Memory of the Past

Tomorrow would be a whole month since Zach visited; a whole month of calm and silence. A whole month too long to cause Eddie to think that Zach has given up on him and moved on with his life. Eddie is in his room listening intently for the movements outside in the kitchen. Cabinets opening, the refrigerator closing, a few light steps, and finally the front door shutting. A sigh of relief escape his mouth as he begin to stand up to open his bedroom door. ‘Why is it that I can’t face anyone besides Zach? Why can’t I talk to the deliveryman who comes every Friday? Jeez, I see him more often than Zach, and I can’t work up the courage to talk to him?’
Even after a whole month, Zach’s presence still lingered in the apartment. The flowers he delivered were long dead, but few petals remained on the kitchen countertop. Eddie can’t seem to keep the boy out of his mind. Perhaps it’s because he is the only one he talked to in five years, perhaps it’s because the boy’s persistent character that caught his attention. Whatever it is, he can’t seem to use books to cover the image of Zach. Tonight’s Christmas Eve. Eddie ordered a small turkey with his online grocery shopping. He decided to try and make a Christmas dinner even though he is alone. ‘At least someone will be happy with a family tonight.’ Eddie felt alone for the first time in five years. He’s always had his books but today he wants and needs some kind of human contact. He began flipping through the pages he printed out from the internet on how to cook a turkey.

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Zach spent a whole month researching on the internet on any advice from any legitimate psychiatry sites. He has prepared himself with the new knowledge and armed with a renewed energy inside him. He is ready to face Eddie again. He told his parents that he has to stay at home to study. He told them that he took up extra courses at the university so he can’t go on the annual family trip to Hawaii. His plan worked. He is now alone in the house and devising a plan to surprise Eddie. He has the Christmas present ready and his heart can’t wait to see Eddie again. A smile spread across his face from ear to ear.

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Eddie’s culinary skills have never been challenged like this, but the result of his first attempt in cooking a turkey comes out successfully. He placed the turkey on the dining table with everything else set up. He smiled thinking that he has managed a nice dinner all by himself. He sits down at the table and closed his eyes. He begins to pray silently.
Lord, it’s been your mercy and grace that I can be here tonight and enjoying this meal. I come today to pray for those out there in the world without food and clothing and ask for your power to look over them. I pray that you would help me to grow out of this solitude phase soon. I pray that you would help me live life to the fullest for the coming year. I pray in your most precious name. Amen.
Eddie opened his eyes and takes in the aroma of the turkey. He immediately feels something is out of place. He wrinkled his eyebrows and seems to have lost his appetite, so he puts down his fork and stared at the turkey. One would think he is deep in thoughts at the moment, but his mind is completely blank. After several minutes, Eddie places the turkey in the oven to keep it warm and cleans up. He doesn’t want to eat. While he is cleaning up, a knock at his front door makes him drop the metal utensils in his hand. He glanced at the door, and his heart begins to beat faster. Hope of seeing Zach again bring a smile to his face, but doubt filled his mind, and he walked to the door, opened the door with just enough slit to see about two dozens of roses on the floor in front of the door. His breath started to come a little faster when he saw the flowers. He closed his eyes and starts to close the door as a hand suddenly shot out and stopped the door.
“Hello Eddie.” Said a man in a low, growling voice. Eddie’s voice came in faster pace now and he grabbed the door tightly. He starts to push hard, but the man is strong even with just one arm. A gasp and moan came out of his mouth as he slid to the floor, tears streaming down his face. He brought his knees to his face and wrapped his arm around his legs.
“You are being rude you know. You should welcome me in, not close the door on me.”
“Leave, you are not welcome here. I don’t want to see you.”
“Aww, now you are being irrational, I know you want me back. I know you long to feel someone next to you in bed again. Don’t you love me?”
“…”
“What do you say? Let me in?”
“No.”
The strange man stopped talking as he sees a young man walk down the hallway. He is humming happily and does not see the older man blocking his destination. He looks up when he bumps into the strong body in front of him. Shock written all over Zach’s face as he sees a stranger in front of Eddie’s door.
“Who are you?” Zach says with an accusatory tone.
“Is it any of your business, boy?”
“Yes it is. You are blocking me to my friend’s apartment.”
“Well, well, I didn’t know you have taken up someone, Eddie.” The man says through the slit of the door.
“Please just leave.”
