Chapter 477: Wide Awake, Part
Harry hadn’t changed yet. A minute had gone and passed and his thought was still his own. Another minute, and he shifted his legs, movement also still staying his.
Maybe there was something to be done, I thought, something that maybe could keep him being himself if only for just a while longer. Doing nothing now was unbearable, there had to be something... anything. I was tempted to ask, half-convinced that there might really be a way... maybe if I pressed just a little harder, if I dug just a little deeper, I’d find a way.
I was about to suggest it too, just about ready to spring up to my feet, a semi-practiced speech at the tip of my tongue, ‘I’ll go first, I’ll find help’, I could already hear myself say.
“Don’t, don’t go anywhere...” Harry shook his head at me again, every muscle that moved exacerbating the agony showing on his face. “Please don’t go, don’t leave me here alone. I-I don’t want to be alone.”
“I just want to help you.”
“Help me, then,” He said, lunging forward and locking his fingers around my wrist, his strained gaze trembling, pleading. “Stay. ”
Pain wracked at his body again, forcing him to let go, but as I felt him loosen his grip, I stayed frozen in place still... even as the temptation, the conviction soared.
.....
“I will disappear again, it doesn’t matter what you try and do,” Harry forced the words out between breaths. “But when I do, please... not alone... not by myself... don’t make me go through that on my own. I’d like someone to be here... just until I go, so please... just be here.”
Maybe... maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was something that could be done, I wouldn’t know until I tried, but, question is... should I try?
Harry continued to watch me as I slowly rose to my feet, stared as I began to turn, and when I started to move away, I heard the sound of his breathing quivering.
“Okay,” I said, and immediately, the quivering stopped. “I’ll stay.”
With a resounding thump, I let a small bale of hay fall from my grasp, then kicked it a little bit further, closer towards him, before settling myself down and meeting with his stare once more.
“We’ll just... talk, I guess,” I said to him. “As long as you can hold, until it’s time for you to go, whenever the hell that may be. I’m sure it’s been quite some time since you had the chance to enjoy the simple pleasure of just having a quiet chat.”
“Yes...” He said feebly, his wrinkly, weathered expression smiling weakly. “I’d... I’d like that very much.”
“Though I must warn you, I’m not very good at keeping conversations.”
“Ah,” He waved a trembling hand at that. “That’s okay, neither am I.”
“Alright, then I guess we’ll play it safe, start with the basics,” I scooted just a little bit closer. “So, um, why don’t you start by telling me a little about yourself, and we’ll just work our way from there, huh?”
More and more, the discomfort in his expression gradually dwindled. For once, he breathed out, and his breath left steady. “Well as you might have known already, my name is Harry... Harry Williams.”
We’ll just talk, we’ll forget about everything. What problems, what concerns that lingered, it was left to the wayside. Right now... there was just this moment.
It’s better we spend it while we still could.
“Mr. Williams, then,” I said, holding my hand out towards him. “Nice to meet you, I’m – ”
“Some guy who just works here, right?” He said, faintly smiling. “That’s what you introduced yourself as before,” then, with a bit of effort, managed to reach his hand out into mine, and grip it tight. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
Before long, I knew more than just his first and last name. I learned about his profession, a diligent IT consultant at a business firm on his way to a promotion. I could tell he took great pride in his work, and I could hear that passion echoing still in the tales he told me, and while I didn’t know half of what the heck he was saying, I still enjoyed hearing them nevertheless.
He told me one time that 90% of the time, he was getting paid on a monthly basis just to plug and unplug the ethernet every once in a while, and honestly, I’m not sure if he was even joking there or actually being serious. I think he was being serious.
In turn, I told him of my grand adventures. But I mostly stuck to the mundane topics, like getting swindled, getting leeched, having loan sharks knocking on my door every couple of days – y’know, the simple stuff.
That’s when I learned that he was also a generous soul. Before I could even mention that I was doing fine already, he offered to wipe my debt clean, and beyond that, offered to provide a generous surplus, which is honestly, was more money than I knew what to do with.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I managed to get a word in.
“Don’t be stupid. You’re saving my life, trying to at least,” He reasoned when I protested. “It doesn’t matter how many zeros I put at the end of a check, it still won’t be close to repaying what you’re doing for me, and that’s the truth. Don’t humble it, don’t strip it down, alright?”
As quickly, and as subtly as I could, I changed the topic before he had the chance to offer up his entire life savings, and we ended up at favorite pastimes.
Harry was a simple man with simple pleasures. A flatscreen and a cold beer, and he was content for hours. He played tennis in his youth till a sprained ankle lost him that passion, but in turn, he found the love of his life, when he accidentally tripped her over with one of his crutches.
Family was a topic we stuck to for the longest.
