3. COMPONENTES TECNOLÓGICOS DE UN C4ISR
3.7 Arquitecturas distribuidas orientadas a servicio y publish-subscribe
3.7.3 arquitecturas Event-driven
Chapter 10: A Not So Heart to Heart Conversation
“M-Mom,” Alec was half-gagging, half-stammering by this point. “I. ah… I was, ah… Andrea”
Despite the demanding presence that Mrs. Worthington presented, I couldn’t help looking at Alec. Never have I ever seen him look so nervous. His hands were right in front of his crotch, his fingers fiddling with each other.
The stance he was on was so humorous that a mini laugh attack exploded within my mouth.
I quickly gulped it down, though, since Mrs. Worthington’s gaze was directed towards me.
“Young lady,” she remarked.
What should I call her? Old lady? Madame? O-high-mighty-your-highness? My brain wasn’t functioning well.
“Um, hi,” and then out the most boring greeting ever. “I’m Andrea.”
She smiled coolly. “I’m Victoria Worthington, Alec’s mother. If you kindly elaborate to me about your relationship with my son.”
She was using such big words and weird phrasing that it took me a while to process what she actually wanted.
My brain, despite its near-kaput condition, managed to translate it to ‘Are you Alec’s new girlfriend?’
“No-no,” I said, forcing a sweet smile. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Alec also shook his head.
Mrs. Worthington arched a perfectly trimmed eyebrow. I wondered how much she paid for the lady to pluck it to be so photoshop-y. “Are you paid, then?”
I nodded.
At the same time, Alec shook his head. “She’s not, Mom. Please!”
“She’s nodding,” Mrs. Worthington pointed out. “You’re nodding.”
“I am nodding,” I confirmed.
An awkward silence ensued.
Alec was messaging the skin between his eyes, his breathing sharp and sounded painful. Mrs. Worthington studied me for a while, although I was pretty sure that I possessed nothing that could possibly impress her.
And then it hit me.
It hit me hard.
When she was asking if I am paid, she was implying something else.. something… something terribly terrible.
“No, Mrs. Worthington!” I briskly rebuked. “No, I’m not paid for that! I was paid for something else.”
There was a twitch of amusement on her lips, as if urging me to go on.
“Could you please stop talking?” Alec muttered under his breath to me. And then, to his mother, “No, Mom.
She’s just a friend.”
Mrs. Worthington nodded, the spark of interest in her eyes was entirely gone.
“Why are you coming home, anyway?” Alec asked quite curtly.
“I’ve done the filming. Can’t you pretend to be happy to see your mother?”
In respond to that, Alec suddenly beamed brightly. Too brightly, in fact, that it didn’t look so fake. “Is Phillip with you?”
“He’s parking the car.”
It was imperceptible, but I saw Alec rolling his eyes. This Phillip fella was not someone he was fond of.
“Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, then,” Alec said, and then, grabbing me by the wrist, swiveled towards the ladder once more. “I think Gabriel’s cooking duck today.”
“Tasty,” his mother commented, although there was no inflection in her tone. “I’ll be seeing you in twenty minutes, then.”
“And Phillip, too.”
She nodded. “And Phillip, too.”
With force that I didn’t expect, Alec dragged me with him to go back to his room. I was facing his back so I couldn’t check on his face, but the way he stomped his way to the room was… scary. Plus, he still hadn’t released my wrist yet. In fact, it looked like he had already forgotten that he was still holding me.
After he slammed the door shut, he finally released me.
“Your mother is very pretty,” I said, unable to contain my excitement. The way Victoria Worthington acted, there was just something about her that made her seem untouchable. Just like those expensive artwork that people put on the stage with a spotlight.
“My mother,” Alec exhaled sharply. “is nuts.”
“She looks nice.”
“Doesn't make her any less nuts to me,” Alec didn’t even begin to consider my words. “And I hate Phillip.”
“Who’s Phillip?”
“Her toy-boy. He’s just five years older than me.”
