Another World 4

“You’re an idiot,” was pretty much what I expected Michelle to say. “How are you gonna explain it to Danny? Huh? Cause he deserves to know the truth. But he also doesn’t deserve to get hurt.”
“I don’t know. I probably won’t go to school tomorrow.”
“Let’s be serious. We all know that it’s impossible for you not to go to school.” Michelle said, “I’m going to say this one last time. If you think there’s a great chance you and Danny will have a good relationship, then you must do everything you can to make up for what you did. But if you don’t think there’s any potential, then you must break it off cleanly with him. But I’m hoping you’ll do the first thing.”
“I don’t know.” I kept saying.
“Stop saying that.” Michelle huffed, “Well, Elisa is here. I’ll talk to you later.”

I couldn’t bear to tell Danny the truth, so my whole mind was constantly bombarded with lame, overused excuses up until the Monday morning when he sat by me in class,.
“Was I mistaken of the time, or something?” Danny asked as he settled in a seat next to mine.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, “My grandmother had a near-fatal stroke.” I felt so sick and wrong for coming with such a horrible excuse, and I was glad I never got a chance to meet any of my grandmothers (they died before I was born), otherwise I would have felt even worse, “So we all drove overnight to the hospital in State City.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I forgot your number.” I said, “But I still want to go out with you this coming Friday. If you’re interested…”

Kenneth now appeared with a couple of his jocks, walking up the steps of the auditorium where we were sitting and sat right behind us.
He said, “Hey Mark. Thanks for the good time on Saturday.”
And so my head went in flames.
“Saturday? Which Saturday?” Danny asked.
“The last one.”
Danny thought about it and looked at me and said, “Oh, actually, I was going to sit over there with Lucretia.” And he got up and walked over to sit next to a red-headed girl who welcomed his company with a smile.
I turned to Kenneth, “Why did you have to do that?”
“What did I do?”
“That Saturday night…I was suppose to go out with him.”
“Oh, shit.” Kenneth laughed and looking back at Danny, “Really? I’d always thought you guys should hook up.”
“Well, thanks to you.” I sighed angrily, “There won’t be a chance.”
“Don’t blame me, dude. You’re the one who came to my house.”
“You’re the one who threatened to knock my head open.”
“You know I don’t mean that. I was all horny and shit.” Kenneth said, “I don’t fucking mean anything I say when I’m horny.”
“So you didn’t think I was really that great? You just said that cause you were horny?” I grumbled.
“No. You see, I fucked you, then I thought you were good.” He said.
“So am I better than Sean?” I asked.
“Hell yes. There’s no comparison.”
“I heard my name.” Sean came up to us, “What about me?”

***

For the next two weeks, I saw very little of both of the men I was trying to balance in my life. Danny obviously avoided me. And Kenneth was just too busy planning with his girlfriend some other ways to fool her parents.

And for those two weeks, I actually felt a sense of relief. I was free from the persistence of Danny. And I was free from my irrational compulsion towards Kenneth. And I truly felt that life would actually be better without the concept of sex.

But those relaxing two weeks soon came to an end; and a wonderful relationship sprang from a phone call by the end of those two weeks.
My mom answered it and said it was for me.
I took the receiver, “Hello?”
“Is this Mark?”
“Yes.”
“This is Daniel Long’s mother.”
“Oh.”
“Danny’s been in a car wreck.”
“Ohh. Is he alright?”
“A broken collar bone, broken sternum. But nothing life-threatening.”
“That’s good.”
“The reason I’m calling you is because he seems to mention you all the time, so I’m guessing you’re a good friend of his. Well, I found your number in his phone list, so if you want to visit him, he’s at the City Hospital room 618.”
“I will…tonight. Thank you for telling me. I’ll probably see you there.”
When I hung up the phone, I just sat there for a moment, wondering if Danny would be happy to see me or not. Then the phone rang again and I picked it up.
It was clearly Kenneth’s voice, “Dude, come over here…”
“Go fuck yourself.” I yelled at the receiver.
“What the hell? I just wanted to see if you wanted to play some video games?”
I calmed down a little, “I can’t. Danny’s at the hospital.”
“For what?”
“Car accident.”
“That’s too vague. I want more detail.”
“I don’t have any more detail.” I said, very annoyed, “I gotta go.”

