Now You Know ✅

Chapter 39: Lightweight

It was only the middle of May, yet Lucio could feel the fatigue beginning to overwhelm his mentality. Never had he imagined that he could be more mentally knackered than physically. He only had a few more papers left, most of them being his science subjects. And for the past few weeks, his brain had been solely focused on revision, though a particular someone did keep resurfacing into his head, never quite leaving him alone.

It wasn't that Lucio was thoroughly distracted by the mere thought of the older boy. Sure, he missed him. Aunt Fabia missed him - what with her persistent questions on why Pelham hadn't come over as of late. But the thing that seemed to stir him and keep him awake in the dead of night, even after bidding Pelham good-night on the phone, was the seemingly perennial ache that was pressing at his heart, tearing at his guts, weighing him down. If it was some kind of affliction, Lucio sure wasn't concerned by it.

There was no point fooling himself into surmising the feeling as something else other than something that he had so cautiously avoided for the past few months. Funny, he thought, just how the previous year, having a crush on Pelham Nixon had been something mild, like watching your favourite fictional character move and talk and live on a TV series. Now it was something else entirely; something deeper and more precarious, like treading on thin ice. And Lucio knew perfectly well what it was.

Though, he didn't know whether Pelham was ready to hear it. He couldn't tell - not really. All he was aware of was that the older boy had been looking numb nowadays - either from the tension coming from the exams or from life itself, he couldn't decide - and Lucio didn't suppose the boy could bear another revelation.

Is it a revelation, though? he had so often asked himself, unsure of where the answer lay.

Of course, Pelham had shown more than a mild interest in him. Infatuation, thought Lucio, his stomach flipping at the mere concept of it. But he couldn't resolve whether those kisses and cuddles they had shared were the implications of Pelham wanting something to soothe his internal affliction or something more unfeigned - like the ardent feelings Lucio had for him. Not that he knew whether Pelham was the type of person to use someone else simply to feel good.

Still, perhaps it was a bad idea after all.

Aunt Fabia had asked him whether he and Pelham were really together now. As a matter of course, having had come upon them snogging for more than a couple of times, she was bound to ask again. But he had given her a shrug in response, and when she - being the tender, solicitous aunt she was - asked why, he had simply told her. He had long since grown jaded of holding it back. Everything that had been kept inside him had gushed out, as though Aunt Fabia didn't already know how head over heels he was.

"I think it's time you tell him how you really feel," she'd adviced him.

"What if he freaks out?"

"What if he feels the same way?"

Lucio had gone quite then, not quite mulling over the rest of the outcomes.

She'd put her hand on his shoulder, her thumb drawing circles on the fabric of his shirt. "Either you two keep doing this or figure it out," she'd said. "What do they call it nowadays? DTR?"

"'Diurnal temperature range?'"

"No. Define - discuss - determine - the relationship." she'd gotten up and walked out of his room then, leaving him there, apprehensively tugging at a loose thread on his shirt.

Lucio knew she had a point. But amid the hassles that were making a great deal of rampage in his head alone - ranging from his parents to his exams - he couldn't seem to find the time to do it; to confess. Really, there was nobody to blame here. After all, he and Pelham were both busy with their exams. Still, the more he put it aside, the more irrelevant it seemed to become. And he didn't want that.