Spilling Secrets (Completed)

Spilling Secrets

"SHIA!" Arthit curses as he steps on the gas, weaving his way through the early morning traffic towards work. He's late, as usual, and he really can't afford to be caught by his boss sneaking into the building again this month. It's high time he was fired for his lateness alone, if he's honest.

For sure, there are multiple other reasons he could be fired, but his lateness is probably his biggest and most glaring failure in his job, so he would rather not give them one more excuse to get rid of him right now. Especially not this month, when he's finally managed to move out of the family home and he needs to pay the rent alone.

Trying to focus on lighter things, like the fact that he now has a space that's just for him without his mother breathing down his neck, he speeds towards a stoplight, just as it turns from amber into a glaring red.

Arthit puts his foot down..

..and regrets it immediately as the wing mirror of his car clips a passerby who goes down, sprawled out over the crossing, belongings scattered all around him.

Arthit slams on his brakes, horns blaring all around him, "SHIA!"

———————

The drive to the hospital is agonising, the man clutching his shoulder with pained moans every time Arthit has to break even slightly. It's the worst experience of his life and he finds his ears filled with a sort of buzzing noise that Arthit assumes is the start of a panic attack (not the best situation when he's driving the man he just hit with his car to the hospital in it!)

To suffocate the sound and try to stay calm, he finds himself blurting out random facts about his life, wanting to fill in the void between them too and trying to show the other guy that, yes, he did hit him with his car, but it was totally accidental!

He wants him to know that actually, Arthit's just generally a total failure at life, so of course he's finally made one of those epic life-changing mistakes that he will never forget and that will become a talking point at parties if anyone ever finds out.

"Oh yes, meet my friend Arthit. He works in sales, has a lovely, smallish, flat near the river, and, did you know, he once hit someone with his car at a crossing! Yes, when the light had turned red too! Yes, he knows he's a total fuck-up, yet he still pretends to be normal like the rest of us, don't you Arthit?"

Arthit can already imagine their interested murmurs and snide looks.

He coughs as he makes it to a red light, slowly easing the car to a stop as his mouth opens and another random fact spits its way into the space over the gear stick.

The man beside him grumbles and Arthit keeps talking.

In no particular order at all, Arthit recalls at least ten facts he has told this stranger in the short drive between the accident locality and the local ER, as he sits in the waiting room, head in his hands, and prays that the other guy is okay.

"..I'm a failure at my job, if I'm honest. It's so boring that half the time I haven't even bothered to read the product information so I don't even know what I'm supposed to be selling..."

".. I hate my boss so much that I water his plant with the dregs of my pink milk since it shouldn't even be my job to look after it anyway, even though he says it's 'character building' to care for it and that I shouldn't moan..."

"..My best friend thinks his cat clawed the hole in his favourite red sweater, but actually, I was trying out this cool trick from YouTube where you flick a lighter and then spin it on your hand while it's still lit, and I accidentally dropped it on his sweater. I mean, he was close to making a hole himself anyway, the size of his muscles, which I do not drool over at all.."