Aunt Fabia had been benevolent enough to insist that Pelham stay for dinner right after he and Lucio were done with another one of their mathematics sessions, no matter how much Pelham kept assuring her that he wasn't at all hungry - a lie, of course. He was downright famished. He simply wanted to head home and get a glimpse of his mother's face, perhaps eat one of her habitually cooked casseroles. Still, Aunt Fabia had her way of inveigling Pelham into the dining room by bringing her still-warm chicken paella all the way up to Lucio's room, its piquant odour already filling the interior of the house.

Of course, Pelham's hunger took the better of him. Eventually he agreed to stay for a few minutes, trying against will not to eat much, for he clearly wanted to have dinner with his own family. Surely his mother couldn't skip that one?

There was something about the way Aunt Fabia addressed Pelham that engaged his attention. Pelham noticed that she had a knowing look on her face - a considerably indicative one, if he had to point it out. And there were times when they were in the dining room where she would say a couple of things inscrutable to Pelham, and Lucio would simply flush crimson. It was as though they had inside jokes. Pelham couldn't help but think they looked more like siblings.

"Is she usually this excited when you have a friend over?" Pelham had asked earlier before he left, having stood on Lucio's front porch to see whether Aunt Fabia was out of sight.

"You heard her; you're the first guy friend of mine to come over," he'd answered, his eyes darting everywhere but Pelham.

Pelham had merely smirked then. "And she said you talk a lot about me? Like, all the time?"

In response, Lucio had stuttered before he said quietly, "I only talk about how good you are in Maths."

"Wish I was there to hear your compliments."

"Go home, Nixon."

Now, however, as Pelham stood on the portico of his house and was faced with the front door left open, followed by a muffled - and perhaps heated - squabble exchanged by his parents from inside the house, Pelham was having second thoughts. He wished he was still eating Aunt Fabia's chicken paella. He would rather endure her banters than stomach this one. He, after all, hated to be in the middle of one of his parents' quarrels.

The last time it happened, it had been about his favourite colour; purple. He was eight then, and until now, he still couldn't figure out what was wrong about that particular colour. His mother had noted that purple was for girls. Pelham disagreed.

Still, Pelham couldn't help but strain his ears, trying to discern the words that were exchanged between his mother and father. Alas, he couldn't make out what tirade was coming out of either of his parents' mouths.

Tentatively, Pelham stepped into the house, where the voices grew clearer as he made his way down the hallway. Neither of his parents were raising their voices, he knew that well enough. But he could also tell when they were having a dispute. Their vexed voices came from the living room, and Pelham was ready to head for the stairs, sensing that he had arrived at an inconvenient time. Not until he heard his name being mentioned did he come to a halt, one foot ready to tread the first step of the stairs.

Swallowing like someone being caught red-handed, Pelham gradually turned on his heels and leaned against the wall near the interior archway that led into the living room.

" ... not right!" his mother was saying, her tone aggravated. "I'm saying this one more time, Kenneth; it's not right."

"I don't see how that changes anything,"

"It changes everything!" she retorted. "Don't tell me you weren't surprised when he said it."

"Of course I was," Came his father's tender voice. "Neither of us saw it coming, Jody. But listen, you just have to accept him-"

"I can't even bring myself to accept the fact that-"

"Jody,"

"What, Kenneth? I've had plans regarding his future with April, for heaven's sake! I thought ... well, I guess those are gone now," she said with an exasperated sigh. "It's not normal. He's not normal. This is ... mad."

"Who gives a rat's arse about being normal? He's still our son, Jody," his father retaliated, a warning edge in his tone.

"As far as I'm concerned, my son has a girlfriend,"

"That's over now,"

"How is that possible, Kenneth?" she countered. "He might be influenced. Right, remember those news? They must've affected him in a way that he thinks he's gay. God, he shouldn't have taken Psychology."

