Chapter Twenty
The second Evan opens the door and sees her, his smile drops. Ordinarily she would be smitten with his flour-smeared cheek, but now all she wants to do is cry at the sight of him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. He brings her inside and Tallulah runs circles around her, but Dalisay doesn’t even have the heart to greet the dog.
Anticipating what’s to come, Evan pours Dalisay a large glass of red wine and sits her down at the dinner table. It’s already set and ready, the pasta in a large bowl, but she hardly registers any of it. Over the next half hour, she tells Evan what happened with Nicole.
“Yikes,” Evan says, then again: “Yikes!” He takes a sip of wine from his own glass.
“It was horrible,” Dalisay says miserably. Her cheeks feel hot and crusty from all the crying she did on the way over.
The two of them were supposed to have a romantic night together, with him making pasta from scratch, dining over candlelight, then inevitably falling into bed together, but she’s never felt less in the mood for romance.
Dalisay’s lower lip quivers. She stares at her plate without seeing it at all. All she can see now is Nicole’s heartbroken face. “Daniel tried talk to Mom, but she wouldn’t listen. And when Nicole finally got home later, they had this huge blowout argument. Nicole kept saying this is who she is, but Mom doesn’t want to listen. Either Nicole goes back in the closet and never talks about it again, or she moves out.”
Evan asks softly, “What is she going to do?”
Dalisay shrugs. “She was crying so hard. She could barely talk. I’m not sure.”
Evan sighs and rubs his chin and nods. “Does she need a place to stay? I can convert the office. I’ve got a cot and some blankets.”
Dalisay shakes her head. “It’s one thing that she’s gay, it’s another thing entirely if she stays at an unmarried man’s house. Alone.”
“Fair,” Evan says. “The offer still stands anyway.”
Dalisay stares at the untouched plate of spaghetti in front of her. “You know how my mom is. She has this vision of the future, a vision that might as well be prophecy, set in stone, and when anything changes, it’s hard for her to adjust.”
“No, I understand.” Does he? He sounds more resigned than anything. She shakes her head, clearing it.
“It’s just not fair,” she says. She’s repeated those same words over and over, like a mantra, but it changes nothing. “Nicole and Claire can still be together, but they can never … be together. Not like us. Nicole has to keep hiding who she is from the world.” A tear tickles her cheek, and she brushes it away.
Evan takes Dalisay’s hand and squeezes, comforting her. Dalisay wishes it were only that easy. As a fixer, this is one problem she can’t do anything about. Nicole’s worst fear has come true, and it is all Dalisay’s fault for suggesting it in the first place.
“I don’t know what to do,” she says. “I told Nicole this was a good idea. I thought, maybe, because it’s her, everyone would be happy that she’s happy. But …” Dalisay tucks in her lips, trying to stop herself from crying. It’s starting to hurt from holding her breath, but she’s afraid it might turn into a sob.
Evan squeezes her hand again, stands up, and comes around the table. He kneels in front of her. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s not your fault. You can’t control what other people think.”
“But I thought I was helping,” Dalisay says. “And now I think Nicole hates me.” When Nicole came home, she couldn’t even look at Dalisay. She might as well have been invisible. “This is all my fault.”
“Nicole can’t hate you!” Evan kisses the tears that have fallen down her cheeks and brushes what’s left away with his thumb. He’s so gentle, and soft, and Dalisay secretly wishes he’d stop because otherwise she might really start crying again. He looks at her, steadily, and says, “Your mom is just intolerant. No one can change her mind.”
Dalisay flinches at the word “intolerant.” He’s not entirely wrong, but the way he says it makes Dalisay feel that he thinks lesser of them somehow. Something in her snaps, and she lashes out. “Please, stop judging her.”
“I’m not judging!”
Dalisay turns her head, breaking Evan’s touch on her skin, and he pulls his hand back.
Evan licks his lips, flustered. “I’m saying I think it’s pretty shitty to threaten to ostracize your kid over being gay.”
“Family is everything, and it doesn’t just mean relatives. She’s worried that Nicole will become a pariah in the entire community. No one will speak to her, no one will accept her. She’s trying to protect her, in her own way.”
“So it’s right that she’s acting like this? Being cruel?”
