Daniel and I waited together at the emergency for three hours before I was able to see a doctor. We didn't talk much. Daniel said nothing about what had just happened, or about anything at all, so I proceeded to torture myself with my own assessment of the situation. Somehow, in that peculiar brain of mine, that kiss had seemed like a good idea at the time. Five seconds after, however, regret had started washing over me. What was I thinking? Daniel didn't say anything about it, or act differently toward me, but he was bound to feel weirded out. Unless he didn't mind me being in love with him. Maybe he had enjoyed it? Well, in any case, I bet his girlfriend would mind a lot, especially if there were a bunch of rumours going around about her future husband when she would start working in the same university as him.
While these considerations were hammering my brain, I alternately shook my head, pulled my hair out, and hid my face in my hands. Other patients gave me sidelong glances, but Daniel seemed to ignore me. Why wasn't he saying anything? Or doing something like smacking me on the head? I was at the stage where I dropped my head in my hands, muttering "no, no, no..." to myself, when he finally spoke, "I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."
I lifted my head up, unsure what he was referring to in particular. For a moment, I considered telling him everything about the blackmail right there and then. Wouldn't it be better if he learned it from me, rather than waiting until it hit him in the face? I stared at a vacant seat in front of me for a couple of minutes. There were so many things I wanted to say, but couldn't or wouldn't say.
"Daniel... how much do you know about me?" I finally asked.
I thought he hadn't heard me, because he kept still for a few seconds. Eventually, he shifted in his seat and started talking to the invisible person in front of us. "Well... it was a long time ago... but I remember you were a studious boy. Very serious for your age. You pretended to work on your homework whenever I was there, but your grandma and I both knew you were listening to our discussions." He smiled at his recollections. Then, he gazed into my eyes, gauging something, I couldn't tell what. "I tutored you in maths for a semester, you know? You were really bad at maths, but you had a knack for literature. I remember you wrote poetry. You said they were going to be songs."
My cheeks burned. "D... did you ever read any of it?"
"Of course! Your poems were really good! I couldn't believe they had been written by a twelve-year-old kid."
Daniel was laughing. Was he just teasing me? I shook my head and looked down at the tiled floor. I don't think he was making fun of me. I think for some reason he was a little embarrassed himself. When he stopped laughing, I stole a glance in his direction and saw he was still smiling to himself, lost in his thoughts.
"Once, you even wrote one for me," he spoke quietly.
I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I opened my mouth to talk, but at that moment my name was called and I went in to see the doctor.
It turns out I had nothing worse than a few broken ribs. I needed to avoid any sort of contact sports for several weeks, which shouldn't be a problem as long as I stopped pissing off the Boss. Daniel drove me back to my apartment. As I left him, I realised that tomorrow would be the last day I had to solve the situation on my own. There had to be something I could still do. Maybe it wasn't too late to negotiate so that my tormentors would keep Daniel out of this.
Once in the building, I decided to check if there was something in my mailbox. I rarely received anything except bills and advertisement, so I was surprised to see a small brown parcel when I opened the little metallic door. It was about big like my hand and it rattled when I shook it gently, like there was something loose inside. Once in my apartment, I opened it carefully, kind of expecting it to explode in my face, and found a cellphone in the package. The screen was shattered, but it still worked. Indeed, when I pressed a button, it lit up with a background image I recognised very well. When I saw it, I immediately knew that this was the Boss's phone.
I couldn't find any clue about the identity of the sender. One thing that was clear, however, was the symbol behind the gesture. Whoever had sent it to me knew about my problems, was on my side, and wanted me to know that I had nothing to fear from those thugs anymore. Looking at the state of the phone, it seemed that this person had chosen the forceful way of helping me out. I shuddered. I had no right to complain. I wasn't actually complaining. It's just that now, I had to live with the awareness that someone with a loose screw was watching over me. I wished I could know who that was, half to thank them, and half to make sure I stayed away from them.
If I wanted to figure anything out, I would have to start investigating. The next day, I did make several attempts at returning to school, but I chickened out every time. Facing the great outdoors again was a bit harder than I thought it would be. What I did get the courage to do was to finally take a look at my phone. As expected, there was a huge amount of unread text messages, missed calls and unread e-mails waiting for me. Most of them were from Clara and Daniel. A few were from Nicole, Jose and Manbun. Those from my mother were the ones that scared me the most. I would leave them for later. I opened Clara's texts. She used quite a bit of rude language, which I won't repeat here. One of them had been sent today. It said:
wtf are you doing Dr Lewis keeps asking when you'll be back
I looked at Daniel's texts. Earlier today, he had sent this:
Please come see me in my office.
Well, there was no avoiding it now, was there? It was already pretty late in the afternoon, so I didn't bother packing my books to pretend I'd be attending classes. I just put on some jeans and t-shirt that didn't look like they had just spent the past two weeks on the floor, although they had. Despite my haste, I paused a second as I was putting on my scarf. It seemed the ghost had acted up again. This thought accompanied me on my way to school. Was I supposed to see this as a sign of something?
Twenty minutes later, I was walking down the corridor to Daniel's office, feeling very nervous and out of breath. He must have been about to report me. Or maybe he'd already done it. Upon arriving, I paused to calm down, and the door opened. Daniel was standing there. He let me in silently and closed the door behind us. He motioned for me to sit down, which I did, and he slowly took his own seat, as if he needed extra time to gather his thoughts.
"To be honest, over the past week, I have been trying to find ways to discredit those two problem students without having to bring you up. This morning, I called the direction to ask for information about them. They couldn't tell me much, but they didn't have to. Apparently, the students left the university a few days ago. I was told that they won't be coming back. I'm not sure how this is going to work out with their records, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm certainly not going to be looking at their paper again."
I couldn't understand why Daniel wasn't jumping up and down with joy right now. I allowed myself to sigh in relief. "I'm so glad to hear that."
"Do you have an idea of what could have caused their departure?"
I see. He wanted me to reassure him I hadn't done anything reproachable. I guess I did have an idea. The parcel I had received had been dated on Thursday and was, in all likelihood, related to this incident. But bringing it up wouldn't help with Daniel’s peace of mind, would it? "No, I really don't know what happened."
It was now his turn to sigh in relief. "Alright, then let’s consider ourselves lucky."
There didn't seem to be anything more to say. Even though I could have spent all day sitting there, watching him in silence like he was some Renaissance painting, this might have resulted in a highly awkward situation, so I got up to leave.
"I hope to see you back in class soon." Daniel was looking up at me. I nodded and went to open the door, but stopped in my tracks. Clearing my throat, I asked, "Do you still want me as your research assistant?"
A mask of hesitation covered his face. Was he remembering our kiss? His hand unconsciously moved to his collar to loosen his tie a notch. At last, he replied, "Of course."
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