CHAPTER 57: A VISIT TO THE PAST

I have been standing here in front of my parents' graves for a while now even I can feel my feet getting numb. But I can't seem to move even an inch of my body. I can't take a step forward or backward. Chuck, knows that I need to do this myself, stands far away from me, watching. He's not moving too and I feel bad but I'm really, still, very scared.

Guilty, to be precise. I'm scared because I still feel somehow guilty. Just really, really sorry. I didn't realize I was crying until it's getting harder for me to breathe. My snots keep running down. Disgusting, but I can't really help it.

"Sorry. I must have looked ridiculous, right?" I crouch down in front of their headstones after a while, stroking them with my trembling fingers. I caress the names on the stone, inhaling, and then everything just starts to pour out of me like a broken dam.

I tell them everything. Everything I feel. Starting from how guilty I felt for being the reason that they're dead. How guilty I feel for taking them from my siblings. I tell them how miserable I was, still am, without them.

I tell them how I did not really apologize to Bianca, and rather she confronted me instead. I tell them how much she has grown over the years since they have been gone. How mature she is starting to become. How scary she is sometimes.

I tell them about uni. About my life there. About my classes. About my works and about the friend I made there. About Chuck and Marsha and Kenneth. About how even after all these times and after everything, they still stick by me and how much we love each other. I tell them about Marsha being engaged with Kenneth and how Chuck is still single because he can't stop playing football even when they never won.

And then I tell them about Allen.

I tell them everything. They're my parents, so of course I tell them everything. Especially the bad things. I want them to tell me to stop doing them. I need them to tell me what to do, because frankly, the only things in my mind, the things I want to do, are not good at all. I know that perfectly and I need them to tell me to not do them.

I feel guilty, sad, ashamed and just overall miserable as I crouch there crying and complaining to my dead parents like the disappointment I am becoming. I choke on my words and perhaps that worries Chuck so he approaches me silently and crouches down beside me, holding me steady.

I've stopped spouting useless things and just cried there in his arms.

Chuck takes the flowers and silently places them on their graves before I ruin them further because I clutch on to them too tightly. I take a deep breath but the tears still won't stop.

"Just cry," Chuck says softly beside me, holding me and caressing my hair gently.

We stay there for a while until I calm down. I look around the hill where my parents laid to rest. It was beautiful. I can see the sea from here. Mom surely loves this place. My grandparents are the ones who decided they were to be buried here. This was my mom's happy place. Or she told me once. She often went here whenever she was upset. She'd stare at the place where the sky meets the sea and she'd dream.

"You did great," Chuck says when I take a deep breath before standing up. He hugs me and I bury myself in him, searching for the comfort he is so willing to give every time.

"Sorry," I chuckle as I release myself from him and try to minimize the damage on his shirt from my tears and snot by wiping them. Not helping, of course. But he doesn't mind. He never does.

"It's okay. You did great," he pats my head gently and helps me wiping my face with a wet tissue before wiping it once again with facial tissue.

"Thanks," I smile at him before taking a deep breath and look down again, "I have to go, mom, dad. I'll visit again before I go back to uni," I blow a kiss for them before taking Chuck's hand and we walk down the hill together.

"Do you want to go back? We don't have to go to my house," Chuck tells me, gripping my hand tighter.

"Nah, it's okay. I do miss your place," I smile at him, reassuring. He hums and nods as we walk to the street to catch a cab.

His place isn't that far from the city center. Only takes about forty minutes from my grandparents' place with heavy traffic. It will be heavy since it's Thursday and almost time to get off work.

We ride in the back of the cab in silence. Me mostly because I am sleepy since I didn't get much sleep last night thanks to overthinking. Chuck is also silent probably because he's busy with his phone which keeps beeping. He has been busy with it ever since we came back home.

"Something wrong?" I ask him when he frowns as he stares at the screen and busily typing away.

"Huh?" he turns to me in surprise as if he just remembers that he's not alone. "Oh, nah. Just Tyler," he turns back to the phone, typing on it and putting it away.

"He okay?" I ask, concerned, of course. Tyler is my friend too, although we're not that close.

"Yeah, yeah," Chuck fidgets and that makes me frown, "he's just asking when I'm coming back cause they need practice," he shrugs nonchalantly.

He just lied to me.

"Okay," I nod, smiling at him.

Of course I know when he lies. I'm Levi. He's Chuck. We know when the other lies. Marsha too. But we, usually, choose not to confront them. Lies can hurt, of course. And it is bad to lie. But confronting won't make any of us three tell the truth. Not when it matters.

That's also why I am sure Chuck and Marsha know more than what I told them. But they choose to let me have my way first and only intervene when the situation calls for it. Usually when it gets too much and I somehow manage to get myself in trouble. But even then, they'd let me know gently and didn't confront me.

I appreciate them for that.

Sometimes, lies are necessary. At least for a short time just so that your head wouldn't explode.

But then again, lying is not good. So, don't lie.

We reach his house in silence. As we get off, I stare at the big gate and sigh. Truly. There are a lot of things I missed.

We get in through the side door and straight to the kitchen to wash our faces and hands before Chuck opens the fridge and takes out two bottled iced teas and throws one at me. I grin at him in gratitude. Today is so hot. It is still summer after all. I drink most of the content before we walk out, greeted by the staff who are familiar with me and those aren't.

We walk into Chuck's bedroom on the second floor. It's truly a room full of clichés of sports mania. It's a big bedroom with many sports ornaments. Signed football jerseys hanging on the wall. Figurines of all sorts. Some trinkets me and Marsha got him every now and then just for the hell of it.

We give each other things a lot it seems and some of them even not what the other person likes. We just buy them because we were thinking of the other or we thought that it'll look cute in the other's room. We're weird, get over it, it's been a while.

And another thing. We have our own drawer at each other's house. Mine is in his room, of course, and Marsha is in the other room for more privacy. Excluding my current house, though, since my parents died and we moved to my grandparents', I haven't checked their stuff but they are probably still somewhere in the boxes at my grandparents' house, though.

Therefore, I walk straight to mine and take out a pair of comfortable shorts and a change of shirt before strutting to the bathroom to change and freshen myself while Chuck changes in the room, throwing the dirty clothes haphazardly.

I walk out after changing and see Chuck already change and is lying on his bed, playing with his phone again. I frown at that. He's not looking good every time he stares at that phone and I start to worry.

"Tyler again?" I ask as I approach and somehow, out of nowhere, Chuck jumps, startled, and stares at me with fear in his eyes. "What's wrong with you?" I frown some more, it almost hurts my head.

He stares at me, gaping.

Well, that's a new look on him.