*20. The storm*

                                    

                                          
Krist knew that eventually he would have to face reality, but he still was hidding at New's house for the entire week. The following week, they had the first exam of the semester, and the boy didn't feel prepared at all, even more after the events of the last few days.
The boy went to the hospital every day, hoping that his mother would change her mind, but she had forbidden his entry and asked the doctors to tell him anything. Apparently the one taking care of her was her current boyfriend, although Krist had heard that the man didn't show up every day. Even though he couldn't see his mother, Krist made a point of going to the hospital every day and always spent some time in the reception room, waiting for a doctor to contact her to find out about her. At first, they tried to not talk about her condition, but later they changed their minds. Krist was grateful about it. 
He also refused to speak to Gawin. Maybe he should hear Gawin's side of the story, not least because the boy had no way of knowing what was going to happen to his mother, but he was associating that escape again with Gawin's late boyfriend, First, and Krist felt he would never make it competing with the boyfriend's memories of the boy. How do you compete with someone who was dead and seemingly the embodiment of perfection?
One night, returning from drama club rehearsal, New tried to convince Krist to change his mind. He had also dropped out of rehearsals, which had brought Neo to the brink of a heart attack.
"You can't avoid him forever. Gawin is worried about you. He spent the entire rehearsal asking me where you were and if I would help him talk to you. Neo had to kick him out of the rehearsal room so that we could continue."
Krist was bitter and he knew it. Running away from his problems wasn't going to help him, but he just couldn't be rational at the moment. The weight of the world was on his shoulders and all he wanted was to sleep and never wake up.
New tried to convince Krist to go to drama club rehearsal on Saturday, but all the guy wanted to do was lie in his bed. New was worried that his friend would end up going into a depression, but his mother promised him that she would keep an eye on the boy while he was at rehearsals. Reluctantly, he abandoned his friend and went to university.
Krist spent the rest of the afternoon lying in bed, tears running down his face at times, but no crying spells overtook him. It was like there were no more tears left to cry. From time to time, Mrs. Thitipoom came to see how he was doing and offered him something to eat, but he wasn't really hungry. The day before, the doctor had warned that his mother would be released that Saturday, but the woman was explicit asking him not to attend.
At some point in life things become much more difficult than simply being banned from going on a school field trip because of bad behavior. It wasn't easy to understand the transition, when to play games gave way to responsibilities and consequences of acts that always came back to haunt him. Krist had thought a lot about what a terrible son he the last few years had been. Maybe that was his punishment. He should have been more caring to his mother after his father's death, but the two ended up growing apart, to the point where he felt comfortable saying something unforgivable during a fight. And if it was unforgivable, it meant there was no going back for their relationship - and it was all his fault.
Krist's phone was turned off. There were a few already days that he didn't bother to recharge the device's battery, and apparently New had forgotten that day too. Krist saw no point in staying connected, when all he wanted most in the world was to disconnect forever from people, get lost in his own mind and never be found again.
He heard knocks on the door and was surprised that New was with so much ceremony to enter a room that belonged to him. The boy wanted to say that his friend could come in, but he didn't feel much in the mood to say anything. He simply waited for New to get tired of waiting for some sign from him and open the door - which his friend did not long after.
But it wasn't New who was knocking on the door. Krist realized this when the voice spoke, awakening in him such conflicting feelings that the boy thought he was going to die in that moment.
"Hey how are you?"
It was the unmistakable voice of Gawin.
Krist took a while trying to compartmentalize his feelings so he could process what to think; how to fell; what to say. When he turned around, Gawin was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at him with visible concern.
He lingered for a few seconds, staring into Gawin's eyes, before he says anything.
"What are you doing here?" Krist asked, finding the same old anger inside him.
"I'm worried about you. New said you refuse to eat, barely leave your room. You need to take better care of yourself..."
Gawin started to touch Krist, but the boy backed away as if something dangerous were closing in on him. Gawin stopped his hand in mid-motion, startled by the boy's reaction.
"Why are you here anyway?" Krist asked in an irritated voice. Why did he get irritated every time Gawin showed up? What was happenning to him?
"I already told you. I'm worried about you. You stopped going to college, you're not eating, you're not taking care of yourself... Let me take care of you!" Gawin was practically begging.
Then Krist understood.
He didn't think he deserved someone to take care of him, the same way his mother didn't want him to take care of her. At first, he was angry because of Gawin's disappearance last Sunday, but it's not about it anymore. This was the punishment he was inflicting on himself for being a bad son, for saying things that hurt his mother, and for being reckless. He didn't deserve a person like Gawin in his life. That anger had nothing to do with Gawin's disappearance the week before; it wasn't anger directed at the boy. It was himself whom Krist hated.
"Hey, let me explain what happened over the weekend. I had no way of knowing what happened, I didn't have a phone with me..." Gawin tried to explain, but Krist cut him off.
"You always have an excuse, don't you? But the truth is, you can't let go of your dead ex-boyfriend. But you know what? He's dead, he's not coming back."
"I know that, okay. I couldn't just let you know that I was going to travel to..."
"Of course, you couldn't. You don't tell me anything, do you? How do you tell your current boyfriend that you're still not over your ex? That First will always be a shadow in our relationship and that I'll never be as good as him? But I don't want to know anymore. You're never there when I need you, Gawin, so you don't need to be here now."
"Krist, please be reasonable."
"I'm being as reasonable as possible. Do you think that because my mother doesn't want me, then I'll accept any kind of attention someone offers me? But from you right now I just want distance."
"Krist..."
"Go away, Gawin. And, by the way, we are nothing from now on. Not boyfriends, not even friends. Nothing."
Krist turned and closed his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing more than anything that Gawin wouldn't buy into that crappy he'd just spouted. But a few seconds later, he heard the bedroom door open and close again.
In that second, Krist found that he did have tears left to cry.