IN THE MATTER OF MONTHS

7. Need you to need me

Sarawat had always known life to be a little bitch, he knew the moment he started letting his guards down something would happen to stir his calmness, he had longed to be in college all his school life so that he could get out of the house his parents called home. The death-like silence prevailed in the house all the time suffocating him to death.

when he was younger, he had often wondered if things would get better. Would there be a day when his parents would be home and they would have a proper dinner together, like what Man's parents did, if he would tell his stories to his mother while she served him with his favorite meals, laughing at how ridiculous his stories were, or if his father would play football with him in the backyards during long summer vacations? Or if they would go by the lake, and have a picnic like Boss's family, he would love that he likes taking pictures of the green, happily swaying trees and the ducks that swam towards the horizon, but that never happened, he never got a happy dinner, instead he got his dinner served in his room by the maids, they never went on vacations, they went on business trips and NGO visits, they never talked. A sickly silence making young Sarawat so anxious that he stopped trying to break it, accepting the silence was one of the first things he ever compromised on, and then it became a habit. He started accepting everything regarding his life, he did what he was told and never acted out harshly.

But then, years later when he passed high school, the only way to escape the house was to get into a dorm system. He knew he had to study business that was the easiest way out of the place without any hassle with his father, but that was alright because he was interested in it, the numerous seminars and business parties he attended with his father carved his young mind to like the way business worked. 

He liked to think that starting a business was not only about gaining profit but seeing a vision to change things for the future, he believed business men had the power to change the world,if they tried, they provide jobs for the working class, add to the funds of the government all the while going green and trying out charity, it seemed like an illuminating flicker of unreserved selflessness, and not a very practical approach to the world of business, but they could try? Because what is profit if you can't share it with the people that helped you gain it. He had planned at the very start of the first semester, that he would build himself a business that ran with the people and for the people. Maybe work with the space project industries.

He was sure no one could take away his newly found passion, it had been two months in the university and sarawat had dodged almost everything unimportant that came his way, the unwanted popularity, the annoying whispering about his rich status. He stuck to his two friends who had surprisingly taken the business field as well and never really bothered to look for anything else, when he went back to his dorm after an exhausting day the jostling of the young boys filled the hallways with laughter, and just for a while he did not feel like a man who had run out of feelings, he felt almost content giving himself a false sense of security that everything was fine. That he was a normal young man who was enjoying the time of his life. That worked, until one day his father called him.

It was the first time in two months that his father called, and he did not even bother asking about his wellbeing getting straight to the point and ordering him to meet him at the Hyatt banquet hall by 8, in the evening. Sarawat knew what was coming, it was again his Father's work party, and he needed him to play pretend. Pretending that they were a happy family, he had it all memorised. He had done it all his life.

He shouldn't have been cocky because five minutes into the party and his father introduced him to Pam, he knew Pam, they had gone to high school together but he also knew that she had the biggest crush on him, all through the school she had tried to get his attention, flooding his locker with expensive gifts, acting all cute infront of him-rolling her hair strand in her finger and peering at him through her lashes, which was a misconception of girls that guys find it attractive. It's annoying. At first Sarawat had smiled at her and politely rejected her like he always did, but Pam wasn't the one to take no for an answer, she kept on pestering him, going ahead and snapping at girls for even looking at Sarawat's way. When they graduated he was happy to never have to see her ever again, but here she was smiling up at him in the familiar way he loathed so much. Sarawat's father had laughed, informing him that Pam was his client's daughter and was eager to meet him.