Today, AJ and I left the house a few minutes away from midday. The thoughts of what seemed like a confrontation with Ate Gemma persisted in my head. I kept thinking about how embarrassed I was yesterday. Did it matter if I answered or not? What would have been her reaction if I had lied? If I had told the truth I didn't have a girlfriend, would have that diminished the manliness I have been trying to project for myself after a while? Wasn't my blushing enough to keep her silent and never bother to pester me again anyway?

'Out of the frying pan and into the fire.' This cliche should explain well of how I feel now and what I have always felt while at the pretense of cohabitating with AJ. I love him and he loves me. I want to be free but he is scared and so I am. There was a time he readied himself for the revelation but that was the time I changed my mind. I don't want to ruin the respect he has earned for himself, and attributed to him by his family and mostly his neighbors. There are just so many consequences to deal with. So long as we have each other, we'll try to deal with all these adversaries that come our way. Though it means constricting our rage of this egregious picture of sexual discrimination.

That wasn't the first time my gender was put to test. People have always been so speculative, skeptical, of who and what I am. They might have some faint ideas but these are bridled for fear of hurting me or staving me off humiliation. On one hand, there are offendingly blunt people who want to see my embarrassment, see me contract like an anathema, laugh at the ridicule of my sexuality. I enjoyed the previous jobs I had had but I had to leave. My upbringing did not prepare me to readily ward off such innuendos. For years, I have learned how to keep the pain filtering through my human individuality. But I surely know who I am.