Here the Whole Time Page 3

  I hurry to the egg aisle and suddenly feel the urge to turn around and run back home, because Jorge and Bruno are here. But they see me before I have a chance to escape.

  A quick rundown on Jorge and Bruno: They go to the same school as me, and they’re responsible for 80 percent of the nicknames that I’ve amassed over the last two years. Jorge was held back a couple of times, is almost nineteen years old, and has a full beard that would be cute if he wasn’t such a jerk. Bruno is half my height; his hair is shaved on the sides, forming an undercut that didn’t turn out quite right; and he could never be cute even if he were on an episode of Queer Eye.

  They both start walking my way, and I pretend to concentrate on which eggs to buy. White or brown? Decisions, decisions …

  “Well, if it isn’t Butterball!” Bruno shouts, his high-pitched voice echoing across the aisle.

  “Attention, shoppers: You’d better buy your food before the whale eats it all!” Jorge cups his hands around his mouth, as if he were announcing today’s deals.

  I try to pretend like nothing is happening, but that becomes much harder to do when Bruno starts poking me in the back, moving from one side to the other.

  The two of them always split their work efficiently when it comes to tormenting me. Jorge prefers verbal offenses, while Bruno is the type who likes to get more handsy. I don’t know which one I hate more.

  “No use trying to hide,” Jorge continues when he realizes I’m trying to remove myself from the situation. “You’re so fat that not even the moon could cover all of you.”

  I roll my eyes, frustrated. As if this were the first time I’ve heard that one.

  “You’re so fat that … that …” Bruno starts to say, apparently not having thought of a punch line to his own joke.

  Not knowing how to finish his sentence, he takes the easy route and, shoving me against the shelves behind me, catches me by surprise and twists my nipple—hard.

  “Tittieeeees!” he says, almost in a whisper, in a sadistic tone of someone who’s never had this much fun.

  I try to defend myself by covering my chest, but I end up dropping the grocery basket I am holding, and when I bend down to pick it up, I’m almost certain I can hear Bruno calling me a fat ass. I’ll never understand how someone half my size can manage to make me feel so small.

  The two of them seem satisfied by the fun they’ve had at my expense and walk down the aisle as if nothing happened. I grab a carton of eggs at random, put it in the basket, and run out of there.

  When Caio arrives with his three items, I’m desperate to get home.

  “Can we leave now, please?!” I say, trying hard to sound calm and polite.

  I pick the line that seems shortest and count each second that goes by. I’m so mad I feel like I’m about to explode. We get to the register, I pay for the groceries, and I walk out of the supermarket trying to forget what just happened.

  I hurry back home, and Caio has no trouble keeping up with me. I need to get back as quickly as I can. I don’t want to cry in front of him, but my eyes are already tearing up, and I’m so angry I can feel my face turn red. Caio must notice, because he asks if everything is all right, and I can tell he really means it when he asks.

  “I couldn’t find the grapes,” I say, hoping this answer will satisfy him.

  Caio doesn’t say anything else.

  When we get home, my mom is ready to start baking the cake. She seems a little frustrated when I throw the shopping bags on the table, come up with some excuse for not having found the grapes that she wanted, and announce that I’m going to my room.

  It’s funny how she can tell when I’m being dramatic and when I really need to be alone.

  “I’ll let you know when the cake is ready,” she says, stroking my head. I leave her with Caio in the kitchen.

  When I lock my bedroom door, the parts of my body that Bruno shoved into the shelves are still burning. I’m angry at him and Jorge for treating me the way they did. I’m angry at myself for letting it happen.

  What happened at the supermarket wasn’t anything new. This is my daily life. But at school I’m always ready, always alert. It’s as if my school uniform came with a shield, because I know that when the last bell rings, I’ll go home and be all right. When I went out to get groceries, I didn’t have my shield. I wasn’t ready, and they caught me by surprise.

