Melbourne, Australia, June, 2018
I didn’t see the cute Aussie for six days.
But that was okay. While he was in Sydney, I spent the weekend exploring Melbourne and the greater part of Victoria with Tita Vera and her family. Catching up with her was particularly fun, and having come out to her recently felt like gaining a new friend. Over brunches and soy flat whites, she would rave about Melbourne’s openness to diversity, how it exposed my cousins to a culture that didn’t label human beings, how I had the option of getting married there. It was all so inviting, and she would always end with, “you should move here.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said, explaining to her how I had tried to move to Canada two years ago, but my mom and my grandparents wouldn’t let me, despite an offer of admission from a university for a pre-law program. They wanted me to become a lawyer in the Philippines, something I didn’t come to terms with easily because when I met Connor, what I wanted more than anything was to explore my sexuality without being shamed by my own family. As a twenty-something, the only way that that felt possible was to head out someplace far, where my family, who only seemed to notice me when I was doing something wrong, couldn’t intervene. In return to her telling me to move there, I would always joke that maybe I’d get engaged by the end of my visit.
Monday came, and Andrés flew back to Melbourne. I took his return as an opportunity to ask him out on a date. I had plans to spend the day brunching and boozing around Fitzroy, a charming Melbourne neighbourhood akin to Chelsea in Manhattan. I was going through my list of places to eat at, which Andrés helped me curate over the last five months and finalised when he asked what my plans for my visit were on our date last week. After exchanging hellos at 9am, he stopped responding to everything I was sending him, text messages about getting drunk at 2pm, snaps of the croissants from Lune, queries about what coffee to get at Industry Beans.
I didn’t take it against him. I figured and later confirmed that he slept in, exhausted from his overnight stay in Sydney. It didn’t stop me from calling Astrid while I was sipping a third cocktail at Naked in the Sky.
“I need to break up with him before I leave,” I told her after exhausting my stories from the last five days. I took a sip from my cocktail and said, “We’ve only been on one date here, and I’m already starting to feel things I’m not supposed to feel. He’s supposed to be a summer fling, but what does that mean? What happens when I go back home to Manila and never come back?”
“You’re you. When have you never gone back someplace you’ve been?” Astrid said. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Why do you need to break up with him?”
“Because…” I started. The alcohol was ineffective in numbing my feelings. “I don’t want another Kevin incident. I don’t want to feel guilty about kissing another boy, about wanting to kiss another boy. I don’t want to go out excusing bad behaviour just because we don’t have a label. I don’t know if he’s seeing other people, and I’d rather break up with him than find out something I don’t want to know.”
“Well, it’s good you’re setting boundaries,” she said. “Maybe talk to him when you see each other again. I don’t think asking him to be your summer fling helped you at all. Get some clarity.” Get some clarity.
On Tuesday night, after coming home from a day-trip to the Great Ocean Road, I asked Andrés if he wanted to explore the Victoria Winter Night Market the next night with me. Tita Vera had suggested it when I asked her for date night suggestions. She was a little surprised to hear that we hadn’t seen each other again since my arrival. I didn’t realise that I hadn’t seen him for that long until she brought it up. “We have time,” was all I could say, and we did. I was there for two and a half weeks, after all.
Wednesday came, and I couldn’t get a grip of myself. I was dying to visit Andrés for a forced lunch date at his café, but I reminded myself that that would be creepy. I saw it from his face when I told him I would be university hopping for Astrid while I was in town.1 When I mentioned the university where his café was, he flinched, and I felt disgusted at myself for even thinking about surprising him. Why was I so clingy? Why does it feel like I went to Melbourne to see him again when I was here because this was the most expensive flight my airline offered for free after the fiasco at New Year’s? I thought to myself while brunching on rosti and a long black in Ada Grace, which graced me underneath its flower-adorned ceiling.
That morning, I took myself to South Melbourne for two reasons: the first was to shop and eat at South Melbourne Market, where I was to look for pasalubong that didn’t scream like it came from an airport souvenir store, and the second was to keep myself away from Andrés, who was a tram ride, a bridge, and a twenty-minute walk away from where I was. I figured, if I could keep myself occupied in the Southbank until 5pm, to Andrés’s coworkers, I wouldn’t be that strange Filo who walked into their café and asked their cute barista out for lunch.
Then I lost my head. I stopped at a flower shop I had passed by probably six times that day. I don’t know why, but I picked out some peonies and had the shopgirl bundle them up for me and wrap them in paper. I swear, when I got out of that flower shop, flowers in hand, my whole walk from the market to the tram stop was in slow motion. I could feel every head turn towards me, some of them smiling, but most of them curious as to who would be the recipient of that rustic bouquet.
