The Redamancy of Shade and Art (BOOK 2)

Chapter 7

"My God, Shady! Your room is so messy!" Mom rummaged through Shade's clothes and purposely brought destruction with her.

Shade sat on his bed and tried to keep his face neutral.

"I leave you alone for a year and you get so, so, so messy!" Clothes were thrown everywhere. "My God, why are you so cheap, anak? Why are you hiding your Gucci and Louis Vitton in the back of your fucking closet? My God!"

Shade put his hands on his lap and resisted the urge to pick at the skin until he bled.

"Oooh, where are your hoodies—"

My hoodies.

Art.

They were all with Art.

I'm so tired of you—

Mom swiveled to look at him. Both hands on her hips. Straight hair slapping against her shoulder. "Come downstairs. I have balikbayan boxes with me."

~

Mom was overwhelming, to say the least.

His thoughts were on Art.

But Mom was home.

So, Shade gave his focus to the greater evil in front of him.

The entire house was thrown into chaos by her arrival as Mom harshly cleaned and rearranged everything she set her eyes upon. (Ate Lynn struggled to keep up.) (Shade felt so bad that he tried to take most of the workload from her.)

Shade was trembling in fear the entire time Mom snooped his room, looking through drawers and cabinets. (He prayed. And prayed. And prayed to a God who didn't exist that there wasn't anything she would disprove of.) (Nothing gay, nothing gay, please Lord just this once be on my side—)

"What's this?" Mom demanded, as she pulled out a dried santan flower, pressed into a plastic to keep it safe. (Art gave it to him.) (Art. Art. Art. Art. Art Mendoza. Art—)

Shade shrugged.

Mom threw it away.

Together, they sat in the living room on their pristinely-carved mahogany chairs. Shade sat straight-backed as Mom threw open her suitcases. She took the massive cardboard boxes filled with presents and sliced them open with a pocketknife, babbling on and on about her work, about annoying coworkers, about how much she loved her job—

You're here. Stop wishing you were somewhere else.

"Do you think this will fit you?" Mom asked and held up a swimsuit that looked a size too small. Fuck, how old did she think he was?

Shade shook his head.

Mom snorted. She looked at him like he was ungrateful. "Oo nga. You're getting so fat, Shady."

Shade put a self-conscious hand to his stomach.

"We'll give it to one of your cousins." And then she was moving from one gift to the next.

Again.

And again.

It didn't matter if he didn't like some of the gifts. She'd just give them away. It didn't matter if she bought the same goggles or bought him classic books he already had. It didn't matter if he already had Pride and Prejudice and stupid fucking Dante's Inferno and a million other copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

They were disposable.

As everything was to her.

She made him taste the Mango-coated chocolate from Cebu. (When the fuck did she go to Cebu?) They took a picture together to post to her Instagram. And Facebook. And she went on and on and on about the countries her work flew her to. Her thoughts were still filled with all the lavish hotels, all the tourist spots, all the fun, quirky things she's done from Asia to wherever the fuck in Europe.