Aloe’s not a very active person. The most exercise he gets is his long walks with his dogs and the commute to campus, but other than that, he spends most of his time lying down in a comfy spot.

But right now, Aloe can’t really feel much comfort in his own home. Staying here brings up memories of yesterday’s rejection.

He considers taking his dogs out on a walk, but when he sees the pouring rain outside, he goes against the idea.

The best he can do is bunker down on the sofa, surrounded by his three dogs, and read a book to distract himself. It’s a series he’d been meaning to start, but no matter how engrossed he gets, memories of his rejection keep plaguing his mind.

He groans in frustration. If only he could have some other form of distraction, then he can get his mind out of its hellish loop of repeating his cringe-worthy blunders.

His phone rings, and for a minute, he fears who it is that would call him on a night like this. There are only two people who would call him, and he isn’t exactly open to speaking to Basil right now.

He’s just not ready.

Aloe doesn’t blame Basil. The man is clearly uninterested in men, Aloe especially, and his emotions are entirely his own. He already feels lucky enough to be friends with a guy like him.

What he’s disappointed in is how much he fucked up something good he had. Because he couldn’t be normal, he ended up putting them in an awkward situation.

The phone continues to ring, and when even his dogs get antsy from the constant noise, Aloe finally checks who it is.

Oh, thank god.

He answers the call. “Hi, mom.”

“Hey there, buddy,” his mother replies. “Are you okay? You sound kind of sick. If you’re not feeling well, I’ll go call Basil to take care of you—”

“I’m fine.”

The other line goes silent. He can only hear the muffled sounds of paperwork and incessant typing. Aloe rushes to try and apologize for being rude, but her mother sighs.

“Alright, sweety, I won’t press you further. But if you really feel sick, you should have yourself checked, okay?”

Aloe wants to hit himself. He’d already made things difficult with Basil, and now he has the nerve to act like this toward his own mother. There must be some kind of award out there for the worst person in the world.

“Thanks, mom. I will.”

She chuckles. “Don’t think too much about it, kid. I know how you get sometimes.”

Aloe mirrors her laughter with his own, feeling relieved that she isn’t too upset at his stupidity. 

When he checks the clock on the wall, he realizes that it should be pretty early for his mother overseas. It’s rare enough that she’d have the time to call, but her check-ins usually happen in the early hours of Aloe’s side of the world.

“What’s up?” Aloe asks, leaning back on the couch and reaching for one of his dogs—Fidel, it so happens to be—to hug it close. “Did something happen over there or…?”

It goes quiet for a brief moment, and Aloe feels as if she’s about to raise a heavy subject. Unlike Aloe, his mother is a confident and well-articulated woman. There are few times Aloe could recall where she’s tongue-tied like this.

“You know I’ll be visiting for your birthday, right?”

Where is this going?

“Yeah,” Aloe responds in a cautious tone.

“Well, you see, there’s someone who wants to meet you.”

Aloe isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he can easily figure out where this is headed, and he doesn’t like it one bit. He sighs when he realizes what this call is for. 

Every year, it’s the same conversation over and over.

“Listen, baby, you don’t have to meet with your father again if you really don’t want to. But I just want to give you the option.”

“Mom, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I can handle this right now.”

“Aloe, baby—”

“Let’s just drop the subject. We haven’t talked in a while, and I don’t want to fight,” Aloe tries to explain in as calm of a voice as possible. He puts a hand on his head to keep himself from saying anything awful to someone well-meaning. “I don’t really want to meet him right now.”

The last he’d spoken to his father was when his mother took him to visit. It had been his eighth birthday then, and when he learned he wasn’t going to a theme park with his mom, he threw a pretty big tantrum.

Aloe’s twenty now, so it’s not like he’d throw a hissy-fit if he ever saw the old man again. He doesn’t even know if hate is the right word to call what he feels.

It’s a weird mash of anger, guilt, pity, and all the other things Aloe couldn’t name. And though Aloe can’t quite grasp what it is that makes him feel this way, he knows that if he were to see his father now, they’d wind up just hurting each other.

“Alright, Aloe. I won’t force you if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks, mom.”

Another bout of silence. 

“Aloe, you know me and your father love you very much, right?”

He doesn’t know how to reply to that. Or rather, he doesn’t know what his honest reply to that is.

So instead, he just makes a half-hearted grunt in response.

His mother doesn’t press any further. Neither does she try to extend the conversation, and in the end, they bid each other a quick goodbye before dropping the phone call.

It’s always like this.

He and his mother had a good relationship, but when it came to his father, things got a little tense. It makes him wonder how she could still be so kind to her ex-husband that had cheated on her with another man.

Sighing, he tries to shoo away the thoughts, preferring to return to his book. There’s no point in him trying to understand such a complicated relationship.

But just as he had read the first line of the page, his phone rings again. Groaning, he answers the call.

“No matter what you say, I won’t go—”

“Huh?” A different female voice responds. “Aloe? Is something the matter?”

Right.

He forgot that there’s actually someone else he contacts, albeit, solely for the purposes of schoolwork. Although after the events of their little alcohol binge, he wonders if that still applies.

“Oh… Sorry about that, Sage. I thought you were someone else.”

She laughs it off. “No worries. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Are you free after class tomorrow? I want to talk.”