Zach heard the wavering voice of Eddie, and he stared at the man with a vicious look, wondering who the mysterious man was. The man is tall, long black hair in a ponytail shows his square face. He seems to be in his early thirties. He is dressed respectably and his movements show a man with arrogance.
“You heard the man, now leave, you are not wanted here.”
Zach looks up at the man who is about half a head taller than he is, yet Zach always tower over the man in some invisible way. Slowly the older man backs down and smiles with a wicked look. He gestures to the door and watches intently as Zach walks toward the door and speaks through the slit.
“Is this a bad time, Eddie? I’ll come back later if you want.”
“No! Stay! Please. Don’t leave me now.” Fear filled Eddie’s voice and tightened Zach’s heart when he heard the desperation in the voice.
“It’s okay. I am here. Can you let me in?”
Silence ensued, but the body blocking the door slowly moved away and Zach slid in. He looked at the man outside. The man seems to be in anger, and his fist is shaking slightly at the sight. Zach simply closed the door and ignored anything or anyone outside it. He now looked down to see Eddie in a ball, trembling with silent sobs. Zach puts down everything he brought on the floor and sits next to Eddie in silence. He isn’t sure if he should touch the man or not, Eddie looks like he will break any moment. He looks so fragile.
“Eddie, come on, talk to me, I am listening.” Zach tries to say that in a soft and comforting voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” With that, Eddie wipes away the tears and snouts with his shirtsleeve and looks at Zach with watery eyes. He then stands up to walk to the dining area to pick up the metal objects he dropped earlier. Zach picked up his things and followed Eddie to the kitchen. Eddie just cleaned up and walked into the bedroom. Zach, unsure of what to do, stands idly in the kitchen and looked in the direction of Eddie’s bedroom. He begins to walk toward the room. At least the door is open, so that means that my presence isn’t intruding. The room is dark, but he can see the figure on the king sized bed. It’s so big, it can fit four people on there. The figure is still and the room is silent. Zach sits down on the bed. The man next to him is quite still, and Zach just wants to see what the older man is thinking. He wondered what caused the stoic man to break down in such a way. He slowly lied down on the bed, yet still an arm’s distance from the other man. He just listened to the slow breathing and fell asleep himself hearing the calming sound.

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Eddie woke up to the sound of clanking in the kitchen. He glanced at the clock, which said 11:47, and he wrinkled his brows. Fear and nervousness filled is mind as he wondered who is in his kitchen. ‘Today’s not Friday, so it’s not the delivery boy… Delivery boy! Zach!’ Eddie scrambled up and ran out of his room just to see Zach look up from the set table. Their eyes met and Zach beamed the best smile he has and pulled a smile from Eddie’s face. The room seemed to brighten up with Zach’s presence. The room is so cold when Zach is not there, at least to Eddie. Now that he is here, the room seems warm and welcome.
The table is set with the dinner dishes he prepared last night and everything is steaming, giving the room a surreal look.
“Come on, before the food turns cold. Took me a long time to heat it up. Sit!” Zach said with his energetic self.
“Thanks, but I should like to brush my teeth before I eat.” With that Eddie disappeared into the bedroom and into the bathroom. He stayed on the toilet deep in thought until a knock on the door broke his train of thoughts.
“You are not ignoring me, are you? Don’t tell me you fell in the toilet. Or, or you climbed out of the window to escape, in that case you wouldn’t be able to answer me.”
“I am still here, just give me a few more minutes, okay?”
“Hurry up!”
Eddie emerged from his room five minutes later to see Zach squirming in the chair impatiently.
“Come on, I am starving! Let’s eat!” Zach begins to stuff his face with the food and the already carved turkey. Eddie took a seat opposite of him and smiled softly. Zach was trying to say something but his mouth was filled with food.
“I don’t know what you are saying, chew, then tell me.” So Zach closed his mouth and begin to chew vigorously. He gulped down some apple juice and washed down the food.
“Eat! And after you finish, we will open presents! After all, it is Christmas!”
“What presents? I didn’t get anything for anyone.”
“Just eat now, and we’ll talk about that later.”
The two ate in silence for the rest of the meal and Eddie gained back his appetite watching the young man eat. They cleaned up together and went into the living room. There, Eddie found a small Christmas tree in the corner with several decorations and lights on it and a couple presents lay at the base. They sat down on the couch and Zach couldn’t seem to keep still.
