I stayed quiet rather than admit that no, I had felt no such sign, nor did I believe that I could have. I ran far away from religion when I came out, especially the Catholic Church, which still deemed homosexuality a grave sin. But I did feel a moment of sorrow over the person I was, someone who had a stable set of values, who would have gone to my grandfather’s funeral and comforted Nanay Coro in her time of grief. But there were no phones in Talacsan, so it was a challenge to console my grandmother from America. I had to call an aunt in Manila, who would pass the message along to her, and hope my grandmother would be there when I called again. I had intended to do this as soon as I settled in but ended up not getting to it in the rush of starting classes and meeting people at my new house. Nanay Coro traveled for hours every week to see me when I was young, but she was so focused on turning me into someone who would succeed beyond expectation that I never fully learned how to put the needs of others before my own. A suspicion grew in me that I was more like my father than I was willing to admit, but I escaped into work instead of confronting my deepest faults, which led me to abandon my beloved grandmother at the hardest point in her life, a failure so complete that I didn’t even recognize it as failure at the time.

Instead, I focused on moving into Adams and the second chance it gave me, to be around a new set of people and present a better version of myself than the one who first came to school. I had in my first year dutifully gone to the gym multiple times a week and had grown to adopt that knowing, ironic manner cool gay men were known for. I also saved my work-study money to get my hair cut at a proper salon and found more colorful, stylish clothes.

So maybe that was why, after a year of stilted adjustment, I found an auburn-haired girl walking toward me while I was having breakfast alone in the dining hall before the semester started.

“What are you doing up so early? Classes haven’t even started yet.”

“I grew up on a farm, so I wake up with the sun,” I replied, not quite awake enough to remember my story, that I’d lived in California all my life.

“Lucky,” she said. “I have to go to work.”