His Favorite Ginger

FOUR

SIMILARLY TO 90% OF ALL teenagers on planet Earth, Alejandro isn't a morning person. There's this bitter feeling that makes him want to shed blood when he wakes up to morn. Then his limbs become heavily ossified and glues to the bed, like it's night paralysis except he's allowed to snuggle the sheets more. The early morning sun rays seeps through his eyelid, he groans at this and even louder when someone shakes the remaining bits of sleep from his body.

"Morning sweetheart." A shrill feminine voice grates the air surrounding Alejandro's sleeping figure to dust. He clenches his face harder into the pillow.

"I hate school." It comes out as muffled gibberish but it's audible nonetheless. He gets no reply after a while and he's almost grateful. Today must be his lucky day. Maybe he picked up a four-leaf clover in sleep.

Suddenly, he feels something warm, wet, wide and wiggly on crawling on and in his back; water, lots of it. Alejandro peeks a peeved eye to see a ginger in a skimpy silk nightdress holding a pail.

"First of all, you are going to dry those sheets, today."

"Good morning to you too." Alejandro just ignores the thought of lashing out at her. At least, his paralysis is gone. He sits up on his bed and rubs his eyes groggily. "And if I may ask, why are you in my room?"

"You can't ask because I'm your mother and I can come to your room anytime I want. Since you didn't come downstairs early, I came to check on you." She firmly states, still putting on that oh-so-familiar motherly rise-and-shine smile that Alejandro just wants to wipe off her face. It even gets more annoying with his wet pyjamas nipping at his neck.

"Um, thanks?" Alejandro isn't used to talking with Freya, he rarely sees her in months. She and her new spouse are always on one business trip or the other. He doesn't give a s**t though, he rarely even notices her absence. Alejandro isn't like some spoilt brats out there who hungers for their parents' attention to the extent where sickening angst becomes their oxygen.

"How are you feeling today?"

Alejandro lets out a large sigh. Ever since he'd been diagnosed of diabetes type A, his parents has been a little too overprotective - a lot actually, despite their absence from home. Now that they heard I blacked out during class, their monitoring powers has been on overload. They hog him like he's an already cracked Fabergé egg and is going to break any second. Freya brings him his bitter coffee and that awful ginseng tea every morning and has banned ice cream and late-night texts and calls - who does he even want to call in the night anyways.

"I told you I'm totally fine mom. See, I slept like a baby." He subtly swats her hands from checking his eyes and feeling his face like preparing yeasted dough.

"Probably a little too much." She teases, slapping his face and retreating from the room. "And don't forget to dry those sheets or you're so dead."

Alejandro lunges for his favorite Rolex lying on his bed. He rubs his eyes to make sure he is reading the obscure chronograph correctly; 6:40.

Alejandro's life is a reflected form of the word 'typical'. It could've been much more promising if not for Freya's instilling "independence and responsibility" and he has to do chores like every normal kids despite the fact they are suffocatingly well-heeled. After twenty minutes of washing machine music, he's back to his room, stripping to his Plants vs Zombies boxers. He doesn't even bother to heat the water as he showers all his grogginess down the drain. Alejandro loathes being late and lives for laziness. Nolan and Kara are to be blamed. They'd forced him to stay up till late, skyping about random s**t and RPG-ing online.

Heaving another big sigh, he picks the hair dryer from his studying desk. He has a habit - good or bad, who knows - of toasting his face with wind from the gun-like contraption. A lenghty strand of ginger flies to his nose, he blows it away. He ties his ringlets into a bun - he calls it a 'manly bun' - and snatches his bag that is hung over the door.

To say he is surprised would be a huge understatement when he turns around a corridor and sees his favorite person leaning on the kitchen counter, busy with his phone in hand. The latter looks up and bares his teeth in a teasing smile.

"Baby bro." He says, stretching the 'bro' and opening his arms wide for a hug.

Alejandro shakes his head and returns the hug half-heartedly. "How many times do I have to tell you it's little bro not baby bro? That 'baby' gets on my nerves."

"I arrived yesterday night. You were still awake then but I didn't want to disturb your late night chitty chat with your friends." Alejandro frowns and grabs a steaming mocha Starbucks cup, he's never been a fan of snubbing questions and diverting topics. "Speaking of friends, there's a guy in the living room waiting for you."

"Really?"

"Uhm-uhm." Ambrose nods and continues with his phone like he never talked to his brother in the first place.

Alejandro exits the kitchen with random thoughts hovering his head like an evil halo. Who can it be? As far as he knows, the only person who actually knows his house is his neighbor, the one and only Nolan Michelle. But it can't be him. He isn't that type of person to visit, escort to school, buy candy and chitchat on the way.