  I lie in bed and look at my comic book collection, wishing more than ever that I were a superhero. I’d take any superpower that would make me feel better. I want to create force fields so no one can touch me when I don’t want to be touched. I want muscles of steel to break the noses of everyone who’s ever hurt me. I want to be invisible so I can disappear and never come back.

  Hours go by, and I don’t even notice. I stare at the ceiling to try and distract myself. When I was a kid, the ceiling in my room was full of glow-in-the-dark stars. At some point in my teenage years, I thought I was too big to have stickers on the ceiling and ripped them all off, but today I regret it. I want my stars back. I’d have something to focus on if my glowing stickers were still up there.

  My mind won’t stop replaying the events at the supermarket. Everything happened so fast, it couldn’t have lasted even a full minute. But now I’m stuck in a never-ending loop of insults and roaring laughter. The laughter is the worst part. The sound of laughter can make you feel hopeless when the joke is on you.

  The afternoon has already turned into evening when my mom knocks on my door. She tries to turn the knob, but I locked it.

  “Son? Is everything all right?” she asks softly from the other side.

  “I want to be alone, Mom.”

  “I baked a cake!” She tries to cheer me up.

  Usually, those four words will do it. On a regular Saturday, it would be the best part of the day. Eating cake with my mom and watching any silly show on TV. It’s usually enough to make me happy. But not today.

  “I’ll eat later.” My voice is so low that I doubt she can hear it. But her footsteps fade away before I turn on the bed and try to fall asleep.

  I wake up a few hours later, starving. It’s still dark out.

  You know when you sleep outside your regular hours and wake up totally lost, not knowing what time it is, where you are, or what happened in the world in the meantime? Yeah, that.

  I check the alarm clock; it’s two a.m. I drag myself out of the bed, trying to decide if I’m more in need of food or a shower, and leave the bedroom. The apartment is silent and the hallway smells of cake. I walk to the kitchen and have a slice. (It was carrot cake, in case you were wondering.) I pass by the living room, and Caio is asleep on the couch. But he looks different. If he was sleeping all cute and peaceful last night, tonight he looks exhausted. His body is contorted, as if he were trying to get into an impossible yoga pose. Sleeping on that hard couch can’t be good for anybody.

  There’s a comfortable guest bed in my room, and I wish I could pick Caio up and carry him to it. But I can’t do that because A) I’m not strong enough to carry him, and B) I’m not out of my mind. Still, I try to help as much as I can. I close the curtains so the sunlight won’t wake him up in the morning, and I fix his blanket, which was almost on the floor.

  Before I head back to my room, I spot Caio’s book on the coffee table. He spent the entire morning reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and the bookmark is still in the same spot, almost at the very end of the book. It’s official. He’s determined to reread the end of this book forever, just so he won’t have to talk to me. And I can’t let that happen.

  I run to my bookshelf, grab my copy of The Two Towers, and place it right next to Caio’s book. My book is way more beat-up than his. It’s an old edition that my grandma gave to me, but I think it’ll do the job. He might not want to talk to me, but he can at least know how the story continues.

  I go back to my room in silence, and this time I leave the door open.

  IT’S PAST NOON WHEN I wake up on Sunday. Two days into my vacation, and my sleep schedule is already screwed up. When I walk out of my bedroom, I realize the house is empty. Our apartment is pretty small, so it doesn’t take me long to check all the rooms. No sign of my mom or Caio. While I look for my phone to call my mom, I think of possible reasons for why they’ve gone missing. My mind jumps to kidnapping, alien abduction, and zombie apocalypse.

  The call goes straight to voice mail. She probably ran out of battery from playing Candy Crush before bed. I think of giving Caio a call, but I don’t have his number. I get a little desperate as I ponder the best way to negotiate for my mom’s life with kidnappers. Or, worse, to negotiate the future of the human race with aliens, who probably won’t speak my language.

  I keep pacing around the house, as if waiting for Caio and my mom to jump out from behind the curtains and yell, “SURPRISE!” at any point. My stomach starts to rumble, and I feel like a heartless monster for being hungry at a moment like this. Even so, I go to the kitchen to look for food and let out a sigh of relief when I find a note on the fridge.