“Of course not! But I can’t let you criticize my family when you have no idea what you’re talking about. Just because you have American values doesn’t mean everyone else automatically does.”
Evan looks taken aback. After a beat, he stands up and goes to the sink, his back turned to her. She can see his shoulders tense up as he holds his breath and slowly lets it out. She can tell he’s thinking hard about what to say next.
Dalisay shudders, suppressing this gnawing ache growing in her belly, and she can’t stop the tears as they flow.
“I don’t know how to help,” he finally says. “I want to understand, but at the same time, I can’t pretend like that’s okay. I can’t imagine doing that to my own kids.”
“You don’t get it,” she says.
Evan spins around, pleading. “I’m trying! I care about you! I hate seeing you like this.”
“It’s not just this,” she says. “It’s like we’re on two different frequencies.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve been good, right?”
Dalisay hiccups, wiping tears away with her knuckles. “It just sounds like you’re projecting your values onto my family, when that’s not fair. You can’t expect everyone to be like you.”
“I don’t care that your family is conservative or whatever. I care about you. I hate seeing how it’s tearing you up, and I can’t just sit back and take it with a straight face.”
“If you cared about me, you would understand where I’m coming from, why this is so important to me. Why my family is the most important thing.”
“Dalisay.” Evan drops his shoulders. “I don’t know why we’re doing this. We’re from different places, yes, but we’re more than that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never uprooted your whole life to live someplace else. I don’t think you’ll ever understand what it’s like being me, being a part of my family.”
“I want to!” Evan says, pleading now. “I want us to be a team! I am on your side!”
“How can we be a team when it feels like I’m always having to apologize for my culture? Like the shoe thing at your parents’ house!”
Evan drops his arms to his side, defeated. “The shoe thing? That’s still bothering you?”
“I felt like such an idiot, that whole time. They thought I was dirty—”
“I’m sorry! I know! They suck! Fuck ’em! But I don’t want you to apologize for anything! I’m the last person you have to explain it to. But I am trying so hard to understand because this is all coming out now and I don’t know why!”
The tears are flowing now. Dalisay wipes her face and chokes on a sob. She hates what’s happening. It’s like the foundation she’s carefully laid for herself is crumbling beneath her.
Evan runs a hand through his hair. “Why are we even fighting?”
At this point, Dalisay doesn’t even know. All she knows is that she’s hurting. A deep, aching, gnawing pit of loneliness is wrenching its way out of her, whether she wants it to or not.
Evan comes to her again and kneels in front of her. “I’m sorry, okay?” He holds her hands, bowing his head to look into her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He reaches up and lifts her chin, dragging his thumb over her lower lip. She melts under his soft gaze, and the tears that lie heavy in the back of her throat recede.
She kisses him. She wants to forget about everything for a few moments, throw herself entirely into him, disappear under his touch, let her mind go quiet for once. She pulls him toward her, fisting his shirt tightly, and he replies in kind with a soft sigh.
He rises, threading one arm behind her and dragging the other up, tangling his fingers in her hair. It sends shivers down her spine as he nips on her lower lip, and he holds her tightly, as if refusing to let her go. Her heart pounds through her whole body, thumping with heat, and she closes her eyes. She winds her hand under his shirt, desperate to touch his bare skin, feel his stomach and his ribs. Everything else melts away, and all that’s left is Evan, here and now.
She spreads her legs, framing them on either side of Evan’s body, and he pushes her dress up her thighs and squeezes the softest parts of her hips, teasing at her underwear. He stands, half-hunched over her, and she knows they can’t do it here.
“Bedroom,” she says.
He takes her upstairs, his hand never leaving her waist, his lips seemingly finding new spots on her bare skin as they tumble into the bed together. He whips his shirt off, depositing it on the floor, and Dalisay grabs at his shoulders, feeling his muscles flex as he braces himself over her body.
He pulls back, a breath away, and his eyes meet hers, as if he’s trying to read her. “I don’t want this to be makeup sex,” he says. “I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”
“What do you believe in?” she asks, levering her hips against his.
He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes widen ever so slightly, blazing with desire, and he swoops in to press his lips against her neck. She stretches for him, letting his mouth electrify the soft, delicate skin below her ear and her nipples harden as he slides a hand against her breast.
