by Wilde, Ora
“You’re very much different, Betty,” he continued.
Betty. The second time he recited my name like that.
“You’re...” he paused as if he was unsure whether he should proceed or not. “You’re one of a kind,” he finally concluded.
His words dazed me. It was a fuzzy kind of trance, though. One that hit me right in the heart and melted my entire being.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Before me and my dad moved in, I was in a really bad place. Sometimes I feel I still am. But whenever you’re around, I start to believe that I can be someone else completely. Someone I can be proud of. Someone better.”
Was I hearing those correctly? From him? From my stepbrother?
“Then why do you keep treating me like I don’t exist?”
“Not all the time.”
“Sometimes?”
“It’s because I don’t know how to react to how you make me feel.”
“And how do I make you feel?”
“The same as how I make you feel.”
“And that is?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to assume it’s something good. I feel it in the way you shiver whenever I touch you. The way you breathe whenever I whisper words to your ear. The way you smile that delightfully uncomfortable smile whenever I tease you.”
He noticed. All the small things like those... he noticed. I gave myself away.
“And you laugh at my vulnerabilities?” I asked nervously.
“No,” he answered strongly. “I adore them. They make you real. And the real you is beautiful.”
How was I supposed to react to a man who has poured his heart out the way he did, with words that will resonate in my mind for days and months and years to come? How was I supposed to react to a kind of honesty that was both brutal and doting? How was I supposed to react to someone who, in essence, was telling me that he wanted me... just as much as I wanted him?
“This...” I began to say, stuttering and confused and afraid, “this isn’t right...”
“I know. I’m frightened too. But if this is wrong, I don’t ever want to be right... ever.”
In the darkness of our seclusion, I tried to look at his eyes. My sight has adjusted to the absence of light and I could see his handsome face a little clearer that time. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t frowning. He didn’t have that scowl which I used to abhor but have grown to cherish. He was looking at me intently, yearningly... passionately.
He was sincere.
And I believed him.
I don’t know where I got the bravery which I had at that moment... whether it was from the alcohol or from compulsions of my heart, it didn’t really matter. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his genuineness... I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated him.
So I drew my face closer to his, tiptoeing a bit to bridge the inches that separated us. He met me halfway, and his warm lips touched mine. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me so tight that I felt that our bodies became one. His lips began to explore the surface of mine, every millimeter, every rim, every area he could find.
I looked at him once more and saw his eyes closed. I closed mine as well.
I opened my mouth and his tongue went in, probing inside, looking for my own tongue to spur and to tickle and to feel. His hand went to my nape and he pushed my head nearer to his. My arms held his waist and we were locked in an impassioned embrace, one that neither of us wanted to break, that neither of us wanted to end.
But with a sudden clicking sound, it ended.
We both opened our eyes to see that the darkness is gone and lights were on. The doors were open as well, and outside were people... lots of people, both familiar and unfamiliar... Maggie, Chelsea Summers, Emerson, Colton, Cassandra, and Melinda among others... looking at us with shocked, pale white faces. One of them had her mobile phone drawn out.
The same mobile phone that produced the clicking sound.
She took a picture of us kissing.
“Oh my God!” Maggie screamed. “The shit just hit the fan!”
Sometimes, people don’t have to say anything to express what’s on their mind.
As I walked the hallway towards my classroom that Monday after the disastrous party, I saw how they stared at me. People I knew. People I didn’t know. They were looking at me differently. Some would cover their mouths to hide their giggles. Some would have that addled look on their faces. Some were more direct as they gave me gazes of abhorrence and distaste, a little short of mouthing why? Why did you do it Betty? Why did you kiss your own stepbrother?
I never got to know the name of the girl who took our picture. I never had the strength to find out. Maggie brought me home that Saturday evening as Darwin decided to waste the night drinking, alone, outside Emerson’s house by the marbled fountain fronting a stretched out garden that seemed to go on forever... much like my misery, and I suppose, his as well.
As soon as I got home, I locked myself up in my room. My phone kept beeping, signaling some new Facebook notifications from friends and tweets from the people I follow.
Facebook was kinder. OMG, that party was wild, go ask Betty Smith, was by far the worst post I’ve read in my timeline.
But Twitter... Twitter was a lot more unforgiving. Every person in my network and every person in the network of the people in my network were reposting the same photo - which featured our lips and bodies locked in an incriminating embrace with his hand at the side of my breast and my hand almost touching his rear - coupled with an enmeshing hash tag...
