Day 57

In a better mood than the two days before, I enter Kyle's room tentatively. Only to be met by his scowl. "You're here later than usual. Why?"

"I don't have to answer to you," I softly replied.

"Come again, grasshopper?"

"I said I don't have to answer to you!" I exclaim. "It shouldn't matter if I'm later than usual or not. It should just matter the fact that I'm here." Kyle raised his brow at me and appraised me for a moment.

"You're right, Renata," he replied. "Just testing your backbone, dear."

Rolling my eyes I hand him his birthday card. "So I'm guessing prick is on the menu today?"

"Prick deep fried with this sexy face, yes," said Kyle as he made a circle directed at his face with his pointer finger.

I sit down and chuckle. "Always with the comebacks. When you meet your maker, are you going to annoy him like you annoy me and your friends?"

"Absolutely! After all, if the maker made all of us, then there's reason to argue he likes me with my comebacks just the way I am. I may have even been designed this way!" Kyle shrugged as he said, "I certainly don't fit the stereotypical Asian-American."

"Was that the goal?" I asked him.

"What goal?" he asked.

"Was that the goal of reinventing yourself when you were younger? That you didn't want to be tied down by the Asian-American stereotype?"

"Nobody wants to be tied by the Asian-American stereotype, Renata," sighed Kyle. "The problem with the other kids like my little bro is, they don't fight hard enough to overcome the stereotype. To be more than just a living breathing example of how the human condition may almost appear robotic or ridiculously overachieving. Do you know what happens to overachiever's Renata?"

"What?"

Kyle shakes his head before looking out of his window for a moment. "Nothing; forget I even mentioned it. There will be overachiever's long after I'm gone anyway and nobody listens to the dead."

I looked at his eyes and noticed the pain there. The pain that his days are numbered and he's fighting to sound like he's okay with it just like Kyle fought since he was a kid the Asian-American stereotype. "Well, pretend I'm an overachiever. What would you tell me, oh wise one?" I made sure to sound serious about it, but I know I smirked anyway.

"I would tell you...to not forget to look around once in awhile. That even though there's some contact high I guess, in climbing and overcoming obstacles, that there's more to life to seeing what you can win."

"Good answer," I replied. "Here's your cookie." I handed him his card and he looked kind of disappointed.

"You know what cookie is also slang for right?"

"No, I don't," I deadpanned. I knew exactly what the slang cookie was for. Like I was going to tell him I knew...I only know because Lakeisha told me that if a boy wanted to see my cookies then it was a come on.

Kyle surprisingly, looked relieved for a moment, before opening his birthday card. "Your wife becomes ill again, with an ailment no simple bedrest can fix. You spend your birthday sitting by her bedside, holding her hand, and praying." Kyle considered the words from the card for a second before shaking his head. "Wrong."

"Wrong?!"

"Yeah, wrong. If my wife becomes sick, I'd visit her sure. But stay at her bedside? I'd much rather be with you."

"I know this is all hypothetical, but are you saying you would prefer being with your mistress instead of your wife when your wife needs you?"

Kyle shrugged as he said, "I know that makes me sound like a bad person but the heart wants what the heart wants. My wife will always hold some special place in my heart because I wouldn't have kids without her, you know. However, we never promised in our vows to be together in sickness or in health. We got married at the courthouse, not a church. It's not like there was a priest saying if we'll be together in sickness or in health either."

"Still, that's a horrible thing to admit."

"It's horrible Renata, I know that; but it's my truth. I guess what I'd like to know is if you'd take me with the knowledge of how I truly felt about you and my wife?"

I didn't give Kyle an answer then. The truth was, my heart would have taken him even if he admitted to a string of murderers on his death bed. It was too terrifying a confession to say aloud. My mind though, knew Kyle wasn't just an eccentric. He was someone who deserved exactly what he got. Lung cancer from his stupid vaping and only his brother to see him from his family. In fact, that day I knew my truth.