I wanted to tell him I wasn’t American, but I couldn’t because I was American. I would never again be that provincial Filipino boy who stayed close to home. I could never unknow my years in America and the sacrifices I’d made to belong there, to have the accent, the mannerisms, the ways of being of my new country. Even if I did convince Boy with my fluent Tagalog that I started life as a kid from a Philippine province like him, my skin and hair would still distort his perception. I wanted more than ever to be with Samuel, because out of everyone I’d ever loved, even my own grandmother, he was the only one who didn’t care at all that my skin was light and knew me as the person I really was, the person I was meant to be, a kid from a rural hamlet in a poor country who should have been brown but turned out white. No one else could ever know me the way Samuel did, not even Ralph, who up until I came home I considered the love of my life, and probably still would as soon as I landed in the U.S., because I’d covered up that kid for so long that I also hid him from myself, buried him beneath so much education and pretense that there was no hope of ever finding him again, and the best I could do was love and be loved as a ghost of myself.

I dressed quickly and took a thousand-peso bill from my wallet, set it down on the nightstand, and turned the lamp back on.

“Thank you very much,” Boy said, visibly pleased when he picked up the money. He noticed a piece of paper next to where the bill had lain and picked it up too.

“It’s just a friend’s business card,” I said as I snatched it from him. I wondered if he was less innocent than he seemed, if he was capable of keeping the card and threatening to expose me for money.

I led him to the door and told him I had New Year’s Eve plans the following night, but I might drop by in a few days, even though by “might” I meant “won’t.” I didn’t know if he understood everything I said, but there was still hope in his face when I closed the door, and I regretted having given him so much of myself.