They’d had all of one Mario Kart night since their call, but Lucas and Philip had opened a group chat with all four of them in it, and now they texted practically every day. Philip liked to send pictures of his juices and the piles of papers and assignments he had to go through, even while on parental leave from actual lecturing. And Lucas liked to send screenshots of his gaming achievements and Maddie’s many different socks, including a pair of progress pride ones with frills at the edges.
But this was not a group chat conversation, and Oscar didn’t feel selfish for keeping his one-to-one with Lucas alive. For the longest time, this man had been his only lifeline other than Grandma and Lina, and Oscar would never forget that.
So he texted with him about Aaron’s birthday and the restaurant until the bus made him too nauseous to look at the screen any longer. Moments later, Oscar arrived at his stop. And for a minute, he forgot about his melancholy over Papa and missing Aaron and not seeing Luigi.
Every academic year, Oscar got to have one entire week of pretend college life. During the month of February, theuniversity held written tests and exams, for which every student had to be physically present. Oscar had been excited to come the previous year, and despite missing home, he had to admit he was a little excited now, too.
As he walked up the gravel path to the student residences, Oscar drank in the sight. Despite the cold, there were people sitting on benches, soaking up the sun while they revised, flipping pages and quizzing each other, and in the distance was a group playing soccer without nets.
He didn’t need to look at any papers to understand where he was supposed to go. Oscar had memorized the block, floor, and room he’d been assigned this time, one building away from the previous year. He allowed himself a slow walk down the hall and eyed the walls with the same reverence as a devout man on a pilgrimage. From the outside, he must have looked quite lost. Oscar walked as though he’d never seen a notice board before, slowing to read the pinned papers, to study the ads for the parties still ongoing throughout exam season.
He doubted he’d be going to any. There was an exam every single morning or afternoon, one to cover every unit from the first semester. In the summer, there would only be assignments, which Oscar sometimes hated more. It was easier for him to sit at home and cram, to vomit out whatever he’d learned or memorized onto paper over the course of two hours, than to organize research and put together a reference list. Fuck, he hated reference lists.
On the second floor, loud music blasted from the room next door to his, and at the end of the hall, a group of students was sitting on the floor beneath the window, smoking. Oscar knew for a fact that smoking indoors was not allowed, but watching someone break the rules tasted a little bit like the college dramas he liked to watch as a teenager, so Oscar would take it.
It felt like more of an experience than the harsh reality of adorm building full of students far too preoccupied with their actual education to be listening to loud music and breaking all the rules. Oscar was sure there were far more papers laid out on desks in the building than people lying down with their belly buttons exposed for others to drink shots out of.
How he’d romanticized college life as a teen.
As Oscar set down his bag and took a look at the bland but functional room he’d been assigned, he realized that perhaps it wasn’t college he’d wanted all that badly. It was an alternative. Anything other than Marjorie’s Papa-less house.
Oscar snapped his sister a photo, grinning with his eyes crossed and his tongue out in front of the window, through which the soccer-playing students were visible.
Oscar: Guess who’s a college boy now…
Lina: Papa approves!
He spent a little too long looking at the picture that had shown up in their conversation far too many times now, but Oscar didn’t feel sad. Not really. Not right now. As he opened up his laptop and the notebook he’d fattened up with notes, he reminded himself that Papawouldapprove, not only of how far Oscar had come, but of how much effort he’d made to get here.
Who could have told him when he’d run away from home, preferring the streets to his mother, that he’d eventually get his school leaving certificate and find a spot in an undergraduate course?
Who could have told him, back then, that by the age of twenty-one, he’d be living as himself with someone who loved him?
Papa would have, of course. Growing up without him, Oscar used to lie in bed and imagine him coming in as he had so many times before, sitting on the edge and whispering softhopes to him, erasing all the ugliness that would have happened between him and his mother at the dinner table. During those dark quiet moments, Oscar used to close his eyes and imagine Papa calling him by the secret name he’d already chosen, the one he now proudly wore.
I don’t need to imagine anymore, he thought, looking at Papa’s picture, still taking up the entire screen on his unlocked phone.
As a message pinged across the screen, obscuring Papa’s optimistic thumbs, Oscar realized that Papa might be buried, but he wasn’t dead. Maybe he never had been. The man lived on in Oscar’s chest, pumping the blood that kept him living, drawing the breath that kept him growing. He survived in Oscar’s determination to be good, todogood.
CowBoy0705: I might need that cookie recipe if you’re going to be away the entire week. Oops!
More than anything, Papa existed in this love Oscar had, in the way he’d crawl back home on his knees if it would make Aaron happy, in the warmth that spread across him every time he heard Aaron’s voice inside his head.
Because of Oscar, Papa was not dead, only asleep. And maybe Oscar could live with this.
By Tuesday evening, Oscar was no longer so sure he preferred exams, and by Thursday he was ready to go home.
“Come on. One more,” Aaron said from their kitchen. He sat on the bench, his phone propped up against the fruit bowl, which held no actual fruit within it but junk—keys and mail and random jingly balls Luigi liked to chase around the apartmentat three in the morning. “Come on. Tell me the difference between linear and circular convolution of two sequences.”
And Oscar did. Aaron nodded like he understood, but it was enough. Enough for Oscar to repeat it, enough for him to understand he felt confident in his answer, enough to know that there was someone at home rooting for him.
“It’s enough. I know enough.” Oscar pushed away the book he’d borrowed from the library in case he tripped up on any questions from the past papers he’d been working on since he’d returned from his exam that afternoon. “Tell me about your day, boo.”
This was his favorite part of the evening: retiring to his bed with his laptop stretched over his thighs and his head pressed into the pillow, listening to Aaron talk. But on this evening, Aaron shook his head.
“I’m a little tired,” he said. “Is it okay if I go to sleep?”
“Yeah, of course.” Oscar feigned a smile. It wasn’t exactly fair that he was getting upset over Aaron needing rest. For the first time in a long time, he’d secured a gig that would last from the following day until Monday evening. Even if he hadn’t gone to work yet, the thought alone would be exhausting. Exciting. “Good luck for tomorrow.”