Little by little, his stories stopped being about him, and more about the ones he cared for the most. He talked of Nick, Hayley when they were much, much younger.
Apparently, Nick was peculiarly small when he was a kid, which I had a very hard time imagining. Hayley being the big sister, always kept an eye out for her darling little brother. Harry recounted, reminisced, whether big or minor, he told each passing memory with as much fondness as the last.
“Hayley was 17 when she came up to me asking how much it’ll be to start her own cafe, I haven’t a clue where that came from,” He said, with a tender smile. “I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, tried talking her out of it, but she’s stubborn. Eventually, her mother and I caved, we offered to give her a kickstart, but she insisted she could do it herself. Fast forward years later, and what do you know? She’s a promising little entrepreneur, she... good business sense... she’ll have a promising future, I’m sure.”
As for Nick, he delved to somewhere unexpected.
“Do you know of an Amanda Collins?”
“Uh,” I gave him a blank look. “Sure, yeah, I know her.”
“A famous live streamer, or so Hayley says. I’m not really much for social media. She met Amanda in one of her courses and became quick friends with her. I was away on a business trip when this all happened, but one day Hayley invited her over to our home, and Nick was there too...”
He stopped to let out a chuckle before continuing on.
“A few hours later, I get facetime’d out of nowhere and Nick was asking me for romantic advice. He’s not the type to ask other people for help, let me tell you... so imagine my surprise, huh? Anyway, I tried helping him out. I told him girls like guys that are dependable, strong, a little bit mysterious... frankly, I didn’t really expect him to take my advice to heart. Then I got back home and found out that he’s got himself a gym membership, and was even trying to grow out a beard. He hasn’t told anyone else about his crush but me... and if I’m remembering right... that includes you too, right?”
My blank face instantly crumbled, and my jaw went slack, parting open, disbelief-ridden. “How did you...?”
“Nick mentioned Amanda had a boyfriend recently,” He said, a knowing smile on his face. “He said he was skinny, didn’t look all that strong, not mysterious at all... overall, a pretty pathetic guy in general from what he told me.”
Ouch, Nick...
“But he mentioned that he also had a huge heart of gold, the type of guy willing to go above and beyond,” Harry continued. “Getting to know you... I see what he means now. You’ve been raised well, haven’t you.? You got good parents, kid. Better than I have ever been to my own, at least...”
His smile disappeared trailing after his words, and he dropped his gaze, and a shadow loomed over his eyes, casting a somber look over his expression
I didn’t mention it before, but over time, I also learned one other thing about him that he never mentioned. He had a small quirk, I don’t think he even realized it himself... but to me, I couldn’t help but notice it every time he did it.
Harry had a tendency to occasionally fiddle around with his ring finger.
He would rub around it, stroke it, as if trying to feel for something that clearly wasn’t there, and it wasn’t much a stretch of the imagination to know just what exactly he was reaching for.
Which makes what I wanted to mention a whole lot harder to say, nevertheless, I opened my mouth.
“Nick mentioned you aren’t staying with them anymore.”
Harry froze, forefinger and thumb touching the base of his ring finger. I saw him swallow.
“He... told you?” He asked quietly.
“After finding out about what’s happening to you, I had to know about you,” I said, feeling a slight stiffness in my jaw. “So I poked around a bit.”
“I see.”
“You said just now that you haven’t been a good parent to your children,” I tried to look at him, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Just what did you mean by that?”
“You know what I meant by that,” He said quietly. “Nick told you, didn’t he?”
“Not everything, and frankly, not enough. He didn’t wanna talk about it, he said he didn’t believe it.”
At that, I saw his shoulder tense, and with a sigh, I heard him say. “Oh, Nick...”
“And from what I can gather, it seems that Hayley instead thinks otherwise of you.”
No words, no breaths. Just a silent, sullen figure a shadow of his former self... whatever that former self seemed to be once before. Which begs the question still...
“Is Hayley right for thinking the way she does? Is Nick?” I inquired. “What really happened?”
There was agony again, discomfort in the way hands began to tremble. Seeing that, I immediately backed off.
“If you don’t wanna talk about it, it’s okay, I don’t need to know,” I quickly said. “You’re not obliged to, and I don’t have the right to. I just – ”
“No, no,” He suddenly said. “You got it wrong, you got it backwards, I am obliged, you have that right.”
“Mr. Williams, it’s fine. It’s not any of my business.”
“No, it is your business,” He quickly interjected. “You’re saving me, you’re saving my life, and you have the right to know exactly just what kind of life you’ll be saving. You have to know.”
From his tone, I could sense that this matter just went beyond his reasoning. There was more to it, he wanted it off his chest, he wanted someone to tell, someone to listen.
Fine by me.
I scooted closer again. “I’ll listen.”
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