The Kiss by Alberick Sy (suggested reading .txt) 📕

Chapter 1


I was starting to doze off when I heard the telephone ring. I looked at the clock, it was 12midnight. I know of only one person who will call me at this time. I quickly got up to answer it. “Allen! It’s Karl. How are you?” “Fine dude, you talk as if we haven’t seen each other for years when we were just hanging out a few hours ago.” Karl has been my best friend since I can remember. He lives next door and since we were the only kids in the neighbourhood, we automatically became best friends. We practically did everything together. By the way, I’m Allen Santiago. I’m half Chinese but I look more Filipino than Chinese. I only get the “Chinese eyes” when I wake up in the morning. I’m 18 years old. 5’6”, 140 pounds, wavy hair, fair complexion, round eyes, and medium built. My best friend, Karl Ferrer is 17 years old, also of Chinese lineage though I don’t know how much. He actually looks more European than Asian. He’s also 5’6”, 120 pounds, unruly hair, and light complexion. “I can’t help but miss my best friend in the whole world. Is that so bad?” He said. Good thing we were talking on the phone or he would have seen my face turn bright red from blushing. “Whatever dude! We still have classes tomorrow so let’s just call it a night. Goodnight!” “Goodnight!” Karl said, and hung up the phone.


Chapter 2


I have always liked Karl. Besides the fact that he is my best friend, he’s also my first love. I forgot to mention that I’m gay. I have been for as long as I can remember but I never got the strength to tell it to anyone. Anyone who sees us together would expect Karl more likely to be gay rather than me. I guess he is too good looking to pass both as a guy or girl. Or maybe it’s because I have feelings for him before I even knew what gay meant. I remember the first time we met. He just moved from the province. I was probably 7 at the time and he was 6. Since I didn’t have anyone my age to play with, I got excited that our new neighbour had a kid. And a very good looking one for that. His parents and my parents became close and since we were both an only child, we both became the sibling neither of us had. I got really protective of him and he got really attached to me. I first found out that I was gay and I had feelings for him when I was 12 years old. We were hanging out as usual and he dozed off. I was looking at him when suddenly I saw something different. As if I was looking at someone I have only seen for the first time. His face looked angelic, his pointy nose which he hated because he feels it’s too pointy looked perfect on his face, and his lips, his luscious red lips looked succulent and before I knew it, I kissed him. I didn’t know how long I was kissing him but when I opened my eyes, I saw him looking at me with a puzzled look. I quickly stopped and I said that I probably dozed off and landed on his lips… LAME! But it worked. He quickly dismissed it and we went on doing our usual childish things.


Chapter 3


I woke up with both the alarm clock and the phone ringing. I shut the alarm off and answered the phone. “Hello?” you can tell from my voice that I just woke up. “Dude! Get your lazy ass up! We’ll be late for school!” It was Karl. “Dude! Relax! We still have plenty of time. Why do you always have to be in a hurry?” I said. “You know I hate getting late.” “OK! I’m getting up.” And with that I hang up the phone. We’re both 4th year high school students. I got held back twice though the second reason why I got held back was because I wanted me and Karl to graduate at the same time. Karl got held back because our school did not allow him to start on time due to some problems with his papers. People would probably ask how we get along when we are both very different. I’m the more athletic and popular type. I’m the captain of our swim team and I have a to-die-for body girls go crazy for. I’m also a dancer in our school and the class clown. I love making people laugh. Karl is more of an introvert, an awkward teenager going through changes and likes to keep things to himself. He’s more into computer stuff. We both never had girlfriends before. It’s quite obvious why I never had one though a lot of girls and even guys go crazy for me. But I only had my eye on one person my entire life. It’s a puzzle why no one would like to claim the prize of being Karl’s first girlfriend because I know he’s better looking than me. Though it is an advantage for my part because he and I could spend more time together and girls would just ruin our quality time. We got to school early as usual, so we hang out. We had all our classes together. I’m amazed at how intelligent Karl was. He’s always at the top of our class while I like goofing off. I don’t know where he finds the time to study with all the time we spend together but he somehow manages to do well in school. School was particularly boring that day and we hang out with our friends at school and went home together and hang out some more. Just the usual stuff we do everyday and went home.


