The Perfect Boy

A Shadow that Lingered

I was the perfect boy in my school. My reputation followed me where ever I went. I was not a sportsman.  Well, I was actually,  but not one that people would call a jock, just a swimmer.  Yet, my school mates and friends looked up to me.  They thought highly of me. They were enamored by me.  They adored me. I had girls and boys, yes boys, expressed their love for me. I received letters, emails, chats and messages that had people poured their feeling and thoughts for me.

But none of them cared for me, really, really truly cared for me. None of them saw the wounded soul underneath the impeccable facade that was me; none of them detected the defenseless boy who succumbed to sadness and fear; none felt the raw emotions from behind the veil of cheer and charm.

I felt so cooped up. I didn't like what was going on in my life, all the pretension and the coverups. I was more than not satisfied with my life, I was desparate to replace it with a new one. I thought of running away from home, going to another city where I could be a new me.

I went from one episode of the happy-go-lucky guy up on that stage to another episode of the totally depressed one behind the stage.  Behind the four walls of my bedroom and in the safety of being alone, I was a desperate soul longing for a place to belong.  But all that drama was behind me and was replaced by a constant stream of happy moments with Osaka, that was before Ben showed up again in my life.

Ben climbed up into my life again after so long, literally climbed up, as he did at my home going into the second-story window where my bedroom was. He knew his way around, he was a regular in my home before he started punching my face away.

He scared me to death when I opened my eyes to look into his face in that darkened night. I thought I was dreaming. The nightmare was looking too real. I pinched myself, but still saw that smirk of the monster in front of me. I closed my eyes and opened them again to make sure the figure wasn't a figment of my imagination.  I wad lying to myself when I said I had no attraction to any boys before Osaka.  In fact, this boy was the person who took me to the moon and had me crash into the abyss of life.

Then the eyes started to glisten under the moonlight shining through my window. Still without any words coming from him or me for that matter. I didn't know what to say, I was too confused to try to make of all this. 

But I remembered those caring eyes, flashes of good memories came into my thoughts as I stared into them, witnessing droplet by droplet that fell out of them. I remembered waking up to those beautiful dreamy blues eyes many mornings when I was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit of Mary the Immaculate Hospital. Ben somehow managed to sneak into the ICU because he was the favorite nephew of the head nurse there. I closed many nights to the disappearing shadows of those gorgeous eyes of his. Ben took care of me. My parents were on business trip to Hong Kong and couldn't be bothered with taking care of me; they left me into the care of Aunt Elle, a distant relative, but she couldn't really look after me, because she had 5 small children of her own. So, I could say truthfully, Ben nursed me back to life.  When Ben was there, my life was sheltered.  I felt safe and secured.  I knew what love meant from having been embraced by Ben during difficult moments in my life.  He was not at all a person who repressed his emotion as neither was he non-touching in his friendship with me.  I had it all with him until that fateful day when with one kiss I went overboard.

My nights afterwards were filled with nightmares, not only of my dead friend, but also of him as well.  Ben made my days a constant hellish experience and my nights filled with dreadful dreams.  He was a constant shadow that lingered in my dreams - that one who had his claws on me in all my  nightmares. 

And now he was more than a shadow, he appeared in person under the moonlight at my window.