Finally, inches from her ear, he whispers, “You.”
A laugh wrenches itself out of her but even the cheesiest line doesn’t turn her off. She kisses him again and pushes him aside. He topples over, falling onto the mattress.
“That bad?” he asks, grinning.
She straddles him, sitting on his hips, crosses her arms, and pulls her dress over her head. No bra today. Evan’s eyes blaze, and he reaches up and grabs her chest, rising to sit and meet her. He pinches her hard, brown nipples, then cups a breast to his mouth. She arches, letting her head fall back, the feel of his tongue wiping every thought from her mind.
Tomorrow, she can figure it out. Tomorrow she can make everything right. But now, all she wants is Evan.
“I believe in making you feel good,” he says against her chest. His fingers slide down her underwear. “I like making you feel good.”
She pulls herself off him and kicks off her underwear. Evan, too, throws his clothes aside, like they’re running out of time. She lays on her back, and Evan’s hands hold on to her bare skin, grab her hips, and they’re so used to each other, moving with the same goal, and still—even now—when his mouth presses between her thighs, it’s like new. Except now he knows exactly how to please her, every tiny movement that makes her lose herself. She needs this, needs to feel like nothing else matters but this tiny universe where only they exist. And while his tongue works against her, drawing the orgasm out of her, she would give anything to live in this moment forever.
He watches her as she squirms under his touch and unravels in his arms. She cries out, releasing the tension that’s been building inside her. The pleasure rolls over her in wave after wave.
Evan raises an eyebrow as he lifts himself from her, smiling in that satisfied, self-assured way that used to drive her crazy, and crawls to meet her lips.
Still pulsing with the rush of her heart, she pushes him aside, making him laugh, and gets to her knees and straddles him again.
She can’t control many things in her life, but she can control this. She lets him get adjusted with his condom, and then she’s on top of him, kissing him, losing herself in the feeling of him under her because now it’s her turn to make him feel good. “God, Dalisay.” His voice is throaty and raw and the muscles in his neck strain under her lips. Goosebumps rise on his skin as she breathes with each thrust, driving him deeper inside her.
He lets out another gasp, then jerks and wraps his arms around her, holding her so tightly against his chest, she knows exactly how it feels to never want to let go.
When they’re done, flushed and breathless, Evan kisses the slope of her neck, her jaw, and then her mouth, like he’s planting promises.
“You made dinner …,” she says, regretfully, settling into his side, his arm tucked around her. “You worked so hard, and all I did was talk about my drama.”
“Believe it or not, I want to hear about your drama. I care about you.”
In his arms, she feels safe and secure, nothing like she’s ever felt with anyone else. This is how it’s supposed to be. “You’re sure about the pasta?”
“It’ll make great leftovers.” Evan reaches over to the nightstand and hands her his phone. “I think tonight is a pizza in bed kind of night anyway. Order whatever you want. I’ll be right back.” He plants a kiss on her lips and then disappears to the bathroom to clean up.
Dalisay settles into Evan’s bed and pulls the sheet over her chest and starts scrolling through their favorite pizza place’s menu, when Evan says, from the bathroom, “You know, I was thinking … What if you didn’t have to leave?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you consider, at some point, moving in with me?”
Dalisay nearly falls out of bed. “Are you serious?”
Evan reappears, smiling, and pulls his T-shirt on, popping out through the neck hole. “Yeah. I mean, you don’t have to move here, we could find our own place.” He locates his underwear and hops into it. She would have thought it would have been sexy, if not for the fact that her whole body has gone cold.
“Are you crazy?” Her eyes practically bug out of her skull.
Evan’s body tenses. “I thought … Wait, is it too fast?”
“Too fast? Evan, did the five stages of courtship teach you nothing?” Her heart feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest.
Evan reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp. The warm light fills the room, and she can see him clearly now as he watches her with open sincerity. “I’m sorry, I thought we were ready.”
Dalisay rakes her fingers through her hair and takes a deep breath. She’s still naked, and she feels exposed. She locates her shirt and buttons it up, along with her jeans. She didn’t mean to jump on him like that, it just came as such a shock. Most people in Manila live with their parents well into adulthood, even when they’re engaged. She expected this as much as a kick in the gut. What Evan’s talking about is beyond the realm of propriety.