  Felipe,

  I couldn’t wake you up for the life of me! Going to the mall and taking Caio with me.

  There’s food for you in the microwave, just heat it up!

  Love you!

  And, right below, in handwriting I don’t recognize, it says:

  Thanks for the book. ;)

  Four words and a little wink. At least it looks like a wink. I can’t tell for sure because Caio’s handwriting looks like chicken scratch (hey, nobody’s perfect). Anyway, if it’s between a wink or a really weird exclamation point, I’ll go with option one. Caio left me four words and a little wink, and I can’t stop smiling. I’m so excited, you’d think he stroked my hair and gave me a coupon for one kiss. But no, it’s only four words. And a wink.

  The wink is a good sign, right? It’s a flirty smiley. Does this mean he’s forgiven me? That he’s thankful for the book and wants to give me a shot? The possibility makes me so happy that I almost forget to eat.

  I shake my head to wake up from this dream in which Caio flirts with me, then reheat the food my mom left me. I have lunch in silence, watching the minutes go by on the microwave clock. It’s two and a half hours slow. My mom and I keep forgetting to fix it.

  It looks like I have the whole day to myself now but no idea what to do with it. I could use the alone time to work on some personal projects, but I’m the worst person in the universe when it comes to completing them.

  I once tried writing a comic book that’s set in my school. An explosion in a fictional lab (because my school isn’t the kind that has a lab) gave my teachers superpowers. My favorites were the heroes, naturally, and the ones I hated were the villains. I wrote and illustrated two stories but gave up on the idea because A) I can’t draw, and B) I could never get this thing published due to the extremely offensive content against my gym teacher.

  After I realized how bad I was at drawing, I focused my angst into short stories. Some were actually kind of cool, and I thought it would be a good idea to put them out in the world. I created a blog and published my stories, but no one ever read them. I abandoned that project, too.

  There was the time when I decided to learn how to play the guitar. My mom approved of the idea, even bought a guitar for me, and I started taking classes with Mr. Luiz, a retiree in our neighborhood who gives music lessons. I spent two months learning (trying to learn, really), but I knew in the first week that it wasn’t going to work out. I had the willpower, and I even enjoyed practicing at home, but the truth is that I have no sense of rhythm. I can’t play the guitar, can’t clap my hands, can’t even whistle.

  Origami, cooking, juggling, belly dancing. I’m not good at anything! Maybe that’s why I watch so many useless internet tutorials. I think I am, subconsciously, looking for something I might be good at, but I’ve never lucked out in the talent lottery.

  I finish lunch without the slightest idea of what I’m going to do for the next few hours, but I feel determined and optimistic. So I decide to begin the afternoon by adjusting the microwave clock, taking my first step toward change.

  In an ideal world, I’d have spent the entire afternoon composing a song, writing a poem, painting the next Mona Lisa. Caio would get home to find me focused on my work of art, and he’d find himself in awe and in love at the same time.

  Of course, that’s not what happens. I spent the entire afternoon catching up on my favorite TV shows, and when Caio and my mom open the door, it’s already dark out. I sit up on the couch, startled, pull my T-shirt down to hide my belly button, and hug a pillow to camouflage the folds of my stomach, which appear when I sit down.

  My mom is yapping away, and I feel sorry for Caio, for having to withstand her chatter all day long. The only thing my mom needs is a pair of willing ears, and she can talk for an eternity.

  But when I look at Caio, I don’t find a desperate plea for help in his eyes. He’s smiling and looks happy. Actually, this is the happiest I’ve seen him since he came to stay with us.

  “We went shopping!” my mom says, all excitement, walking down an imaginary catwalk while holding a bunch of bags from different shops. I can’t contain a smile, because seeing my mom jokingly parading down the room makes me think that she could have been the prettiest model in the whole world.