Why did I buy them? I asked myself while waiting for the Northbank-bound tram. SOS, I texted Astrid. Floral emergency. I bought a bunch of peonies, and I don’t know what for. It seems a little too in-your-face to give them to Andrés.
Astrid: They’re pretty! And you’re fine. They mean friendship, and in some parts of the world, they’re Mother’s Day flowers.
Me: Good, so like if Andrés rejects them, I could pretend that they were meant for an Instagram photo shoot then I’d give them to my aunt after.
You can bet your ass I walked back to the market to take some photos so Andrés would buy my story.
At 4:30, I made my way up to the City Baths. I asked Andrés to meet me there, as I wanted to take photos of the building before heading to the Winter Night Market. Having flowers in one hand and a cup of tea in another wasn’t exactly the most convenient way to photograph an architectural landmark, so I waited. He was late, and it was starting to get too cold for my comfort. The only reason I bought the tea was to keep my hands warm, but I drank it too fast. His eyebrows scrunched at the sight of the flowers. I hid my face behind them. “A gift,” I said, my eyes slowly making their way towards the bouquet.
“For your auntie?” He didn’t want them.
“Supposedly for you.” So much for my elaborate cover.
“But I have flowers.” He just smiled awkwardly at me. Clearly, he didn’t want them. Thank god I wasn’t possessed to buy roses.
“Just hold them for me while I take photos,” I said in defeat. I was starting to feel red all over my face. Thank god I stayed in the Southbank, too.
He rejected holding my hand after my photo shoot. When I explained that I left my gloves in Manila and that my hands were too cold, he offered to buy me another tea. I pestered him as to why he wouldn’t let me, but in the end, he said, “I like to be mobile,” and I was obviously slowing him down. I literally asked him to stop walking too fast. He explained that he was used to walking alone, so I had to remind him that I was there with him, and that I would be for a while. He didn’t seem like the same Andrés who kissed me on the bridge, the same Andrés who didn’t take a sip of his drink so as not to interrupt me stroking the hairs on his forearm.
“Why haven’t you been writing?” he asked me about a block away from the market.
“Oh shit. I forgot about that.” I explained. I had been so busy with school, and with it going out, I forgot to be productive in the two weeks in between school ending and me flying down under.2 “The next one’s about you, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been waiting for it.”
“I already introduced you in my New Year’s post.”
“I was barely in it.” There’s the Andrés who kissed me on the bridge. “You better write it soon. I’m dying next year,” he said, looking both ways to cross the street.
“What do you mean?” I asked, catching up with him on the curb.
“Turning thirty,” he said, looking at me with a blank face.
“Don’t say that,” I said, slapping him on the arm.
“Not a nice feeling, is it?” he said, smugly raising his eyebrows and walking towards the neon welcome sign. It was a reference to me telling him how my anxiety had been acting up. I hadn’t been sleeping well in Melbourne. For the first time in a long time, I felt happy, but it was the kind of happy that made me think that I was only happy because something bad was about to happen. It could be my suicide, I speculated, and I reminded Andrés over the phone recently that I thought that this would be the year that I would die. I guess he cared for me more than he cared to say.
Some hot apple ciders, a porchetta sandwich, some nachos, a tiramisu, and one too many cups of mulled wine later, everything fell back into place. He let me have a bit of his candied orange when I ignorantly threw mine away with my empty hot apple cider cup. He took my ring off of my finger and wore it in his. We were holding hands when we could, and he bothered me for my phone. That night, he added his fingerprint as one of my passcodes so he wouldn’t have to grab my hand to unlock my phone. He went crazy texting my friends. Leo seemed to be a favourite victim.
Camacho, more like Camawhore, right? he began to compose for Leo. “Very funny,” I said. “He already calls himself that.” Instead, he sent him a bunch of messages, all saying “bother,” plus a selfie which he drew over with devil horns and a matching tail.
“Cute,” I said, saving the photo. “Maybe you should send one of those to Kulas,” I added while laughing. I handed him back my phone so he could continue bothering Leo. He took two more photos, one of himself and one of us together.
“Which one is Kulas’s account?” he asked. I gave him Kulas’s Instagram handle. I was getting distracted by the one-man band that was starting to attract a crowd. Looking accomplished, Andrés handed me my phone back.
Hola, it’s me, your friendly neighborhood house-wrecking slut, he sent Kulas, along with the photos he took.
“I can’t believe you did that!” I said with astonishment. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to feel angry at him.
“You told me to.”
“I was joking.” Oh shit. Kulas saw it. He was typing. Nope. He opened his camera, and there it was. Kulas and his new boyfriend. Andrés saw me see it. “Well… congratulations to him for finding someone his height,” I told Andrés while shrugging my shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, laughing and jokingly pushing him away.