I tried not to showcase what I’d been feeling inside: a sudden case of emotional tsunami. That’s right. I just remembered that Alec’s parents were split. He’s living with his mother, which he can’t make anymore clearer whom he dislike, and her sister’s living with the father.
But damn. That Victoria Worthington was living THE life. I bet she was pushing fifty but she still got nice skin and nice figure. Not only that, she was with a boy much younger than her, and for owning this kind of house, she must have a really good career, too. She was a real-life Madonna without all the paparazzi hoo-hah.
She was the kind of woman I aspire to be.
“You’re thinking of her, I can see it in your face!” Alec observed. His eyes roamed all around my face, before he added. “You think my mother’s absolutely and completely cool.”
My blush seemed to confirm his suspicion. He groaned lowly, all the humor that was previously colored his face was gone, replaced by deep, rooting frustration.
“What? Is it so wrong to think that your mother’s cool as fuck?”
“You don’t live with her.”
“Still doesn’t make her any less cool to me.”
Another groan. “Then have dinner with us.”
“What?!”
Alec wasn’t smiling. This one wasn’t a joke for him. “Have dinner with us. You think my mother’s cool? Great, you have to be my shield, then.”
“What in the friggin fuck are you talking about?!”
“One of my mother’s hobby is to pick out every single detail in my life and shred it into pieces,” Alec said, exasperation was palpable in his tone. “And Phillip’s just as bad. I hate having dinner with them.”
“Then how did you cope before?”
“She’s almost always away,” he said. “And usually I just go out when I know that she’s coming home.”
Well… that was not healthy. In fact, if I were being totally honest, it was borderline crazy.
I was struggling for a reply when I saw Alec reaching for his wardrobe. He opened it and looked for the cabinet, shuffling the things inside. After a while, he took out a bottle of whiskey.
Now that was a surprise.
I knew he occasionally drank beer at parties and such. But everybody drank once in a while, especially when socializing. This kind of drinking wasn’t good. This kind of ‘drinking-something-strong-alone-at-night’ behavior wasn’t what people would have expected from him.
Besides, he’s an athlete. Aren’t he supposed to take care of his health?
He put the bottle on his table and shuffled more things inside his wardrobe. In a few seconds, I saw two short glasses for shots.
“Want some?” he asked me. Without waiting, he already poured the liquid to both glasses.
“I don’t-“ I exhaled. “Oh, Alec.”
He didn’t say anything, and instead just lifted both of the shots up to the air, and crinkled the glass to each other.
In two fast gulps, he dunked everything. His face was scrunched and I was sure that the drink was burning his throat, but he reached the bottle for more.
“Stop it,” I found myself saying. “You’re going to have dinner with your mom.”
"That's the point." Alec’s smile was brilliant. “I’m a much more pleasant person when I’m drunk, haven’t you hear?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Relax. I’m not an easy drunkard.”
“Whatever. You’re screwed up.”
“Maybe I am,” he said.
I tried not to look to his face, but when I did, I almost regretted it. He looked sad, like there was an invisible shadow looming over him. He was sitting at the corner of his bed and his back was hunched, something that I never saw him doing. Alec Blaze never slouch, he always smiled and he never had problems.
Or at least, that’s what he was trying to project to other people.
I bit on my lip, finding no words that would be suitable to say at situations like this. I’d never been emotional and I always found it difficult to deal with this kind of intense turbulence. Finally, I did the one that I could do. I took the shot glasses from him and put it back on his wardrobe. I had to conceal my surprise as I saw even more bottles of both opened and unopened alcohol at the top cabinet.
How long had he been doing this?
“You are judging me,” Alec said. And it was not a question.
I closed the wardrobe, not having the heart to turn around and show him my face. I was, I was judging him. I was comparing the perfect Alec that he kept showing people and the broken person he really was.
“Sorry,” I said.
“You’re not even trying to deny it.”
I sighed deeply. I sat beside him and felt a little zap as I felt the warmth around his body. He was still slouching and we hadn’t seen each other’s face for what seemed like a long time. I stared at my hands, they were aching to touch him, to provide him some kind of comfort. I just didn’t have the confidence that I could.