  “This morning I tried to wake you up in every possible way, but you were passed out.” She keeps talking while she removes items from their bags, one by one. “So I grabbed Caio and said, ‘Let’s go to the mall!’ Because this boy has been stuck in this apartment since Friday. Imagine if the police found out! They’d lock me up and throw away the key!” She starts laughing at her own joke.

  Caio laughs, too.

  “Of course, I bought a thing or two for you so you wouldn’t be jealous, now that I have a second son!” my mom says while rummaging through the bags for my presents. “Here!” she yells in excitement, and hands me a bag.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I say, a bit uncertain, because that’s what Caio’s presence does to me.

  I stick my hand in the bag and feel like dying when the first thing I pull out is a pack of underwear.

  “I got you new briefs,” my mom starts, “because I went to wash one of yours, and for god’s sake, Felip—”

  “THANKS, MOM!” I repeat, almost shouting in order to get her to stop talking. Caio muffles a laugh.

  I hide the briefs under the couch pillow and go back to exploring the clothes in the bag. One gray shirt, one black sweatshirt, one pair of jeans, as if I were the most boring participant in the history of a fashion TV show. But the last item surprises me. At first I think it’s a tablecloth, but it’s a checkered flannel shirt. It’s black and red, kind of like a lumberjack Kurt Cobain. It looks nice, but it’s not my style.

  “Caio picked that one! I wanted to get you something a little more dressy. But Caio liked the color,” my mom explains, and I don’t know how to react.

  “I hope you like it. I think red will look good on you,” Caio says, a gigantic smile on his face. I try to smile back and lower my eyes to look at the checkered shirt.

  I feel my face burn and realize that if there were a contest between my face and this shirt to see which is the reddest, my face would definitely win the grand prize.

  I try to process the idea that there exists in the world a color that looks good on me that’s not black or gray. Red. I was wrong this whole time.

  The house goes silent for a few seconds until my mom resumes her chatter all over again.

  “Help me organize these bags, and, Felipe, order a pizza for us. I’m not getting in that kitchen today, not even to paint!”

  She’s laughing, and so is Caio. But this time I’m not jealous. I’m happy. Because the two of them are, officially, my favorite people in the world.

  We have pizza for dinner and play three rounds of Uno (my mom wins twice, and Caio wins the other one), and it’s late by the time I decide to retreat into my bedroom to sleep. I give up on the beige pajamas and am back to my old habits: old shorts and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt that I can’t wear outside anymore because it has a hole under the armpit.

  I leave the bedroom door open one more time, feeding the little bit of hope I still have in me. I don’t know if it’s luck, destiny, or Venus in the house of Mars, but for the first time in my life, things start to go the way I was hoping.

  I’m lying in bed, checking what’s new on Twitter, when I hear a slight knock on the door. I lift my head and see Caio standing there, holding a pillow and looking like an abandoned puppy.

  I don’t know what to say, so I keep staring at my phone and tweet my reaction: Houhfjkxhfdoduighl. Send tweet.

  “So, um … Hi. Can I sleep here tonight? It’s … the couch, you know? It—” Caio starts to explain himself.

  “It’s terrible. I know. You can say it,” I interrupt, trying to sound funny. But I think my answer ends up sounding a bit rude, so I try to fix it by being cute: “Of course you can sleep here! It should have been that way from the beginning, but I … well, you know. I’m sorry. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry, again.”

  Caio just stands there looking at me, and I almost break out into a rendition of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast, when I suddenly realize that I put away the guest mattress. I get up to pull out the retractable bed where Caio is going to sleep and apologize three more times. Two because I bump into him in the process and a third one for no apparent reason. I do all that in darkness because at no point did I realize that it might be a good idea to turn the lights back on. But Caio doesn’t seem to mind.

  When the guest bed is all set, I go back to my own bed and try to assume a position in which my belly won’t flop to the side, so the hole in my shirt won’t show. The room is still dark, so I honestly don’t know why I even care. Caio throws the pillow onto the mattress, lies down, and lets out a sigh of relief. I can imagine him saying, “With god as my witness, I’ll never sleep on that couch again!” like in that scene in Gone with the Wind.