Taboo (boyxboy)

Pagnanasa 2

I woke up to that blinding light shining through the window, and the voice of the pilot saying that the aircraft is about to land.

It's been seven years since I was last here in the Philippines. My mom and I came back to take care of something.

My father's funeral.

You see, after a year in New York, my mom and I moved to Alberta, in Canada, and continued my schooling there.

I was planning to move back in New York after I graduate from highschool to pursue my dreams behind the camera.

But my dad just had to ruin my plans. Because the day of my highschool graduation, just after I got down from the stage holding my diploma, my mom was dragging me out the auditorium WHILE telling me that my "womanizing-good-for-nothing-idiot-of-a-father-and-his-b*tch" as she called them, were dead. Just like that, she dropped that bomb on me.

Though, I gotta admit, I felt no sentiment hearing the news. I guess I just didn't care anymore. Without communication for about six years, I guess that's what happens to anyone.

So here I am, three days after my graduation, about to see my dead father and his dead wife in a few hours.

"Are you nervous?" My mom asked me, holding my hand.

Am I supposed to feel anything other than that? But of course, that's not what I said.

"About whether the pilot will land us safely on the ground? Or about seeing someone again who walked out of our lives six years ago? Or maybe, you're asking if I'm nervous because of the fact that in a few hours or so, finally, I'm gonna meet dad's other family whom he chose over us. Which is it, Ma?"

She didn't answer back. She just sighed, squeezed my hand lightly and let go, and relaxed back to her seat.

Of course, I'm nervous. As f*ck.

Last night, before I go to sleep uncomfortably in this plane on this uncomfortable seat, my mom told me about dad's other family.

I learned that dad met his mistress at one of his business trips from when I was just barely a year old. It was lust at first sight, they flirted a bit, they had a one night stand, and she became pregnant and went after my dad. Apparently, they liked each other so dad hid her away so no one knew about her and their son. Especially not me and my mom.

We had no freaking idea that my stepbrother and I were going at the same school, and that he was just a grade lower than me. Heck, we didn't even know I had a brother that time.

I'm a year older than him. But because of the education system here in the Philippines, he graduated from highschool two years earlier than me since I stopped for a whole year when my Mom and I were in New York and I had to complete six more years of school complying to the K-12 before I graduate from highschool.

He must be a third year university student by now. And I'm a late enrollee for my first year in college.

My dad married her mistress making him a legitable son, and carrying the name "Salcedo".

I didn't keep my father's name after he and mom separated. I may not have loathed him for what he's done, but I didn't want anything that has anything to do with him either.

Unfortunately, he left a last will of testament.

A part of it says that if anything shall happen to my mother and to him, I am to be under the custody of his wife with their son, until I finish college. And that if anything shall happen to his wife and him, their son is to be under the custody of his ex-wife, my mom, with me, until he finishes college.

And since it was the latter part that got jinxed, we are to take in my stepbrother.

Go to a university, and live here in the Philippines just until he graduates two years from now.

That was the original plan I had in mind.

Until I met him.