She’s not ready, is she? It’s not that easy, is it?
Evan licks his lips. “It’s really not that big of a deal in America. Couples move in together all the time. It’s kind of like a marriage test run. You see how compatible you are cohabitating, see how well you work together assembling IKEA furniture, figuring out each other’s quirks, test out if you could actually put up with me every day.”
For a brief moment, Dalisay can actually picture it: her and Evan kneeling on the living room rug, assembling a new bookcase from IKEA, Dalisay organizing all of the parts into neat piles while Evan pores over the instruction manual; waking up in his bed, no—their bed—and brushing her teeth next to him in the bathroom; reading together on the couch, not worrying about checking the clock to make sure she gets home on time.
But it would fundamentally change her relationship with her family. Would she really be willing to risk all of that?
“It’s different for Filipinos. JM and Pinky have been together for five years and they still live with their parents.” Dalisay falls back into her pillow, staring up at the ceiling, letting her mind race. This is yet another difference between their two cultures. “Living with a man is almost unthinkable for an unmarried Filipino girl,” she says.
The corner of Evan’s mouth lifts. “Then I guess we’ll have to get married.”
Dalisay looks at him and his smile drops like an anvil. “Don’t even joke about that.” Her voice is sharper than she meant.
Evan rocks back, his shoulder dropping, and his face softens. “I’m not joking.”
Dalisay palms the top of her head, heart pounding. Marriage? But … but—is it too soon? “People shouldn’t rush into marriage. Divorce is a terrible thing.”
“Divorce?” Evan almost laughs but catches himself. “Trust me, I know … but how did we get to divorce?”
Dalisay sits up and takes a breath, running her fingers through her hair again. “I’m just saying, living together is like … a promise. A huge one. The biggest promise you can make. It means we’re … real.”
“Aren’t we real right now?”
“Yes, but …” She’s not sure why she’s so hung up on it. Wouldn’t she want to marry Evan? Isn’t that what her subconscious has been preparing her for? Isn’t it so easy to imagine herself walking down the aisle and seeing Evan waiting for her at the altar? Her heart yearns for it, even now while he’s frustrating her.
But is she sure she’s not rushing into this? How can she be absolutely, one hundred precent positive that this is how it’s supposed to be?
Maybe it’s like Nicole said. Maybe she’s scared to jump into the deep end too. Scared that it changes everything.
“I figured we could take what we have to the next level,” Evan says.
“But if we move in together, and if it doesn’t work out …” Dalisay can’t finish the thought. If. If. If. Damn that word. “If” is the one word that seems to define her whole life. She’s terrified of every good thing in her life having an expiration date. So then why is she holding back? Even she barely understands. She doesn’t not want it to work out. She has never been happier, so why does it feel like she’s suffocating every time she breathes? Everything is happening so fast, first with Nicole and now this. She can’t catch her breath.
Evan takes up his spot on the bed again, reaches over and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Hey,” he says, softly. He cups his hand against her face and turns her head to his, making her look at him. She melts into those big brown eyes and feels her body relax. “I love you, Dalisay.”
Is that the first time he’s said so out loud? Her heart beats like a jackrabbit.
Evan runs his fingers through her hair, looking at her with such tenderness and care. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“My family …”
“What about them? It’s not like I’m asking them to move in with me too.” He says it like he’s joking, but a pang of something white hot shoots through her.
“Did you not hear anything I said earlier? Where I come from, couples moving in together before they’re married is out of the question!”
Evan’s smile drops. “You were so worked up about Nicole, I thought maybe you wanted some independence.”
“Well, I don’t!” she snaps, more fiercely than she intended, and Evan leans back. It’s like she slapped him.
“You really don’t want to move in with me?”
“No!”
Evan looks hurt now. “Because you don’t want to marry me.”
Dalisay’s heart beats furiously in her chest. “That’s not why!”
“Then what?”