I’ve never liked the hospital. I’ve never had a good experience in them. Well, obviously I know people don’t just go to the hospital to have a good time, but it seems that the events at the hospital become more tragic when it involves me. For example, my mom said she had complications with me during childbirth, so she had to get a C-section. The next day when my parents were about to take me home, a bee stung me just outside the entrance of the hospital, and so now I know I’m allergic to bees.

When I was eight, our family had a dog named Charcoal who was stupid as can be. He somehow jumped over the fence and got caught in the sharp wires so he was sent to the vet hospital. He was recovering fine when I was at school, but then when I visited him, the doctors found an infection from his intestines and he died two hours later.
Then just a couple of years ago, my father went to the hospital for an arm injury he had on the job (he was a construction worker), and I drove him there. When he got to the hospital, he collapsed right at the entrance. We soon found out he had a heart attack. Even after all that, I decided to volunteer at the hospital in the summer. When the statistics of the hospital came out, there were a record breaking number of failed surgeries that summer. I was volunteering in the surgery department.

I bought the flowers and a Get Well card, but to say the least, I was a little hesitant to go to the hospital. I did not want to be the reason Danny died all of a sudden.
Soon, however, I was standing in an elevator watching the number six lit up. The elevator door opened, and I got out and searched for room 618. When I found it, I saw that the door was closed so I knocked.
“Come on in,” sounded like the voice of his mother on the phone. I walked in and she said, “Hey, thanks for coming, Mark.”
I nodded.
She said, “He’s still under a lot of medication.”
“I see.”
“Thanks for the flowers and card. I’ll make sure he sees it when he wakes up.”
“I wanna be there when he wakes up.” I said.

After chatting with his mother, I found out the reason for Danny’s accident. Apparently, a police car was chasing after a drunk driver. Obviously, the chase did not end too well. The accident resulted in the death of the drunk and injuries to the police officer and three other innocent people, including Danny.
I saw the bag under Danny’s mother’s eyes, and I knew she was tired after 28 hours of not sleeping. I told it was alright for her to go to sleep. I could watch him overnight. She said I was a sweet boy, but she would stay awake in case he wakes up and needs something.
But thirty minutes later, her eyes were closed and she was leaning back on the big reclining chair. So I just sat silently for those hours that went by so slowly. And then something inside struck my heart. And I felt like the air was being sucked out of me. And I laid my head down on his bed and cried. I had no idea what the heck it was that struck me; all I knew that it was making me cry.
So I cried softly with my face on the mattress and wondering what the hell I’m crying about, and then I felt something, a hand softly stroking the back of my head. And I looked up to see Danny with his eyes barely open.
“What are you doing here, Mark?” he asked.
“What do you think?” I said, wiping the tears.
“I mean…why…”
“Your mom called.”
“No…why did you decide to come?”
“Because I’m your friend.” I said a bit frustrated, “And you don’t seem very grateful.”
“No…” Danny said, “I mean…I need water.”
I turned around to see where I could get water. There was bottled water on one of the table. But then I realized it would hurt for him to gulp. So I found a sponge dipper and soaked it in water and dabbed his lips a little with it. Then I stuck the little sponge in his mouth and told him to squeeze the water out with his tongue.
“Thanks.” He said. “How long has my mom been sleeping?”
“I lost track of time some time ago.”
“Well, I think you could go home now.” He said. “My mom will take care of me.”
“No.” I whispered loudly, “She hasn’t been sleeping for that long, and she was up 28 hours before that. I’m gonna stay here. And you can’t avoid me forever.”
“Okay, so how many times have you guys done it since we last talked.”
“None!” I said. “And I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about us.”
“What’s there of us to talk about?”
“I want to go out with you. I never lied about that.” I said.
“Sure, but you’d rather have sex with him.”
“Please, stop talking about him.” I said, “I can’t think of anything else I want to do more right now than to have a perfect date with you. And I’m gonna make sure that nothing stops me from having this perfect date with you. So if it’s alright with you, I’m gonna help your mom take care of you until you feel better…until you feel good enough to take me to a movie and then later to a really expensive restaurant cause by then you’ll owe me a lot for bringing you back to health.”
“But…”
He did not get the chance to finish what he was about to say because I leaned forward on his bed and gave him a sincere and longing kiss.
When our lips parted, I saw tears in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Danny said, “It’s just that, you were leaning on my broken chest.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I said with a chuckle.
He tried to laugh as well but decided that it hurts too much to laugh.

