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“The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.” — Confucius
Fucking Pete was here again. He’d want to talk, play one hundred bloody questions. Get all happy-clappy because Will could remember something so fundamental as his own address.
Didn’t he have a fucking business to run? One Will built, and Pete was no doubt screwing up. He’d given Pete and Bo and Aileen, and the fucking smiling medical staff what they wanted—he talked. And in fucking complete sentences too. He showed them he remembered everything from the twelve month forward order for Chery autos to the combination for his locker at the golf club.
Now all he wanted was for them to leave him the hell alone. He wanted to swim laps until he choked on chlorine or lift weights until he felt light-headed. He didn’t want to do art therapy or walk with Bo or talk about his pain to some counsellor whose personal version of trauma was a broken fingernail.
He thought if he gave them what they wanted, they’d relax, stand the fuck down with their eerie vigilance and hopeful cheer. A man gets bashed and can’t walk or talk and everyone around him gets all judgmental eyes and false optimism. Treat him like a two year old. Applaud when he could stand up without having to hold onto walls. High five each other when he could eat a full meal without vomiting it back up. But what creeped him out the most was the way they tried to hide what they were really thinking.
He’d see that instant when the horror of watching him stumble, the disappointment of seeing him fail to remember, and the frustration of him not speaking, crossed their faces. They’d frown or flatten their lips, or he’d hear their breath puff, then they’d smile, big toothy, fake, ‘everything is all right’ smiles.
He didn’t stumble anymore. He remembered, and he gave them what they most wanted. He talked. Now he just wanted to be left alone.
But he should’ve remembered silence is a true friend who never betrays. He should’ve figured that once he admitted to being able to talk, that’s what they’d want him to do, as if they were starved for the sound of his voice.
He watched Pete come across the lawn in a pale grey suit that probably cost the same as a year’s rent in Honggiao and tried to still the desire to meet him halfway with a cocked fist and an instruction to get back in his overpriced Merc and go back to work. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d pummelled sense into Pete.
The thought of messing up his posh threads, wrestling with him in front of the whole rich person’s rehab centre made him laugh. It’d be the highlight of the week. Poor Will Parker losing it—again.
“It’s good to see you laughing, Will. You don’t know how happy it makes me.”
“You’d be unhappy if you knew what I was laughing at.”
Pete took a seat at the outdoor café setting and gave him an odd look. Will was expert at interpreting odd looks, a new skill, acquired from months of not talking. Except at night, when no one was around to hear him spit words out in the wrong order, or no order at all. Pete’s look said, ‘who are you going to be today?’ and for a moment Will thought of torturing him by pretending he couldn’t speak again.
“I don’t care what you’re laughing at. I’m still worried to leave you. Worried I only dreamed you were talking,” said Pete.
Pete was a sap. He’d always been a sap, a crybaby, a wimp. Pete was the reason for the scar under his chin, the burn on his ribs, two of his broken noses.
“Don’t you have a business to run?”
Pete grinned at him like he’d told a lame but inexplicably endearing joke. “It’s Sunday morning, Will. But I am going to work, a motor industry luncheon.”
“So, go, don’t let me hold you up.”
“You don’t say more than half a dozen words for the best part of eight months and now you’re doing sarcasm before morning tea. You’re incredible.”
“I was trying to be instructive.”
“You want me to go?” Pete’s eyebrows danced with surprise.
There was a scream sitting in Will’s chest, begging to be released. But only the truly mad patients screamed out loud. He kept his screams inside, and used them as energy to beat the pain and confusion. But he wanted to scream now: at Pete in his crisp blue shirt with pathetic hurt in his voice, at the waitress bringing them menus, at the nurses and carers in their white scrubs on the thick green lawn with their traumatised charges.
Pete was a sap, but he didn’t deserve to be screamed at. But the waitress was fucking hovering, looking at him like he had two heads. He snatched the menu from her hand, making her flinch, and thrust it at Pete. He could’ve guessed what was on it. He’d seen the waitstaff deliver the food to patients and their families, but what was Pete here for except to feel superior because he was whole and well, and could read.
“Are you hungry?” Pete scanned the menu. He must’ve known it by heart as well.
“Just coffee.”
Pete smiled at the waitress. “I’ll have a cappuccino and a strawberry muffin, Will would like—”
“Black coffee.”
“Sorry, I forgot you could—”
“Speak for myself.”
The waitress was still hanging around. Will turned to her, raised his voice, “Go.” Skittish little thing, she jumped backwards and knocked into another table, making it scrape on the tiles. “Klutz,” he said.