#KissingSiblings
Darwin didn’t come home that night, which made me feel even worse. I wanted to talk to him, to know how he was feeling, to hope that his words and his ways would make the pain and the shame go away. Instead, I had to deal with the one thing that made the ordeal even more miserable... loneliness.
Darwin got home Sunday evening. Uncle Charlie was furious when his son suddenly barged in after dinner. Uncle Charlie scolded him and reminded him that even though he was nineteen, he was still under his father’s care and he shouldn’t be spending the night elsewhere without at least informing them. Darwin didn’t reply to him, not a single word. His face was as stoic as stone. He just went straight to his room and I haven’t seen him since then.
As I entered our classroom, the other students continued to give me strange glances. I wanted to look back at them and ask what their problem was. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was never that brash... especially when I knew, exactly, why they were gaping at me with ridicule and scorn and condemnation.
I sat on my chair and opened a book. I tried my best to block everything out and just focus on what I was supposed to be reading. It was very hard.
Then someone stood in front of the seat next to mine... Darwin’s seat.
Hope rushed into my heart as I looked up, ready to smile, ready to be braver, ready to stand up - with him - and quell the scandal that threatened to ruin us. With excitement and faith, I looked up...
But it wasn’t him.
It was Chelsea Summers.
She smiled at me and sat down.
“Hey,” the bitch greeted me.
“Hey,” I returned, almost mumbling as I went back to my book.
“Fantastic weekend huh?” she said.
“Yep,” I succinctly answered.
“You know, Betty, don’t let them bother you...”
What? Chelsea Summers, the slut who has always flirted with Darwin, was trying to console me? Me?
“They don’t bother me,” I lied, belatedly realizing that by saying so, I in fact admitted that I was indeed affected. I just bit my lip when those words left my mouth.
“Betty, you were drunk,” she continued, her voice was soft, kind, true. “You had no full control over your decisions... over your actions.”
She was wrong, of course. Yes, I was drunk, but I knew very well what I did. I wanted it. Well, not the part where the entire school, or so it seemed, saw us kissing
with our hands all over each other’s bodies, but I wanted that kiss to happen. And it did.
“Yeah,” I said, briefly once again, my eyes still fixed on my book.
Then she placed her hand over my shoulder and began to rub its surface, kneading it reassuringly, dotingly.
“You know, screw them!” she uttered with a wide smile. “They’re so quick to judge. You know why?”
“Why?” I asked, as I slowly turned my head to face her.
“Because by blasting someone else, they feel like they’re vindicated from their own shortcomings,” she calmly continued. “Often, the quickest to judge is the one who has the most to hide.”
My eyes widened in surprise. She made a lot of sense. And she was very warmhearted... something that I completely did not expect. All that talk about people being judgmental... I was guilty of that. I judged her before even getting the chance to know her, all because she was pretty and had a great body... and because she exhibited a profound interest on Darwin. It was so easy to label her a tramp... because I hated her. I hated her... and I shouldn’t have.
“I guess you’re right,” I told her. I was amazed to discover that I was smiling at her... a genuine, happy kind of smile.
“Besides,” she resumed, “if I was also drunk that night, I would’ve kissed someone worse.”
“Someone worse?”
“Yeah.”
“Like who?”
“Like... Colton.”
“Colton?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got the hots for him?”
“Oh, dear God, no. That muscle head is as dense as a simpleton. All he thinks about, day in and day out, are breasts, breasts and more breasts.”
We both laughed... the kind of laughter that was difficult to stop. We continued guffawing for what seemed like a minute, and then we talked some more. About her life, about her interests, about the latest episode of The Mindy Project, about the Apple Watch and the Samsung S6, about a lot of things that I never thought we would even discuss. Heck, I never even thought we would be talking... more so conversing for that long a time.
“Well, I have to get back to my seat,” she said as she stood up.
“Chelsea...” I spoke, my eyes filled with indebtedness. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
She placed her hand on my shoulder once again and gave it a tight squeeze. She smiled one last time before turning around and walking towards her seat at the back row.
And though I was left alone once more, I felt a little better than before. I actually managed to focus on my book and comprehend what I was reading.
It was then when another person sat on Darwin’s seat.
“Betty! What’s this I’ve been reading on Twitter? About you kissing your stepbrother?”
It was Wilfred, my childhood friend and seat mate - before Darwin took his chair because he had been gone from school for two weeks now due to an illness - who suddenly reappeared and looked fit enough for class.
