50. Confronting Old Grief

50. Confronting Old Grief
Luis’ POV

I won’t deny it, life has been good. Except for the issue with Chen—which he refuses to let go or hear my side—I have been okay.

I apologized to Rolland and he didn’t take offense at my outburst. We both agreed to meet in private to avoid any evil eye.

And my friendship with Rose has been blossoming.

Well, except for my dad treating them like an outcast every time they came over.

Clarissa’s mom is educating him on the fact that not everyone was born to conform to the gender binary rules, and I think he is accepting—or at least understanding—because since the beginning of this week, he hasn’t growled or tried to send them out of the house, and he addressed Rose as “they” instead of forcing the masculine pronoun on them.

Save for the incident at the cafeteria two weeks ago, my highlight of last week was Clarissa confessing her crush on Rose.

It was quite bold and I cheered for her—except Rose had rejected her right there and then in front of myself and her mom, saying: You are too young for me.

They were quite bold and even Clarissa’s mom thanked them for being that direct.

I was worried Clarissa would take it the wrong way, but she is downstairs, making dinner with her mom and her ten-day-old girlfriend.

“Dinner is ready!” Clarissa called from downstairs.

I yawned and stretched as I put my gaming tools back in place.

My stomach rumbled in response and I shot up to my feet, feeling dizzy for a moment due to my iron deficiency.

“Seems like your girlfriend will be joining us for dinner tonight,” I teased as I walked down the stairs, looking around for any sign of the redhead who’d been frequenting our house often in the past week.

“The joke’s on you, she left already,” Clarissa sighed as she set the table finally and pulled out a chair for me.

“Aww,” I didn’t know whether to sympathize or use this opportunity to mock her as revenge.

“What’s for dinner?” my dad asked as he took his seat at the head of the table. And that was the moment I decided against anything.

The mere sight of him downed my mood.

“Your favorite, darling,” Clarissa’s mom said as she gave him a kiss on his forehead.

I rolled my eyes at the gesture. For someone who was picky about my friend because of the way he was born, he sure was quick to accept Clarissa’s queerness.

No, I’m not being judgmental—I am just jealous.

Because as open as I am about my queerness, I am still very much scared to come out to him.

He would flare up and say the most deranged thing a man should ever say to his son.

And as much as I already hate him, I don’t want my only living family member to not accept me.

So I would rather he never found out. Or I could just…

“Why are you staring? Is there something on my face?” I blinked and looked away as he pointed out my actions.

“Nothing, sir,” I mumbled under my breath, but I was so far away he definitely didn’t hear me.

We started to eat soon enough and it definitely wasn’t in silence because of the way he kept pouring compliments left and right on Clarissa’s cooking, even though the side dish she made was salty as Lot.

When he is the reason I don’t enter the kitchen. He didn’t fail to tell me how much of a failure I was as a man the day I entered the kitchen for the first time and made eggs.

Mom had come home and comforted me when she saw how down I was, but the damage had already been done.

I suddenly felt nauseous, my eyes stinging as I stared down at the food in front of me.

“Why aren’t you eating, young man?” My dad’s voice scolded from the head of the table.

Nothing like the soft, flattering voice he used to address his new family.

My frown deepened. I just couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore.

“Mom’s memorial is coming,” I said in a solemn tone, expecting the same.

“You should take some roses with you, she liked those,” he said, and I shot my head up in absolute, utmost shock.

“Roses?” I scoffed as I glared at him with all the disgust I could muster while he just raised his eyebrow at me. “She was fucking allergic to those things. And what do you mean by that? You will be coming, right?”

“Language, young man,” he rebuked. “I will be very busy on the twenty-fifth. That’s Thursday, right?”

“It’s on Friday, and it’s the 26th. Dad, you couldn’t have possibly forgotten the death anniversary of your own wife and daughter, right?” I clenched my fist as I glared at him.

“Look, Luis. They are dead. That is something you fail to understand. Let the dead rest,” he was starting to get agitated himself and I enjoyed seeing him clench his fist as well.

At least I wasn’t the only one holding back from exploding. I needed this aggression.

“Mom would be so disappointed in you if she knew that the family she died fighting for can’t even be bothered to visit her grave.” I looked at him, unable to hide my disgust. His eyes met mine, but I didn’t back away.

Normally I would, but this time, rage was fueling me.

“She died fighting for her, and now…” I gritted my teeth in anger. How could he break us even further with those words?

“Oh, you remember that? Then why wouldn’t you at least honor that which you both shared? Even though she was with us for a few more months, she insisted that we marked her date of death as the day my sister died!” I banged my fist on the table, enjoying the sight of Clarissa’s food spilling, and holding back the urge to stab this hateful man through the table.

I could remember the day she begged to be buried beside my sister because she died the day she lost her daughter, like yesterday—when I held her pale, cold hands on the bed. She had been bedridden the week before, but her illness kept getting worse, and every time the doctor visited, they would tell us to prepare for the worst.

She had lost the light in her eyes ever since that afternoon when we got the call, but she tried to brighten them for me. Except I could see it. I could always tell that her soul died the moment my sister’s death was confirmed.

So how could he forget all that pain that we had to go through? All that struggle?

How could he do that to us when days of silence and darkness turned into weeks and months and years?

How we never recovered from the absence of those two?

“Look, boy. You need to stop throwing tantrums and man up,” he said like he couldn’t be bothered to continue talking to me.

Man up? I should be saying that to you! Someone who decided to forget the existence of two beautiful lives. An insecure man like you. Admit it!” I raved up and walked toward him.

My body heating up in the process as I tried to puff out steam through my nostrils. I felt Clarissa tug at me, but I flung her hand away.

“Stay out of this,” I glared at her and watched her shrivel in… fear?

No. Surely, I wasn’t that scary. I continued to charge towards my father until he stood up to me.

A smirk rose to my cheeks as we stood at eye level.

Finally, he acknowledged me.