Chapter 4


“Dude!” Karl startled me. It was the weekend and I was planning to sleep all day. I looked at the clock. It was 8am. “Dude! Do you know what time it is? I have only been in bed for like an hour.” I was pissed coz I felt that I needed to sleep some more. “You can’t go to sleep! I have big news!” I looked at him and saw that his smile was bigger than usual. Something was up and my curiosity got the better of me and so I sat up and asked what it was. “I have a date for the prom!” He was almost shouting. I was shocked. I was thinking maybe it was all just a dream. How could he have a date for the prom? The shy boy who doesn’t have the courage to talk to girls suddenly has a date to the prom. We were already planning to go together because I was expecting both of us to be dateless that night. Obviously I’m not keen on getting one because he’s the only one I wanted to go to prom with. It was at the prom when I plan to tell him how I feel. “There’s this girl, Janice, from school. Do you know her? Anyways, I saw her this morning while I was at the market with mum and she came by asked if I wanted to go to prom with her.” He said. I couldn’t speak so I nodded. This is the best thing that has happened to me. I will ask my mum to buy me something nice to wear. I haven’t told her yet because I wanted you to know first. See you later.” He left so fast that I didn’t have time to react to what he just said. I didn’t know whether I should be happy for him or not. I just sat there for what seemed like hours, shocked.


Chapter 5


“Mrs Ferrer, is Karl home?” “Sorry dear, he left about an hour ago, said he was going to meet someone.” My heart sank. It wasn’t like him to leave without telling me where he would go and we usually go out together. I decided to just keep myself preoccupied by listening to some music and avoid thinking too much of him. After a while, I dozed off. Then I felt someone lying on top of me. I woke up to see Karl with a very big grin. I looked at the time. I slept for nearly 4 hours. I sat up and asked him why he’s grin is so big. “I have a girlfriend.” I was speechless. It was like de ja vu all over again. It was last week when he said he had a date for the prom. Now he has a girlfriend. I put on a smile even though my heart was breaking. “Tell me all about it.” Was the only thing I thought was appropriate to say at the time. He told me about how he kept in touch with Janice, the girl who asked him to go to the prom with, and they went out a few times that week and that they just officially became a couple a few hours ago. And with that, I felt like my world has suddenly ended. I wanted to say that he’s better off with me and that I love him since the first time I saw him but I know that would be completely inappropriate so I just let out a weak smile and he just looked at me and said I was too shocked to react so he decided to just leave me at my thoughts and went home.


Chapter 6


I couldn’t believe at how fast things changed. It was only a few days ago that he was my world and I was his. But now, at the rate things are going, I might lose the only guy I ever loved. I was suddenly mad at the world. The past few days, Karl and I didn’t get to hang out at all. Not because he was busy with his girlfriend, but because I kept making up lame excuses so that I won’t have time to be near him afraid of what I might say. I started to become destructive to both people around me and to myself. Every night I cry myself to sleep. I wanted to let it all out but I don’t know how because no one knew my secret. Two weeks passed and I was so engrossed with playing an online game. I got so pissed at how rotten my luck was so I decided to stop and listened to some music. Then I started to cry. I remembered Karl and all the times we were together. I suddenly exclaimed “I LOVE YOU KARL!” and I felt relieved. Then I heard someone breathe behind me.


Chapter 7


I turned around and saw Karl sitting on my bed. I felt light-headed and I couldn’t breathe. We were looking at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Then Karl said “I better leave” and he got up and walked out. I stay fixated on the door for a long time before I burst into tears again. Things got really weird between us and people started to notice. They would tease us in class and I would give them an angry look and they would stop. We haven’t said a word to each other for a month. This was the longest we haven’t spoke to each other. The only time we couldn’t speak with each other was when we were kids. We were grounded