was tall and blond. Curly, Pelham observed.

Pelham took the furthest seat in the parlour by the windows with his drink, even though there were more comfortable tub armchairs available. He simply wasn't in the mood to be distracted, not when he was already in a state of abstract isolation.

Alas, Errol just had to arrive with his plate of chocolate-topped waffles five minutes later. The table was fairly low, and the boy was considerably tall. All in all, Errol had to bend in order to place Pelham's order on the table. Pelham could distinctly feel his face heat up at the proximity, and tried to gain some control over his breathing.

Just as he thought Errol was going to leave it at that, the boy simply stood there. "You haven't answered my question," he said.

Pelham pressed his lips together before speaking. "Pretty sure you asked a lot of questions,"

"About you being in school,"

"Technically I'm not,"

"You've graduated? At seventeen?"

Pelham found the courage to look up at him. "I've been suspended," he said, daring himself to lock eyes with Errol, "for a week."

Both of Errol's eyebrows rose. "You know my next question,"

Pelham sighed. "I started a fight with my friend, and accidentally involved the school's biggest thug. You know the drill. End of story. Hey, you've got a customer. Go."

Errol put both of his hands before his chest with his palms out as if in surrender. "It's nice to finally talk to someone around my age. I mean, you're a couple of years younger, but hey." he commented, making to turn around.

Pelham couldn't help it. "What happened to the people your age?"

"That's none of your concern."

*

Lucio plopped down on his bed, having discarded his blazer, dress shirt and tie across the room after bundling them up the moment he stepped in. He let out a contented sigh as he felt himself sink into the mattress, draping an arm across his face in the process when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He let out an exasperated groan; he had just gotten home from a long, wearing day at school with the aim to drop down dead on his bed, but he supposed life wasn't going to let him have it.

Extracting his phone from his pocket, his heart jumped a little as soon as he looked at his notifications.

Pelham: u home?

Lucio - knowing fully well what typing on his phone while lying on his back will cost his face - flipped on his stomach to type down his reply.

Lucio: yed

Pelham: **yeS

Lucio: shut up

Pelham: I'm not even talking

Lucio: where r u?

Pelham: on the pavement

Pelham: making my way downtown

Pelham: walking fast, faces pass

Pelham: wait, no. there's nobody here.

Lucio: you're not literally singing that out loud right now, are you?

Pelham: do u want me to? ;)

Lucio: are u really coming over?

Pelham: I'll be there in 5 minutes. hope u dont mind.

Lucio: not at all. I have some maths homework anyway, and I need ur help.

Sure enough, five minutes later, his Aunt Fabia poked her had through the gap between the door and the doorframe. Her eyes immediately landed on Lucio, who was still lying with his eyes closed and still topless on the bed. She gave a rueful sigh.

"Lucio," she spoke. "You have a friend over. Put a shirt on, at least?"

"In a minute," he said without opening his eyes.

"I mean, he's really right here,"

At the emphasised "here", Lucio's eyes snapped open at once, and he pushed himself up on his elbows at that instant. His aunt wasn't bluffing; because there Pelham stood next to her - with their significant height difference - in the doorway, looking at him with a hint of amusement drawn all over his face. He felt as though he had been propelled into direct sunlight - or flames, in that matter. Meeting Pelham without his shirt on wasn't exactly conventional.

"It's all right, Ms-"

"Call me Fabia," she said, smiling up at Pelham. "Or Fab, for short."

Pelham grinned at her. "Fab," he said, tasting the word on his tongue. Then, as though they were of the same mind - Lucio was certain this was bound to happen soon - Pelham said, "You're Fab."

Aunt Fabia looked awed, if not proud. She then looked at Lucio whilst pointing a long thin finger at Pelham. "I like him," she said. "Date him."

"Aunt Fabia," Lucio groaned.

"Fine. I'll leave," she said at last. "Be good." She then added to Pelham; "You see, I don't trust Lucy-boy alone in a room with another guy while being topless himself. I'm not sure whether I should leave this door open or-"

"I'm right here!" Lucio retorted.

Aunt Fabia, looking indifferent, merely sent a faint wink in Lucio's direction before leaving. Pelham, refraining some laughter that was threatening to leave his mouth, closed the door and regarded Lucio with a look of utmost curiosity. "'Lucy-boy'?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head aside, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Shut up," Lucio murmured, feeling downright certain that his face was deep scarlet.

Pelham's face split into a grin. He uncrossed his arms from his chest and leaned against the door. "Not your mum, I take it?"

Crap, Lucio thought, sitting up. He didn't know why he hadn't bothered to mention this. "No, she's not," he admitted. "That's my aunt, Fabianne Cruz. She's got more ex-boyfriends than Taylor Swift."

Pelham gave a weird look in response.

"Not kidding,"

"So," Pelham began, surveying the room as though there might be other guests there, "where are your parents?"

Lucio didn't need to contemplate any further. "Home," he said, looking directly into Pelham's eyes, daring him to dig the real meaning.

And Pelham (curse his intellect) did. "By 'home' you mean ..."

