100. As Mr and Mrs Philips were kowtowing and currying favours with their mama bear who didn’t seem to care and who seemed to wish that they would just disappear off of the face of the earth, Macy was in delirium.
She didn’t know where she was or what to make of the situation. All she knew was that the place she was in was very hot and she wanted to get out.
She could feel someone touching her with something cold and she wanted to ask the person to decrease the temperature even more but she didn’t have the voice to.
After a while, she felt something prick her hand and she could feel something cool and soothing running through her veins and sleep took her.
But even in sleep, she couldn’t sleep well because she kept having the same dream… no, the same nightmare. She wanted to wake up but even when she did, she couldn’t even open her eyes. They were heavy and her body just wanted to sleep.
But she could feel that there was wormhtjhg important she wanted to do but she couldn’t remember what it was. Her mind was telling her that the more she slept, the more time she wasted.
She wished that her body would obey her and just wake up but it didn’t. Thus, she just laid there and wished that it would get better.
While Macy was in the world of torture, Joey was looking at the man he had known for years since their high school days and he still felt that he didn’t know the man himself though they were best friends.
“First you go away and get lost for five years, you come back with a beautiful baby girl and don’t even tell me anything, I had thought that I would be the godfather but no, you didn’t even think of me.
Now, there is a sick woman in your bed and you still refuse to tell me who she is or what happened. This isn’t a sickness but she’s trapped in her own thoughts. Something is torturing her.
Well, if you want to keep things from me, I don’t even know why we are friends. I am leaving and you can look for another doctor who can keep up with your foul personality!” Joey said as he locked his medical bag and made as if to walk out.
He wasn’t really angry at Richard because he already knew that the man was tight lipped but he wished that his threat would work and make the other man open up a little.
He might not have been a psychiatrist or even a psychologist but he could tell that something was eating his friend, in a figurative way, and he hoped that black mail would work.
“Why are you behaving like a pregnant woman? Seems like your hormones are all over and you need to sit down and relax,” Richard said in a baritone that sounded tired.
Joey froze on his steps and turned to look at the man who was still holding Macy’s hand and wasn’t even looking at him.
“It’s not about me being pregnant or not thigh I think I could be. I have a husband you know,” the man countered and hoped that the joke would rouse the other man from his gloom, “it’s about you keeping things from me Rich. We used to be tight but you’ve changed since you went away.
Five years and you never gave me even a single call.
Five years and no explanation whatsoever. Am I even your best friend anymore?
Rich, if I didn’t love you I wouldn’t be here talking to you like this. I would have already given up. But it’s you man.
I feel hurt and disappointed,” Joey said and he made his voice crack to make the other man feel his point.
Finally, Richard looked up at him,” let’s go to the living room and I will answer all your questions. And after that, don’t bug me anymore,” Richard said and Joey smiled.
He knew he had a special place in Richard’s heart and that was why he dared behave that way.
Joey and Richard met when Richard was first transferred to a public school when he was in his seventh grade.
He had beaten up a boy in eleventh grade and when he was asked even by his parents and even the teachers, he refused to say why.
As punishment for being expelled, his parents decided to take him to a public school.
It was his first time to be in an institution that housed thousands of students and pupils but he didn’t mind.
He had decided that he would stay all alone and make sure that he never messed with anyone as long as they never messed with him.
He was a quiet person because he had already started working with some friends on hacking and they had their own small hub, as they called it, in one of their friend’s house where they had set up their base.
He thus didn’t want to make any friends outside his clique because it would put their missions in danger.
Richard thus loved his quiet so that he could keep thinking of ways to create more firewalls for the security of their data and the work they did online.
Like the day he found himself on the forbidden roof of the school, he was trying to think of where they would send their latest client.
An actress had accidentally killed her boyfriend and she wanted a clean identity and somewhere to go and lie low for a few years.
She was a familiar face and they thus needed a place where there were no extradition laws and where her face wouldn’t raise eyebrows because she had refused plastic surgery.
As he sat on one of the slabs, thinking hard with his notebook writing things only he himself understood, he heard muffled cries coming from behind a water tank that had been erected up there for emergency use.
He normally didn’t care about others as long as it never interfered with his life but he felt a need to go and check. He thus stood up and walked with light steps and that’s when he saw a scrawny boy crouching there with his head on his knees.
Richard looked at him and shook his head.
He wanted to go away but something about the weak creature he was looking at tugged at his heart strings and he felt like he wanted to help him.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asked in his deep voice, the one he had gotten from the time he hit puberty, and the boy flinched and stood up with a jolt.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I… I don’t mean to… I am sorry,” the hit said as he recoiled further into himself and Richard felt pity.
“I am Richard. And you are?” Richard decided that to make the boy understand that he wasn’t a threat, he would start by introducing himself.
The boy looked at him as if he had not heard him well. Richard just stood there looking at him patiently. He raised an eyebrow to show the other boy that he was still waiting and shyly and unsure, the boy spoke.
“Joey,” in a barely audible voice.
“Nice to meet you Joey. Mind if we sit?” Richard said as he stretched his hand and shook the malnourished one of the other boy.
The boy still seemed unsure and sat reluctantly. He seemed like he was doing it out of fear.
“Aren’t you the new transfer? You probably don’t know it but I am gay and that’s why I get bullied.
My step sister told everyone this semester and it has been really hard. So, it would be good if you weren’t seen with me,” the but said and Richard chuckled which took the other one by surprise.
“Is it contagious?” Richard asked and Joey looked confused.
“What?” Joey asked.
“Being gay. Is it contagious? Is it a disease?” Richard repeated with clarity this time.
“I… no. Of course not,” Joey answered with a raised eyebrow.
“Then, that’s settled then,” Richard said and they never talked about it again.
That was how Joey got his very first friend after being forcibly outed as gay and Richard became his guardian angel.
The bullyings stopped in a way Joey didn’t understand how and his stepfather was arrested for fraud in his company weeks later making his children go and live with their mother and his mother found a job and all these things came as miracles to Joey who, years later, came to realise that it was all his friends doing.
This happened when they were in the university that Richard helped him study for and got an admission to do medicine, and he found out that in fact, his friend was a rich heir.
He wondered how Richard had stayed friends with him and his respect for the other man rose to another level.
That was a friendship that had weathered tests of time.
“Who is she?” Joey asked as they sat down.