Chapter One
510 Words
-Twenty-Seven Years Ago-
I am Kellan Porter, a simple, junior school boy in John A. Holmes High School in Edenton City. But for an unbeknownst reason, I feel different but not indifferent. I am not popular like those troops who often walked at the hallway like there are cameras always following them. Or even those boys who always wore these witty sunglasses and always does their homework one day in advanced. Or even those boys, who has no clues and who couldn’t care less about their life or what’s going on in the society as long as they’re having fun. Or even, those boys who got always bullied for not having enough courage to defend themselves. If I would position myself, perhaps I am in the middle line, the nonchalant ones. Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one would know if I even existed in this school. I had my whole life mapped out; I’ll get a degree, get a stable job, buy a house, then enjoyment follows. In this phase of my life, I least care about fun. I study, work a part time job, go home and it just rotates to that. But there’s one thing that I like doing, Chess. In fact, I am a part of the Holmes School Chess Club since my first year in High School. Chess is my safe space. I always considered life as a game of chess. You have to live strategically because life is a battle of winning and losing, and I don’t like losing. Apparently, life always has a way to rotate that keenness into being despondent. For all the people who could have an alcoholic, asshole father who only comes home when he wants to, I was the unlucky one to be chosen. Good thing, I wasn’t purely unlucky for having such an amazing mother. She’s the most hardworking, resilient, kind woman I have ever met. I always wonder why she end up marrying my asshole father and why she couldn’t divorce my dad. But I always get the same response every time I asked her. She always smiles then say, ‘Because I love him.’ That’s when I started questioning Love. If love is still authentic even if it inflicts pain? If love doesn’t really uphold any limit or boundaries? If love doesn’t always lead to happy ever after? Or everything about love is just a myth?
I thought love is supposed to be magical? The thing that makes you excited to get home, not the one that makes you sick to go home. I thought love is supposed to make you lighthearted and calm, not make your heart race out of fear. Love is horrible. Love makes you vulnerable. If love happens to find me, I would do everything that I can to not fall in the trap of love. I am not being resentful, or being destructive in the aspects of love. I don’t hate love either. I don’t fear love. I am just being careful on Love, and it’s different.
- Writer