"Spain. Yes,"

A frown had appeared on Pelham's forehead, and his smile dimmed. "All right, so," he began, "I'm assuming you got yourself a scholarship overseas and left. But your aunt came with you because-"

"No, Pelham, not a scholarship," said Lucio, shaking his head briskly and sitting up straighter. "I applied myself when Aunt Fab recommended it."

Pelham was sitting on the floor now, looking thoroughly perplexed. "May I ask why?"

Lucio slid down from the bed to the floor, so now he and Pelham sat with their legs crossed, facing one another from the small distance the floor provided. "Miguel," he spoke, feeling the acrid taste beginning to accumulate on his tongue.

Pelham shook his head. "Your old friend?"

"Best friend," said Lucio, as the familiar sensation of his guts being wrenched and squeezed came back. "Well, I thought he was."

Pelham was staring now. No, Lucio thought; Pelham was listening. So he proceeded.

"He's - was - one of the few people that I trust," he began, "which is saying something, because I grew up in a small town where the people are ... you know, not so open-minded when it comes to people like me - people like us both, precisely. They don't like anything that's out of the ordinary - my parents included, unfortunately. Miguel ... we've been friends since we were, what, eight? Nine? But it was enough for me to build and put my trust in him.

"Since I was small, I always knew there was something different about me, particularly when it came to boys and girls. I saw my other guy friends liking girls and staring at them, but with me it was different, 'cause I never liked or stared at girls. I stared at boys. Back then, I was afraid that I might like boys, because ... well, growing up with parents like mine, I thought liking people of the same gender was wrong, that I might have some kind of a disease or something. Back then, I thought it might go away, that I might become normal.

"Around thirteen or fourteen, though, there was no denying that I do like boys - that I'm a freaking queer. So I accepted it, kept it hidden, thinking my secret will be safe with me. Life was okay then - lighter, in fact. Didn't tell anyone, especially not my parents. But growing up, the world became cramped and dark, and I needed 'air'. I needed to go out. I needed to come out. I wanted to tell Miguel first, but I wasn't ready for some reason.

"One day, I met this boy, Vicente, at a record store who helped me search for an album that I was looking for - The Rolling Stones, if I remember correctly. He worked there, and he must've noticed my frantic state 'cause he asked me what I was searching for. Anyway, I started coming by for weeks, and we started hanging out. Long story short, I might've developed a small crush on him. And I think he might have had some feelings for me as well - can't be sure. But one day, he kind of 'led me on', and I - you know, me and my uncontrolled impulsive actions - just kissed him at an alley behind the record store.

"What I didn't realise at the time was that Miguel saw it," Lucio said with a heavy slump of his shoulders, throwing his head back to look up at the dull ceiling. His head and chest ached from the memory. "Worst; he recorded the whole thing."

Lucio stopped, feeling a lump form in his throat. He tried to smile, tried to make it sound as offhanded as possible. But, judging by the tense look on Pelham's face, he knew trying to mask his emotions was futile.

"Lucio, you don't have to-"

"No, I want to!" Lucio said, louder than he'd intended. He had never told anyone any of this - apart from Aunt Fabia, that was - and he was already sick of bottling it up. He was sick of keeping things to himself. He was sick of people not knowing him.

"Okay," came Pelham's tender reply.

Lucio closed his eyes and proceeded; "It didn't take two days before the video went viral throughout the whole town," he said. He could feel his vision getting blurry, as well as the familiar hot sting of tears at the back of his eyelids. He swallowed once, twice, thrice. "The next day, school became hell. People started forwarding me the video, and someone printed copies of one shot of it and pasted them all over the corridor. I didn't know who recorded it at first. But then word spread around. In the end it was Miguel who spat the word 'sarasa' in my face."

"What's that?"

This time, Lucio managed a faint smile, and it caused his vision to become blurry even further. "A faggot, of course," he said. "My parents found out about the video. I knew I shouldn't come home after that. But, being the dumb boy that I was, I came home. My dad hit me across the face, called me an abomination of society. One of my neighbours was outside, watching. Just watching. I tried to find Vicente at the record store, but they said he'd been fired. Apparently, the video got to the boss' hands too. I haven't seen him since. He probably ran away - man, I hope he did.

"I went through a hellish month at school. I skipped lessons - I skipped a lot - because I swore even the teachers looked at me like I was some kind of a disgrace to humanity. Couldn't eat at the cafeteria. Couldn't enter P.E. lessons without being taunted. Only some were kind. I miss the janitor. He was the kindest.

"Then one day, Aunt Fabia came for her annual visit from the U.K., since she practically lives and works there - here, I mean. I've always liked her, and when she showed up, I was the first one to run to her before either of my parents could. Something inside me told me that I could really trust her. So I told her everything - I mean, there was no point hiding anything, because the bruises were all over my face and body.

"Anyway, she was pretty mad that I was treated the way I did. She took me to her old apartment, told me not to go to school - though, she reminded me to study every night, because 'education is important'," Lucio gave a faint laugh at that, and only then did he feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. "Since she works as a teacher and a lawyer - crazy, right? - she searched up for elite private schools that she's familiar with, and ... well, here I am."

It was quiet for a while, until Pelham spoke, "You left just like that?"