"Nolan." Alejandro gasps, still shocked he isn't in school yet. And here he thought 'he wasn't that type of person'. Maybe this is important?

Nolan doesn't react at first but keeps his eyes plastered on his tab as usual. Maybe he wants to finish a sentence or paragraph? Still that doesn't cause him to hang Alejandro up like that. "Took you long enough." Nolan huffs and stands up. He hangs his bag over his shoulder and prepares to leave like nothing happened. Alejandro isn't fazed a bit.

"Lemme guess, you woke up late too."

"Nah. I've been here for a while but waited for you cos I hate humans and want you to walk me to school."

So Nolan wants him to walk him to school, as expected, not the other way around - the supercilious dickwad. Just because Nolan thinks he has the overflowing cash, Einstein wits and melanin blessing qualifies him to step on everyone's faces.

"Ambrose, can you take us to school in your car?!" Alejandro calls out but is replied by loud and obviously fake snoring ricocheting down the stairs. He shakes his head in disapproval. Typical Ambrose.

"Didn't know you had a brother." Nolan says as the duo cross the asphalt road littered with yellow maple leaves. Alejandro wishes Nolan brought his car because he himself is so not going to the world feast their damned eyes on his.

"You do now and as you can see, he's a big jerk."

"Tell me about it. Big bros are such assholes." His eyes widens and Alejandro can bet his life on the fact that something lowkey stupid like a dumb pun or joke is about to come out of his mouth. He knows that look anywhere. "Wow that rhymed."

Booyah!

"Barely. But he's really warm and fluffy inside and has a soft spot for me."

"Apparently." Nolan smiles.

"Wait a sec, do you even have a big bro?"

"Nope." And they both laugh.

It still isn't funny to Alejandro.

Minutes passed as they walk by the neverending sidewalk while chatting about random and family stuff. Alejandro watches him staring at his iPad, he thinks about what Kara told him again. Does Nolan have to know? Of f*****g course, yes. He has the right to know, as a friend. Alejandro never wishes to lose someone like Nolan, he was the ginger's soulmate on friendship levels. Alejandro can feel it in his guts. Apart from the fact that Nolan is really whimsical at times, his bluntness and narcissism doesn't tick Alejandro off a bit, rather he finds it amusing and weirdly comical.

What if Nolan hates him? What if he ends their fresh friendship? What if he tells everyone? - well he's been uncloseted for ages and doesn't give four flying f***s about what people think unlike most gays, unfortunately. . .What if things become awkward between them? Alejandro's mind is busy, brewing a whole Coca Cola company of 'what ifs' that he doesn't realize they've gotten to school.

"Hey. Whatchya thinking about?"

This is it, you've got to be Alejandro Bale.

He takes a deep breath before opening his mouth only to find out the words are stuck under his throat, refusing to escape.

"Uh. . ." Nolan says, eyeing the ginger watchfully, like he is trying to read his mind even before he spills the gay beans.

"I'm gay."

Nolan freezes in his tracks like he looked a medusa straight in the eye. That is when Alejandro notices his sweaty palms and swelling pulse. All his nerves shoot like torrid fireworks inside of him, scared of the fact that Nolan is going to hate him, which without much extrapolation is 99.9% possible.

This scene is a deja vu of a time when Alejandro had to come out to a really close friend back in his former school. It turned to a furious fist fight where the boy knocked out few of Alejandro's teeth till he had no choice but to resort to using him to gain experience points for his private martial arts class. Alejandro might have sent the boy in pieces to the hospital that fateful morning. If you ain't gay, you nay, b***h.

Then he laughs, Nolan laughs. Alejandro is shocked to say the least, upon all other things, Nolan chose to laugh. For a while he almost breathes a sigh of relief thinking Nolan already knows and is cool with it.

"You're joking, right?"

What?

"Um..yeah...of course I am!" Alejandro quickly adds with a nervous giggle, the weeping palms and thundering pulse are back. "Do I look a dirty faggot to you?"

"If it was joke it wasn't funny." Nolan's face turns dead serious. He inches closer to Alejandro like he is a cop dog sniffing out suspicion. "Just don't bring up stuff like that again. You know how I hate it. Now you just spoilt my day. Way to go, Al."

Alejandro swallows, hard.

"To be honest, you kinda look like a faggot." Nolan chuckles before shoving Alejandro playfully. "Well faggot, aren't you coming?" He beckons the ginger into the school building.

If only Nolan knew he is a faggot. Alejandro isn't ready to tell him and doesn't think he'll ever be. Case closed.

⏯

If you see the word "n***o", IGNORE IT. I wrote this book at a time when I was clueless it was offensive and I just don't have the time to edit or go through this book anymore. Im black, African, NIGERIAN and i don't tolerate racist vulgarities so DON'T strangle me with any comments, I'll delete and drag your ass. Kapiche