***

It was two weeks later when we finally did go out on a perfect date. It started with him presenting me a bouquet of roses.
I laughed as I accepted it, “Thank you.”
Danny asked, “Why are you laughing?”
“It’s just that I’m not used to playing the ‘girl’ part. But it’s nice. I’m gonna get used to it real quick,” I said.

He took my hand and walked me to his red sedan and opened the door for me to get in. Then he drove us to the theatre complex. He said he was happy we could finally have a date because it was the last day to see ‘Rainy Weather.’ In the building, he bought two tickets and some refreshments. Then we chose a seat in the very back of the auditorium to watch the movie. There were only four couples in the room, including us. Danny pulled up the arms of the chair out of the way and so I scooted closer to him as he wrapped his arm around my back, and I leaned on his shoulder.
The movie was even better than I expected. It was the perfect romantic-comedy date movie. There was a rather engaging storyline. The actors were all pretty, and the acting was good enough for a romantic-comedy. There were great romantic scenes and one of the hottest sex scene involving two guys and two girls. By the end of that scene, my pants was sure tight as heck, and I wondered if Danny was having discomfort around his pants area as well.

At the end of the movie, we kissed romantically, with my chin resting on his index finger and my left arm running up and down his thigh. The credit roll at the end was over, and then one of the workers walked into the theatre and found us making out. He politely coughed and we giggled as we got up and went out of the theatre.

Dinner, I must say, was even better than the movie. He took me to my favorite French restaurant, or actually, our favorite French restaurant. The food: the steak, frog legs, the French cheesecake…the drink: Oringina…were all good. But the greatest thing was our conversations, which never seemed to run out of material. And as we were eating and chatting, I don’t remember a time when our eyes disconnected, even while we were cutting the meat, even when we were gulping down the Oringina.

After dinner, Danny just drove us around to the city to look at the night lights. And we found more stuff to talk about, and there was never an awkward silent moment. Then it was 10:00, and he drove back to my house. I felt that it was too early to end the date, but I guess it had to end sometime.

Hand in hand, he walked me to the front porch. And I looked at his beautiful eyes, glimmering so happily. I was sure he was looking deep into mine as well. And we leaned forward and our lips meet for the second time that night. His hands were on my back, and my palms were on his cheeks. If he kissed this well, I could only wonder how well he did other stuff.
Then our lips parted after a while…a while that was not long enough for me.
“I had a great time tonight. Thank you so much,” he smiled.
“I had a great time as well. I haven’t had such a fun date since I could remember.”
So we stood there staring at each other, wondering what we should do next. It was the only awkward silence of the night.
“I don’t…you know, do it…not on the first date.” Danny said.
I nodded, “I understand. I….me neither.”
“So good night,” Danny said.
“Good night,” I sighed, making sure that he knew I was disappointed.

So he took a step down the porch and I opened the door. I entered the house, and he was now in the driveway. I still had the door open to watch him walk slowly toward his car, and then he turned around and ran back up the porch and I stepped outside.
“But you know, we’ve known each other for too long. So this is really more like our 20th date.”
“50th.”
“Yeah,” Danny agreed with excitement, “And of course by the 50th date, we should already…you know…”
I nodded.
And our arms were entangled around each other as we stumbled inside and closed the door. We continued to fondle every part of our covered body and kissing and bumping and spinning as I guided him down the hallway and into my bedroom. I kicked the door shut, and we were now taking off each other’s clothing, something that Kenneth and I never did.