"I kissed a guy at a bar last night." Larry said while we were in the library. Not reading. Just hanging out. I've lost my appetite to read these past few days. Books no longer interest me. Maybe it's just a phase. Nana said boys my age were constantly outgrowing things. Like that one time when I was a kid, I stopped wearing my favorite Power Ranger t-shirt mom gave me as a gift when I turned four years old. It was not something drastic though or planned. It just happened. I woke up one day without any desire of wearing my Power Ranger t-shirt, just like I had grown tired of playing with my toys. "Are you even listening?" I doodled on my notebook lost in the song called 'You Oughta Know' by Alanis Morrissette. "I am." "Do you remember Cyndi? You've met her at Tina's house party." I nodded. "Michael broke up with her and she was devastated, she called me asking if I can give her a lift home. Her mom's a half-sister to my dad so that makes us half-cousins. I went to the address she gave me and waited outside just like she said. I waited for an hour but there was no sign of her so I decided to take a look inside and there she was with her friends. She introduced me to them. Two girls and a guy. Her girlfriends were busy consoling her so I was left with this guy named Troy. We were sitting opposite to each other and I could tell he's a bit drunk cos he kept staring at me with his droopy eyes. We talked about lots of things. He went to prep during his high-school years and he's currently studying Filmography in college. Are you still with me?" "Yep." "And then he offered me a drink. I refused but he insisted and he had his peculiar way of convincing me to drink cos life is short he said, and we might not meet again. He said 'Would you be kind enough to share a drink with this stranger, Larry?' he's kind of funny and he had this guttural voice in him and his Adam's apple moved back and forth every time he spoke and his dimples sunk on his cheeks when he smiles. And I kind of like the way he's carefree in a bad boy kind of way, you know what I mean?" I nodded and kept pressing down the ballpoint of my pen against the back of the notebook I was doodling. "And then he told me if I'd like to go outside for a breath of fresh air. We went outside and we were smoking in his car. He was telling me some funny jokes and we both laughed in a drunk stupor and then we stopped laughing and we were both staring at each other's eyes. He had sad brown eyes just like yours Florante. And then he pulled me close to him and kissed me on the lips. It was a peck at first and then we both pulled back, as though we're both shocked at what just happened, and then we were staring at each other's eyes again, and then he kissed me on the lips again, slower this time until we were both kissing each other hard and fast, tongues involved. After that, he asked if he could see me again. So, I gave him my telephone number."

By the time Larry finished talking, the back of my notebook had all been reduced to scratches, massacred with holes from doodling. "Bad boy called you yet?" "Yeah, he did. He wants to meet up." "Good." 'What do you mean good? Do you want me to meet up with him?" "Does my opinion even matter?" "Of course it does." "You've already kissed him, and you liked it. Try it again for good measure." "No, he kissed me." "What's the difference anyway?" "You made it sound like it's a bad thing." "Well, then it's a good thing. If that's what you want to hear." "Don't assume you know what I want to hear." "Why tell me then?" "Cos I have no one to tell it to aside from you?" "Cos you have kissed me and you can compare, and that's why you think my opinion matters, is that it?" "I did not say that." "Well then since you asked, here's my honest opinion: I don't give a fuck about your make-out session with this bad boy college guy," I grabbed my things and headed home. Larry was saying something behind my back but I turned up the volume of my Walkman so I could not hear anything but Alanis' voice drilling through my brain like a mad wood-pecker. We were just about half-day through our classes but I did not give a damn. I wanted to go home and punch something.