Road To Happiness ✔

FOUR

"Where were you the other night?" his father asked. Hugo's eyes met the floor, desperate not to see the judgmental look on his father's face.

"With a friend," he signed, his hands moving slowly.

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence. He didn't want to know what his father was thinking. It usually wasn't anything good. "I didn't know you had a friend," he said. His voice was so calm, not happy or angry, just calm.

"I met her last week."

"Did you talk to her?" Hugo shook his head and his father let out a loud sigh. "I was hoping that when you finally made some friends again, you'd be able to speak. Or are you lying to me?"

Now, Hugo looked up at his father, his mouth open wide with shock. "Why would I lie?" he asked, scrunching up his face. Talking was so much harder for him that his father believed. It was like there was something in his throat blocking the words from ever escaping, no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to.

His father sighed again. "I don't know, kiddo. Ever since... Everything, you've just been weird," he muttered. If by weird he meant, completely traumatised, then sure. But Hugo said none of that, it would only cause an argument he was not in the mood to get into.

It wasn't Hugo's fault that he couldn't speak, it was just something that happened. He didn't choose it. He'd been told that it was his body's reaction to what he'd seen, to what had happened to him. It wasn't too bad, all things considered. He didn't want to speak that much anyway. People scared him too much, even Renee sometimes.

There were moments where he was sure he would say the wrong thing to her and she wouldn't want to be his friend anymore. Every time he said something and she only muttered in response or didn't reply at all, he was sure he had offended her. He'd think about it over and over again on the train to work or home until he was sure she wouldn't talk to him the next morning.

"I'm going out with her again next week," he told his father. Michael Garland barely spared him a glance and pushed a plate of steaming food towards him. "And no, I won't talk to her. She understands sign language."

"Aren't you lucky?" his father said, staring at his plate of food. "What's her name?"

"Renee."

"Is she nice?"

Hugo nodded. "Very," he signed. Nicer than he had ever expected. She'd dropped him home the night before and offered him a ride to school the next day. He'd politely declined, of course, he didn't want to be a bother to her. He wanted to take it back that morning when he got on the packed train but there was nothing he could do about it.

Hugo picked at his dinner and drummed his fingers against the dining table. "I'm glad," his father said eventually. "It had taken a while but I am glad you're making friends again." He was too, for the most part. It still scared him, would probably always scare him, but it was better than the crushing loneliness he'd been feeling for the last five years.

After high school and everything with his mother, he didn't leave the house. His gap year turned into two years, then three years and so on. He did online courses that would help him get a job, but he never actually used them until his laptop broke and he went to see Robert.

Robert had been his mother's best friend since they were children. He'd been so happy to see Hugo that day that he'd offered for him to have dinner out the back. Hugo unloaded all of his problems that night and Robert hadn't missed a beat before offering him a job. He'd seen Hugo tinkering with his laptop and phone regularly.

His father, while happy he'd finally gotten a job, was disappointed that it wasn't something completely new. Hugo knew that he couldn't start something he'd never done before, it would only freak him out. There was so much he couldn't do now that he couldn't talk. Customer service was one of those many things, despite how much his father pushed it.