"So you think this is one of his teenage phases that he has to go through? Perhaps you should stop your own judgement from clouding you, instead of letting fear cloud your judgement," his father lamented with utter disbelief. "God, I remember how upset those news had made him. Now it makes sense. Jody, can't you just please open your mind a little bit-"

"And see what? A future where my son is married to someone of the same gender?"

"Can't you stop and think for one second on how long he has been keeping this to himself?" his father tried to reason out. "All this time I thought I knew him. We've been here with him, but we weren't there. This whole fight with Roshon ... Jody, don't do this to him. Who knows what else he's been going through? What about the school? His friends?"

"I think he needs to go to a therapy session,"

Upon hearing this, Pelham felt as though something detonated in him. He was breathing, but he couldn't feel himself breathing. Couldn't feel his heart at all.

"Jody,"

"I don't know whether I can face him for another day and think 'my son is gay' without being disappointed, because I am," she said, sounding fairly surefooted. "I'm worried about his future, Kenneth!"

"He's almost eighteen. He can manage himself," his father noted. "His sexuality doesn't necessarily affect him or his future!"

"He won't have a wife. He won't have a future where his own family can make him happy!"

There was a pause at which Pelham could picture his father running his hand through his hair in exasperation. "Are you honestly saying that about him-"

"Enough of this, please. I'm still leaving early for tomorrow morning."

Pelham was too dazed to move a muscle that by the time his mother exited the living room and nearly crashed into him, he merely blinked in response. Of course, the look on his mother's face was something between bewilderment and discomfiture. It was obvious that he had been eavesdropping on their argument that had him as the subject - there was no way around it.

Soon, his father appeared behind his mother, looking just as startled to see his son in the house, all irked expression washed off to be replaced with perplexity instead. For a fleeting moment, the three of them stood there in the hallway; a short woman standing between a pair of towering men, all of whom wore different expressions on each of their faces.

Jody's mouth opened, but what came out were splutters of indecipherable words. Pelham simply held up a hand. "I've heard it all," he said, turning on his heels and heading upstairs, feeling nothing and everything at the same time as his parents remained planted at the bottom of the stairs.

On his way to his room, he passed Oris' bedroom. The door had been left ajar, and he poked his head through the gap, knowing well that she was home from daycare. He knocked twice using the knuckle of his forefinger. Inside, Oris looked up from her assortment of disarrayed papers and crayons.

"May I enter?" he asked, giving her a faint smile.

"You may!" came her usual response when addressed with such question.

Closing the door behind him, Pelham approached Oris and sat down in front of her with his legs crossed. He tilted his head aside to inspect the drawing of a pink cow with blue dots, and felt himself smile. Oris had an unfinished drawing of a smaller cow next to it - the calf - half of its body coloured in yellow.

"Why is this one yellow?" he asked.

"That's the mum!" she pointed to the pink cow, her voice louder than usual. Pelham wondered how many friends she had at daycare.

"Speaking of," he said. "Guess what? Our mum hates me."

Oris pouted in response, shrugging as if to say Why?

"Told her I'm gay. She doesn't like the news, but Dad's okay with it,"

"Guy!" she said, pointing a stubby finger in Pelham's face, still having trouble at pronouncing it. "You are guy!"

"Yes, I'm a guy who likes guys," he nodded. "Like I told you for the umpteenth time."

"Not girls?"

"No, Oris, not girls. We both know that,"

"Okay,"

"Okay,"

Pelham wished his mother was more like Oris, giving insouciant responses instead of the cold shoulder. He spent the next thirty minutes just talking to Oris like he normally did, despite already knowing that the little girl hardly understood anything abstruse that came out of his mouth. To anyone, this might as well be a bizarre episode; getting dewy-eyed in front of a three-year-old. But at least Oris had his back.

And she did have his back when Pelham felt the familiar hot sting at the back of his throat and eyes. Soon enough his vision blurred, and when he blinked, the pooled tears streamed down his cheeks, accumulating under his chin and dribbling onto the drawing of the pink cow, smudging the colours altogether in dark wet blotches. Oris simply looked up and frowned at Pelham, either for ruining her masterpiece or simply crying silently. Either way, she got to her feet and patted Pelham on his back with her small hand, telling him that everything was all right without really having a clue on how the world really worked.