“Those gifts are for you! Are you going to open them? Come one, open them!” Zach said handing Eddie the smaller present. The box seems to be light, and Eddie’s guess was a book, but he was wrong. He ripped the paper apart and found a DVD. The movie is ‘A Christmas Story’. Eddie looks up to see Zach smiling like a five year-old.
“That is my favorite holiday movie, and now we can share it!”
“Thank you. But I don’t have a television. I guess you can take it back.”
“Aha! I got you there! Here, open the next present.”
Eddie held the heavy box in his hand and looked at Zach.
“Open it! Open it!” Zach said while clapping his hands.
Eddie tear at the wrapping paper and saw that he held a portable DVD player in his hands. His eyes started to water and quickly closed his eyes and swallowed them.
“Remember last time when I came over, you didn’t want to go out to see a movie. Well, now you can stay right at home to watch a movie. Ha.” Zach said with triumph in his voice and he was happy that Eddie hasn’t kicked him out yet. He wondered who the man was last night, but he’s not going to ask with the memory so fresh. He’ll work slowly toward his goal and get it out of the man one day. “So let’s watch the movie, you’ve seen it right? I just love it! Come on, we can snuggle up and watch it now!”
“Thank you for last night.” Suddenly Zach stops squirming on the couch and looks at the older man with a greater intensity. Eddie continues. “I would have been so paralyzed that Mike could have just charged in and I wouldn’t have any strength to defend myself. I think it was he who was sending me flowers during Thanksgiving time. You know, when you came a month earlier.”
“You know, if you don’t want to talk about it, we can just watch the movie.”
“No, you should know something about myself. Mike was a good friend in college. We were the inseparable friends in college. We met during the freshmen orientation when he was playing with his other friends and crashed into me. I sprained my ankle because of him and he felt bad for me. So he stayed with me for a whole two weeks to help me carry stuff and go to places. In that short period, we became such good friends, and well, inseparable. It was until one day, our day of graduation to be exact, that we stopped being friends. He told me that there is a party on the roof of our dorm and so I went too. Only I found later that he lied and he almost took advantage of me. He and I went through so much. He helped me through the toughest times, but he also gave me the toughest time I have ever had in life, which was about a year before that event on the roof. Hmmph! I just thought of him as a really good friend, and I thought we just grew closer and closer, but I was wrong. Anyway, I don’t know if you understood all that, but I guess that’s a little bit about myself. I don’t know why he is back now. I look back now and I can see that he was only trying to get me in bed that he became friends with me. He was always so close, sometimes too close. I never thought he was mean or anything. Perhaps I was too blinded by my own innocence, but now I know.”
Eddie looks up with a saddened expression on his face and tried to smile, but fails miserably. Zach now moves closer to the older man and tried to hug him. Eddies starts to sob more violently and all the memory starts to flow back, and his brain is flooded with images of his past and there is nothing that can stop the deluge. They just held onto each other for minutes, hours until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
It was late in the afternoon that Eddie woke up and cursed himself for his own weakness in front of the young man. He just wished that all his life he will always be strong. He wished that he doesn’t have to put on the mask of strength, but let it be real. He tries to slip from under the teenager, but woke him anyway.
“Hey, where you going? Are you making dinner? Cuz I would like that.” Zach mumbled with his face still in the other man’s chest. He finally looks up to see that the other man has wiped away his tears, but the trail can still be seen. ‘He will never be able to hide himself from me now. I wonder if that’s why he secluded himself all this years.’
“What do you want to eat? How about I just heat up some frozen pizzas?”
“That’ll work. Thanks! I hope you don’t think I am leeching off ya!”
“No, it’s fine.”
Eddie begins to work on getting the pizza into the oven while Zach sat on a stool to watch the man.
“What are you staring at?”
“You… A mystery… I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what I am looking at? Because I really don’t know you, and you are really not telling me the whole picture, are you?”
When Eddie heard this, he just stood in place and closed his eyes. He can’t turn around to look at Zach, because he was afraid that he will give himself away too much. So he just froze in that place.
“I am sorry. Forget what I said.” Zach said as he noticed the man become stiff. He moved too fast for Eddie. “I’ve bothered you enough today, huh? I should go anyway. If you ever want to talk, I guess you can call me at this number.”
Zach got off the stool and gathered his things while looking at the man facing away from him. He again missed the quavering lips that older man had on and was ready to call him back. Eddie just can’t seem to work up the courage to bring the past up, not to anyone. He barely has enough courage to think about the event himself, how can he just spill it out to a stranger?