Two Different Worlds (ManxMan)

Chapter 7 - I Don't Need Your Pity - 2

Chapter 7

I Don't Need Your Pity -2

"Hello... Valerie... am I right?"

"Yeah!" She was just so hyper... Must have been hell for her mother to raise her. Well maybe they were both alike... Scream! Would be hell for their whole neighborhood. When I saw her eyes drifting slowly to the floor in a shy way, I could tell something was not normal with her. A shadow had formed over the chair. "Damian..." she mumbled. What the hell!?

"Valerie?" I asked, cutting in the strange silence that followed. Her eyes met mine and I could tell she was annoyed that I had destroyed her moment. "Are we staying here all day?"

"No!" she exclaimed a little too loudly. "I mean no... You're coming to my place, right?" she asked me. "You guys want to join us?" she asked Jerome and Damian. My eyes narrowed on her.

"Valerie... I have to go and pay my landlord. Remember?"

"Yeah! I know about that. So we'll stop there on our way to my place."

"Are you kidnapping me or what?"

A smile appeared on her lips and she mouthed a small "thank you." I was not sure what this thank you was for exactly but I understood quite easily when the cheerful tone came back in her voice. "Well, you're a bit old for being kidnapped, I guess. But you know, as you've already been abducted by aliens, I guess anything might happen to you now!" I was still looking seriously at her though.

"Valerie, I need to go home. All my things are there." Yeah right! All my nothings were there...

"I can get them for you while we're there..."

"I really need to be home, Valerie. I'm working tomorrow and I need some rest before I go."

"You are so not going to work tomorrow!" she stated. "I thought Dr. Werner had been clear enough! You're off from work for at least one full week." I'm not so sure, but at that, I thought I saw a little smile spreading on Jerome's lips.

"I can't stop working, Valerie," I hissed. "I need the money."

"You'll get money, Yannick. Don't forget that George owes you a lot of hours that he hadn't paid you yet. It's worth three months of full time work."

"Yeah right! and you think he will pay me?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"Of course, he'll pay you! I'm going to make sure of it. Take it as a vacation."

"Can't you just let me go back home?" I pleaded.

"Why should I? So you can be miserable? So you can hurt yourself in the stairs? So you can sleep on the floor because you fell off your bed? Not a chance... Even if you had a phone..." she quickly put a hand on her mouth and her eyes went wide as she realized what she had said. My eyes narrowed on her and I flipped the wheelchair the other way. "I'm sorry," she whispered." My face was red with anger and humiliation. She knew I was broken poor. She knew it embarrassed me. She knew it, but still, she rubbed it in my face in front of complete strangers, and in a crowded hospital hall for God's sake!

"You should say it a little bit louder... I think this old lady down there with the hearing apparel didn't hear you."

"Yannick, I really am sorry..."

"Go away!" I said. "I don't need your pity."

"Please, Yannick... I'm not pitying you. It's not the way I see our friendship."

I rolled away from the trio. Valerie sat down on a chair and buried her face in her hands. Damian sat beside her and held her hand the way Jerome had done to me the day before. I looked at the floor. I was not angry as much as I felt ashamed. I felt humiliated. Humiliated as I had been the day my father threw me out of his house with my clothes secured in two garbage bags. Humiliated as I had been when the old fuck in his Cadillac kept on grabbing my knees after he picked me up on the highway. I was so lost in my pain that I didn't realize that Jerome was there by my side, sitting in a chair, his hands folded together, golden fingers intertwined, his head bowed and his eyes to the floor.