"Mum said I should get myself a therapist," said Pelham, letting himself ease into the touch. "Maybe you could be my therapist, Oris. You're great. All you do is point out the fact that I'm 'a guy who likes guys' and draw."

Oris merely let out her usual high-pitched laughter. Not that Pelham minded. He never did. He loved Oris like she was his own biological little sister.

"And, if you're my therapist, maybe you could also help my friend, Lucio," Pelham proceeded. "He has this impulsive actions that's out of his control where he kisses you when he's emotional. He kissed me twice, you see. I don't know how to feel about it."

"Kissy-kissy, Plump."

"Yes, kissy-kissy."

When he slept later that night, his dream was full of him and Lucio kissing in an alley behind a record store, and being caught by his mother along with Roshon, who spat the word saraba into his face until he was forced to leave the world behind.

*

"Why aren't you at work?"

Pelham had woken up late later that morning - around ten - and was reasonably stunned to his father seated in his office, sitting behind his monitor, when he passed the room on his way downstairs. It was an adequately bizarre sight, seeing as his father hardly ever was in the house during weekdays, particularly around ten in the morning. But Pelham merely assumed that his father had his practical reasons.

"I am working," his father clarified, nodding his head towards his computer screen as if to corroborate his statement.

"Here, though?"

His father gave him a swift smile. "Thought you ought to have company," he said, fixating his attention back on the screen and typing something on the keyboard.

"I'm all right, Dad,"

"You keep telling yourself that, son," he said without looking up. "Slept well?"

"Define 'well',"

"Eight hours. No nightmares. Calm and sound."

"Yes," Pelham lied.

"I'm supposed to buy that, I take it?"

"Sure, Dad,"

Eventually, Kenneth retracted his hands from the keyboard and folded them on top of the desk, surveying Pelham like how a principal would towards a student who had recently gotten into trouble.

"Your mother will come round, Pelham," he said, fixing a reasurring smile on his face. "Don't worry."

Suddenly Pelham was thinking about Lucio's parents. "Okay," he answered, not quite hearing his voice or paying attention to his response.

"If it makes you happy, I'm gonna try and talk to her again, okay?"

"All right,"

"I talked to her last night, after you went to bed, see," he continued. "She was just shocked, that's all."

Pelham finally gathered the courage to stare at his father in the eyes, growing narked for some reason. "As far as I'm concerned, she wanted to hire a therapist for me 'cause she thinks I'm mentally ill. She's didn't even want to look at me in the eye, Dad. She'll never come round,"

His father sighed, signalling the fact that Pelham had fair chances of being correct. Both of them were silent for a few minutes; Pelham standing in the doorway, his father in his office chair, unsure of where to look or what to say.

Eventually, Kenneth spoke up, "You and Roshon all right?"

Pelham gave an offhanded shrug in response - not that he didn't appreciate his father asking, because he did. Immensely. The last thing he wanted was for the people close to him to completely shut him out. "That's up to him, really," he said. "He can join Mum in her bookclub meetings."

If Lucio can handle the situation with Miguel, Pelham thought, surely I can handle Roshon?

"And," his father proceeded, looking fairly brooding, "that other friend of yours. The new one ... er, Lucian?"

"Lucio,"

"Right," Kenneth nodded. "A stunning lad, isn't he?"

If the sudden flush of Pelham's cheeks indicated any answer, followed by the suggestive smile faintly tugging at his father's lips, it was incontrovertibly an assent. "Sure," Pelham simply replied instead.

"Should invite him over for dinner,"

"The more reason for Mum to force me into some kind of a gay-to-straight therapy session,"

A low chuckle escaped his father's throat. "Can't believe you actually used that as a joke on yourself."

"Life has been a parade, Dad."