She stares at the ceiling rendered speechless, trying to find a reason that would make sense. Are they too different? Are they too swept up in the physicality of each other? Are they really compatible, or are they trying to shove a square peg into a round hole? No! She loves Evan, really, she does. But moving in is such a huge commitment. She can so easily picture her life with him here, but it just feels wrong. She is devoted to her family, wants to care for her mom. The filial piety is so engrained in her, it’s hard to describe, much like how it’s hard to describe why she loves her mom so much, despite her attitude toward Nicole. She just does, she just has to.
Words are her whole life, and for once, she can’t find the right ones.
When Dalisay doesn’t say anything, Evan throws his hands up. “Who cares what other people want, or what your mom wants? What do you want, Dalisay?”
Her throat tightens and the words come out hot. “This is what I’m talking about! You don’t know my family, you don’t know anything about where I come from. I’m not like you, and just because I say I don’t want to do something, it’s not because I only obey my family’s wishes. What I want is for them to be happy.”
“That’s not true! It’s always been about what your family wants, from the start, and you can’t even see that your family is mistreating your own sister, just constantly stuck in this”—he clenches his fists in front of him, searching for the words—“backward mindset. You can’t let other people control your life!”
Tears prick her eyes, and she holds her breath, smothering the urge to cry.
The color in Evan’s face fades, and something crosses his eyes in a split second that makes him drop his shoulders. He turns, walks away, and drags his hand down his face. When he looks at her again, his eyes are red. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Right, so everything about me is backward.”
He groans. “I meant, we’re in the twenty-first century! Why is living together such a big deal? I don’t get it!”
“Tradition is important to me! The Five Stages, all of it! Why isn’t that enough?”
“Help me, please! I’m trying to understand! Because we’ve been sleeping together, all this time, and somehow that doesn’t count? I know your family wants you to stay ‘pure’ until marriage. So why do some traditions matter and others don’t?”
Having her own hypocrisy thrown in her face hurts more than she imagined. “It’s complicated.”
Evan’s voice is thick. “But moving in together isn’t.”
Tears swim in Dalisay’s eyes, and it’s so much worse when she sees them swim in Evan’s too.
“My family is protecting me. They’re not controlling me.”
“Yeah, well, it’s really hard to tell the difference.”
She chokes on a sob. Anger makes her face hot. “They don’t make decisions for me. My mother is not your father,” she says.
That hits a nerve. Evan’s face scrunches in on itself and he turns away from her, rubbing his hand on his face again. The tension in his shoulders makes his movements stiff. She can tell he’s trying not to cry too.
She watches him, holding her breath, and it starts to hurt. She knows it was a low blow, but she had to say it. She doesn’t know how to get through to him. And yet, she regrets it immediately.
Evan, meanwhile, takes a deep breath, hand still on his face, before he turns around again. His eyes are glossy, but he’s doing his best to keep his tone level, even though she can hear the strain in his. “So, what pizza did you pick?”
“No, we are not pretending like this conversation never happened!”
“Well, I don’t know what else to talk about! You don’t want to move in with me, you jump immediately to the prospect of divorce—”
“I just want you to listen to me and respect my decision!”
“A decision hinging on your family’s approval. Tell me I’m wrong. Please.”
The words are out before she can fully process them. “I can’t marry you.”
The hurt on Evan’s face is acute, like a full-stop punctuation mark. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Evan’s breath comes out in a shudder and the tears in his eyes threaten to overflow. “I think you’ve made the decision for the both of us. You said what you want, or what you don’t want. That’s all there is to it. Besides, I’m not sure I want to marry into a family whose love is conditional anyway. What if our future kid is gay, or trans, and your mom decides to treat them like she did Nicole? And we have to be cool with that? We have to respect that?”
He’s right and she knows it, but too many words have been thrown around for any rational thought to enter her brain. “Let me deal with my mother.”
“Sure you will.”
The disdain in his voice is crystal clear. “Right,” Dalisay says, her chin wobbling. Her cheeks itch as the tears fall, but she refuses to wipe them clear. “We’re done, Evan.”
He doesn’t move, he just watches her with his hands on his hips, his face red as he holds his breath. His words come out in a rush. “That’s it? We’re breaking up?”
Before she leaves, she turns around and looks at him. It hurts to do so.
“I really had you pegged from the start,” she said. “You don’t know anything about me.”