“Wilfred!” I said, almost screaming. “I’m so happy you’re back! Are you okay? How are you feeling?”
“I’m alright. Just a case of a really bad allergy. A text or a poke from you would’ve been nice. A Twitter DM too, though judging from what I’ve been reading, I’d assume you wouldn’t want to open your account for the time being.”
“Sorry I haven’t been able to check up on you. I’ve been... preoccupied this past week.”
“Preoccupied with what, exactly?”
“Stuff.”
“Oh, and here I was thinking that you were preoccupied with your stepbrother. Speaking of which... when did you have a stepbrother? I knew that your mom recently married this guy from Boston, but you never told me about him having a son or something.”
“Yeah, it was a surprise for me too.”
“I bet it was! So surprised as to forget me, eh?”
“Oh, Wilfred... don’t be a drama queen.”
One look at Wilfred and anyone would immediately get the idea that he’s a geek. I can’t blame them. Wilfred is, based purely on appearance and mannerisms, the prototypical nerd... small and skinny and frail, neatly-combed hair fixed with some kind of gel that may have most probably been banned for decades, thick glasses with enough grade that can toast a piece of paper when placed under direct sunlight, and a fashion sense that was completely out of this world. That morning, he was wearing a red polo shirt and loose jeans... pieced together by a pair of suspenders instead of a belt.
“So... kissing siblings, huh?” he asked. He had the license to speak to me like that. He was, after all, a very good friend.
“I was drunk, alright?”
“Drunk my ass! You never drink, Betty.”
“Well, I drunk that night.”
“And that got you so intoxicated that you ended up kissing your own brother?”
“Stepbrother! God! I hate correcting people who misrepresent our relationship like that. Don’t be one of them, Wilfred.”
“Sorry,” he meekly apologized. “So?”
“So what?”
“What’s the score? Between you and your stepbrother?” He emphasized step that time.
“Nothing,” I lied. “It was just an unfortunate incident. I told you, I was drunk.” Thank God for Chelsea for giving me an excuse I could use.
“If you say so,” Wilfred replied. “But you’ve got a lot of damage control to do.”
Damage control? I knew my social life was a total wreck, something beyond repair even. There was no damage to control... because the damage that has been done was simply beyond mending.
I went back to my book, but I found it hard to concentrate once again. My mind was wandering... towards Darwin.
Where was he?
As first period started and finished and Darwin was nowhere to be found, my heart began to sink with the realization that he was not coming to school...
And that I may have lost him forever.
“Did something happen between you and Darwin?”
My mom’s question caught me by surprise that evening during dinner, so much so that I almost choked on the mashed potato and braised beef I was chewing.
“Uhm... no,” I answered. “Why?”
“Well, he’s been acting weird lately,” she said, her tone was filled with worry.
“But he’s always been weird,” I retorted.
She chuckled a bit.
“Yes, but you know what I mean,” she continued. “He spent the past two days in his room. He didn’t attend school today, I know. I knocked on his door and he didn’t even answer. I heard him grunt and I took that as his way of telling me that he didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Maybe he’s sick?” I tried to reason out.
“Maybe. But then, he went out after lunch and he hasn’t come back yet.”
“Probably a girl.”
“Pardon?”
“He’s probably with a girl. You know... young guy... testosterone... stuff like that.”
“Probably,” she replied as she started to eat dinner with me.
After a few minutes, she looked at me sullenly. She was observing me, trying to determine if I was in the mood for a conversation.
“Betty,” she started, “you will have to exercise a lot of patience with Darwin.”
“Why?” I asked, puzzled by what she suddenly stated.
“He’s been through a lot his entire life.”
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“Well you see... when your Uncle Charlie married his mom, she just came from a really bad marriage. She already had three kids at that time. Then Darwin was born. When he was growing up, he received... the least amount of love from her mother. Her mom prioritized her other children more than Darwin. I don’t know why, but if I was to guess, she felt that her kids from her previous marriage needed more love... more attention... maybe because they were the ones who weren’t living with a father... a real father.”
“That’s... that’s not right,” I reacted in d
isbelief. How can a mother be that unfair to one of her children?
“Yes, it’s not right, but it was what it was. She would buy her other kids new stuff... toys, clothes... and Darwin had to live with hand-me-downs. On social occasions, she would bring along Darwin’s half-siblings, but she would leave him at home, either in Charlie’s care or a babysitter’s.”