Phoenix_Marco

Florante Mendoza builds a wall and distances himself from the people around him. Larry, the witty, funny, big-mouth Larry crashes in head-first onto Florante's  walls and throws a party! 

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Party crasher, wall breaker, smile summoner boy falls head over heels with the sad boy. Sad boy holds back, looks back, runs back, hides back to the safety of his walls. Will they ever meet halfway?

The Summer I Fell In Love is a coming of age story that explores friendship, love and teenage alienation. Two boys  embark on an adventure to seek their rightful place in the world. As they traverse unfamiliar territories, both within themselves and the world around them, they must confront the challenges that will put the strength of their friendship to the test as they navigate through the twist and turns of adolescence.

The Summer I Fell In Love

It's been a month since classes have resumed. Larry and I have been hanging out in the library every day of the week during breaks. My impression of him has improved one notch from 'Tolerable' to 'Not bad'. I am still trying to deal with his machine-gun of a mouth to no avail so I just let him talk and talk and talk some more until he choked on his own saliva or locked his jaw. Not that I wish he would. I buried my face in the pages of my books but he did not seem to mind talking to the air or to half of my consciousness. He's a clown. Sometimes funny. Irritating at most. When he took a break from talking, he requested for me to read out loud. Request rejected. So he asked to borrow my Walkman. Can't. So we shared headphones instead.

In one of his narratives, I found out that he's a Filipino-American born in United States, California. They moved here 6 years ago because his father insisted. On what grounds? I do not know and I don't care enough to know.

Being the only Fil-Am guy at school, he was incredibly popular. Larry amassed a huge fan base mostly from the juniors. His fans would always give me the 'eyes' every time we hang out.

The 'eyes' made me feel agitated and I want to return the favor by gauging their eyes out from their sockets one by one. But I learned to live with it. Besides, it's not me they're staring at most of the time, but Larry.

He was oblivious to his popularity though and chose to hang out with me instead.

Larry. I can't believe this guy. He can blend with everyone without breaking a sweat.

Lately, he's been following me like a dog-tail and I've exhausted all the ways of getting rid of him so I just let him do what he wanted. Not that I knew what he wanted. But still, ignoring him took a minimal effort on my part. I particularly excel in shutting people off.

Chapter 6