“I know,” he said with a smile. I loved it when he smiled like that, naturally, and with his teeth showing. “That’s why I’d make a bad boyfriend. I’m evil incarnate.”
“You’d make a bad what?” I asked again, making sure he knew I caught him saying the b-word.
“I didn’t say anything,” he denied. “Did you want more wine?”
Oh my god, Astrid. He said the b-word. was my first text.
B as in leave us alone, bitch. was his follow-up. His humour was fucked up, but it made me laugh, nonetheless. “I could go for another wine.”
And for another wine we went. We were trying to enjoy as much of the market as we could, but it had started to rain, which kept a crowd under the tents. We watched the one-man band, laughed at a too small crowd doing a silent disco, and checked out a bunch of stickers made by a Mexican artist. They were designed with pop culture icons but reimagined as if they were celebrating Dia de los muertos. I had never seen him so fascinated by anything, and for a second, I forgot he was part-Mexican. Secretly, I was jealous of him for coming from so many cultural backgrounds. He could belong anywhere. The Philippines always made me feel left out, not that being anywhere else in the world made me feel like I belonged there. I made him choose one for me to bring home to Astrid. It was one with a lady in a purple dress and a matching hat. Neither of us could tell who that character was, but we both agreed that she reminded us of Astrid.
After some donuts, we decided to leave. The crowd was getting too big, and we were too full to try anything else. Get some clarity, I reminded myself with my best friend’s words. I was walking with Andrés to no particular destination, the two of us holding hands on our way to nowhere. I couldn’t find the right words to get clarity, so I tried with, “What are we doing?”
“What do you mean what are we doing? We’re walking.”
“No, I meant you and me. What are we doing?” I said, pointing my finger to him and back to me.
“We are walking. You’re asking the wrong question. It should be, ‘what are we?’”
“So… what are we?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wanted to ask you to be my boyfriend last week, but that would have been too much to ask of you. I mean, I’m only here for two and a half weeks, and who knows when I’ll come back. But what would you have said?”
“Nah, it would have been too big,” he said quietly. He let go of my hand. “You’re here for two and a half weeks. You’re leaving on the 30th, right?”
“No, I’m leaving on the 23rd.”
“Really? I thought you said the 30th. The 23rd is nine days away.” I didn’t know how to feel when he said that. Nine days. I should have realised it sooner. We were only on our second date, and I was nine days away from leaving forever. We wasted so much time.
I took his hand again, determined to waste no more time.
“You really don’t want the flowers?” I asked one last time, hoping he’d change his mind.
“You should give them to your auntie. I like flowers, but I don’t like the concept of giving flowers as a gift. They die, you know.”
“Sounds like an appropriate gift, given I’m leaving next week.” I teased. He still didn’t accept them. He instead took me to the food court near the train station so he could raid my phone more while I waited for my train.
“Why do you keep going through my phone?” I asked him.
“Because your life is so interesting,” he claimed.
“How is my life interesting?”
“You live in the Philippines,” he said. He was going in deep, too deep that he was almost at the part where I figured out where he worked. I tried to get my phone back from him. I was wrestling him for it so hard, I fell from my seat. People were starting to look at me.
“Why do you keep hiding things from me?” he demanded.
“I feel embarrassed, Andrés. Just don’t, please.”
“There’s literally nothing embarrassing in this,” he said, still scrolling through my messages.
“Fine,” I said. I was coming clean, “hand it to me, and I’ll translate. It’s in Filo, so you wouldn’t understand anyway. Please don’t think I’m gross.” I explained how I found out where he worked. I told him that I was really good at online lurking because one of my hobbies was to look for the Facebook profiles of the randos who sat next to me at Starbucks.
“Please don’t think I’m gross,” I pleaded. “Plus, you should really turn your location off.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t care. If I didn’t want to be found, it would have been off. And I kinda expected you to do that.”
“Like to obsess over you while I was in Manila?”
He was nodding.
“Do you think I’m gross?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said, standing up, as the security was asking everyone in the food court to leave because it was closing time.
We walked to the station, and again, he let me kiss him on the cheek to say good night. I asked him to go out with me on Friday, to which he answered that it was a lot of going out. I reminded him that I was leaving forever in nine days and that he agreed to be my summer fling. He gave in, and I went home, forgetting to get my ring back from him.
- Astrid was planning to move to Australia in January to study law. She asked me to check out the law schools in Melbourne for her. I never got to because I ended up checking out one of them not for Astrid, but for myself.
- I honestly forgot to continue writing, which explained the long gap between With a Bang and The New Diego. I was preoccupied playing Zelda and colour-coding my Melbourne itinerary.
Life from the Closet 