“You’re fine, Alec,” I finally said. “I mean, people have problems. It’s normal. It’s fine.”
There was a very long pause.
I was in the verge of dying due to heart attack. Most of my friends had been girls, and they were so vocal about their emotions. When they were sad, they’d tell me that they’re sad and cry about it. When they thought that my advice was bad, they’d tell exactly that. But Alec was a pretty private guy, as I just realized. I couldn’t tell if he was sad right now, or if he thought that my words were totally ludicrous.
And yeah. After a while, I decided that it was indeed ludicrous. Here he was, he was showing me his drinking problems. He was showing me his family problems. He was obviously deeply troubled by it, but all I could say was ‘it’s fucking fine’.
Really, I should read more of that Chicken Soup shit. Maybe it’d give me more insight on how to console people.
But then, after five minutes and twenty seven-second (yes, I was neurotic enough to count the seconds inside my head), Alec let out a small chuckle. “You’re right.”
“What? What am I right about?”
“About the normality of problems,” he reminded me. “Or have you forgotten the things that you said earlier?”
This time, I really looked at him. I looked at his clear green eyes and took in the dark circles around it. Most people would never realize that Alec had dark circles and frown lines because he was almost always smiling, but at that time, I found out about it.
And this might sound totally ridiculous, but I felt like I had become closer to him.
Just suddenly, my mouth starting to speak on its own. “How long have you been drinking alone?”
“A while,” he snorted a small laugh. “After I figured out how to make a fake ID.”
“Do other people know?”
It took him a while to answer. “No.”
“You’ve always been so perfect.”
He blinked in surprise.
For a moment, I felt the need to cover up my mouth diarrhea by saying something stupid or a joke. But then, words kept rolling out of my mouth. “You play basketball, you date around, you go to parties and you have good grades. Boys want to be you and girls want to date you. You’re some kind of a role model, Alec.”
He smiled, but it looked rueful. “Now, that’s the longest compliment that you’ve ever given me. Is that sincere?”
“Shut up.” I looked down to the ground. I didn’t think I could handle looking at those green orbs again. I wasn’t the one receiving the compliment, but my heart had already been going over the speed limit.
But I steeled my resolution.
“Don’t start getting ideas,” I said. “Don’t even dare to think that I’m falling for you just because I’m complimenting you.”
“Oh, Andrea,” he burst out laughing, and it was the kind of laugh that was sincere. “Honestly, I’d never dare to think of that.”
“But you’re always telling people that I like you.”
“It’s just the same as how you always tell people that I’m a despicable jerk.”
I frowned. “Well, it’s true, though.”
“I never try to hurt those girls, at least not deliberately.” he said defensively. “I’m just playing along with their games.”
“Their games?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” there was sarcasm on his tone. And then, he started sprouting words in a high-pitched voice. “Alec Blaze is rich and popular. We should date Alec because he’d totally pay for everything we buy and he’s going to take us to these gorgeous parties.”
I gasped, because at the amount of truth that his sentences had. While I never actually took his wealth and popularity into account, all of my girlfriends had. At one point, one of them even said that Alec bought her this expensive bag, and the other girls hung up on each of her word. On the next day, they all started flirting with Alec.
Now, if I put it that way, it sounded that the girls were the bad people.
“It’s not…” I began, but I didn’t know how to finish. “They don’t… well, it’s not like they’re…” then I lifted both of my hands in surrender. “I give up. You’re right. The girls can be total bitches.”
Alec snickered, an honest-to-God, totally amused snicker. His shoulders shook as he tried to suppress his
laughter, but in the end, he managed to put on a semblance of apathy in front of me. “I mean, yeah,” somehow his face became even sadder than before, although something that flickered inside his eyes was a total giveaway that he was joking. “I’m such a pained victim, Andrea.”
“Stop it, you jerk,” I pushed him away from me. He still couldn’t contain his laughter, and I knew I should be mad at him. But the crinkles around his eyes totally distracted me. Alec had a very good smile.
“It’s just the way you talk, Andrea. It’s like you’re talking to a person in the verge of committing suicide.”
“You’re drinking whiskey before dinner. It’s the same like you’re committing a long-term kind of suicide.”
The smile shrank as it lost most of the humor. I nearly gritted my teeth because I much rather seeing a happy Alec than a gloomy one. It just didn’t seem normal.
“Don’t worry about me, okay?” he said.
“I’m not worried-“
But I couldn’t finish, because I felt his fingers on my cheek. Alec’s fingers! On my cheek!!
Oh God, I felt a zap of electricity running all around my body in rampant, sending shiver through my spine and giving me Goosebumps all around the place. His touch was gentle, calculative, and I sat there frozen. All of a sudden, my mind brought me back to the even a week earlier, when he lunged for my neck, and heat rushed to my face.
“Be still, Andrea,” he hushed.
As if I could move if I wanted to.
His movement was slow, but I felt like he was going fast. He inclined his head, while simultaneously he tipped my chin so that my face was up. My breathing fastened as I saw his face so up close, his striking green eyes bored into mine with intensity that I’d never expected to see. I closed my eyes, I couldn’t bear all of this in all time. But still I couldn’t move. I couldn’t.
Or wouldn’t?
He was starting to get so close, and I took a gasp. Just as his face was inches away from mine, though, I smelled his alcohol-induced breath, and suddenly found my control back.
Forcefully, I jerked my chin away from his hand. I didn’t dare to look at his face, but I didn’t want to look weak so I didn’t look down on the ground to. I just stared at another direction as the long and agonizing silence ensued.
The calamity of this situation just transpired inside my head. ‘Alec Blaze just tried to kiss me. And I rejected him.
A big fat no.’
Why, why, why, why?
Thankfully, Alec was the first to get up. I heard him straightening his clothes and walked to his wardrobe again.
This time, he didn’t even bother to get the glass, he just drunk the whiskey straight from the bottle. Fortunately, he didn’t drink too much.
“So, you want to eat some duck?” he said after he was done. I couldn’t detect his emotion, I couldn’t detect what he was thinking. Hell, I didn’t even dare to look up and meet his eyes.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He was about to take another gulp, but I stopped him. “Don’t.”
I thought that he wouldn’t listen, but he did. Somehow, he did.
“Sorry,” I said, still not looking at him.
Suddenly, his face appeared below mine. He was bowing his head so low that he could meet my eyes up front. As soon as our gaze meet, the crinkles appeared again. “Don’t worry about it. I just picked the wrong signals. Honest mistake, that’s all.”
Something about his tone calmed me. Either he was a really good actor or he truly didn’t think about it. I struggled for a while, but then I managed a smile. “You’re not a pleasant drunk. You’re just a sad, sad, sad, emotional drunk.”
He laughed and joked back. “Yeah, and you’re a bad, bad, bad consoler.”
We smiled to each other, but it only lasted for a second. He coughed then, and glanced at me. “Ready for my mom?”
“I’m sure it’ll be delightful.”
“Just… don’t… humiliate me, deal?”
“Only if you pay me another fifty.”
I meant it as a joke, because he seemed to always pay me to do things. But apparently, he took it seriously. “If you manage to not let her talk to me, I’ll even pay you a hundred.”
I only looked at him long and hard, trying to determine whether or not he was serious about it. But then this thing happened again. Ever since his sister’s birthday, everytime I tried to look at him, my body would react in the most uncomfortable way. I averted my gaze and spoke: “You don’t need to. It’s just a bad joke. I’m helping you as a friend.”
And maybe it was just me imagining things, but the way Alec beamed, it looked as if he was a child getting his first Xbox. In other words: exuberantly jubilant.
And how I liked seeing that kind of smile coming from him.
---That's a super sickly sweet chapter compared to the ones before. ^^ Prepare for more of those coming, because as Andrea and Alec get to know each other, they won't be acting like cats and dogs anymore, no?