Whispers

Rain had not yet fallen from the sky, as Rae finished the fishtail braid in her hair. Grabbing her Yves Saint Laurent clutch, she made an exit from her large room, flicking off the light and walking down the stairs, her Ugg boots thundering all the way down as she did so. Though she was not a fan of how they looked, they certainly kept her feet warm from the frigid winter air.

Rae was to have lunch with her father that day and she was trying to hurry her pace along, moving throughout the house and turning off the lights. Trystan was out having coffee with Finn, so there was no use keeping the lights on in the home.

Outside, a grey stretch of sky loomed over her like a depressed, mournful shadow. She glanced up at it, her eyes echoing the grey color that day. The ever shifting color of her eyes simply reflect the sky like a mirror, much to her disappointment; it was a lifeless color.

Driving to her favorite Chinese place, Rae repeatedly looked up at the sky, hoping it was not going to open up and rain on her. She at least wanted to be inside before Mother Nature unleashed a cold slosh on her. It was bitter rain, with a bitter taste.

Someone somewhere heard her silent pleas, for the moment she stepped over the threshold into the warmth of the diner, a sheet of rain came down, pounding down onto the pavement with a force that could only resemble the armies of hell when the gate opened. Rae shivered at it and walked to where her father sat in a casual jacket and jeans.

“Daddy.” Richard Bastian stood up, smiling and opening his arms. He pulled Rae into a paternal hug, holding her tight and kissing her on top of her head. Rae smiled at him, walking around the table and sitting down, rubbing her arms up and down, beaming at her father that she loved dearly. “How are you?”

“Brilliant, now that I’ve got a day off. Been busy at work, and what about you? Taking classes and painting, and such?”

Rae grinned. “Yeah, I’ve been painting a lot. Mostly Harry, because my professor seems to think he’s a good art subject. I personally think she fancies the way he looks.”

He laughed. “Things good with the lad?”

Months ago, he would have never asked that question. He would have demanded that she end it and he would not have it. They had faught nail and tooth over Harry, though it was to be expected, what with Harry’s behavior. Harry had given her father things to reckon with. But it had worked out in the end.

The relationship between Harry and Richard was not one that was always comfortable or was always easy. But it worked, and it was manageable. Richard was allowing himself to get to know Harry, and Rae was helping along the way. They got along mostly all the time, and she thanked her stars for that.

Ordering food, they went over easy subjects, like Rae telling her father that Harry was fine, that she was trying to convince him to do something with his life that involved English. He was brilliant at reading and understanding books and writing, so she thought he should pursue it.

Amid the conversation, her father laughed, shaking his head. “You remind me so much of your mother, Rae.” She looked up from her food in surprise. He did not often tell her that, because he quite often didn’t talk about her mother. She had been brutally mugged and killed when Rae was young. “Your ability to see people for what they really are, your drive to help them find something they’re good at. She was the one who suggest I go into the medical field.”

Rae’s brows shot up as she chewed on her chicken. “I thought grandpa did.”

“He wanted me to specifically be a radiologist, but I wasn’t fond of that. But your mother insisted I look into the surgical field. She always said I had steady hands.”

A small smile played at Rae’s lips. She had developed her father’s steady hands, but they were made to hold brushes, not scalpels. She forked another piece of chicken into her mouth. “That’s nice. Anything else I should know about mom?”

He thought about it. “She would love Harry.” That made Rae stop mid chew, her fork and everything stopping movement to look at her dad. He was looking at her earnestly, an open book. “She would adore him, your mother. She would see everything that you see in him, and she would pray every night and thank God for him.”

Rae opened and closed her mouth. She wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you really believe that?”

He nodded, continuing to eat. “Your mother had this way about her. Maybe you don’t remember. But often times, she would look at young boys who were troubled and insist to me that they would make it out, that they would find something to pull them to their feet and make something of themselves. I just never realized my daughter was one of those things, but I do now.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

He smiled at her. “It’s a good thing, Rae. I love that about you.”

She nodded, smiling down as silence fell between them. Rae was literally a saving grace. And she had never thought about it that way until that moment.

*

Harry’s leg bounced up and down underneath the clothed table, all signs of his agitation and apprehension. As if the incessant movement of his leg was not enough to cause someone to believe that he was nervous, his fingers were also tapping the top of the table in succession: pinky, ring, middle, index. Over and over, in a beat that was annoying even him.

When someone cleared their throat at the table next to them, he removed his hand from the table completely, shoving his hand under the table. Which lasted for only five minutes before he was leaning forward, taking a sip of his water. He wasn’t thirsty in the slightest, but he needed to do something with his hands.

It had been a very impromptu lunch set up. A lunch that he was no quite sure that he wanted to go to, but felt like he was obligated to attend. That was the thing about Harry’s father. Harry hated the man and most of the things that he stood for, but he still often felt obligated to do certain things that his father requested of him. It was like when you loved to make yourself miserable.

Finally, five minutes past the correct time they were supposed to meet, Edward walked through the door. Though it was pouring rain outside and it was quite chilly, he was still dressed in a typical, expensive suit, his severe face showing no sign of laugh lines and no sign of kindness.

Harry stood instantly, almost extending his hand to his father, who ignored the fact that his son had just stood, sitting down and ordering a glass of scotch on command. Harry remained standing for a moment, curling his lip in irritation before sitting back down in the chair.

This was about to be very horrid.

“Hello,” Harry greeted when his father said nothing, scrolling through his emails briefly. It took a moment for him to open his jacket and slip it into an inside pocket, looking up at Harry as he set his hands on the table. “You’ve got the day off?”

His father scowled. “Are you kidding me? I’m on a lunch break.”

“And you decided to spend it with me?” Sourness crept into Harry’s tone. He could not hide the distaste. The last time he had talked to his father, Rae had been screaming at him across the dinner table. “I feel honored.”

“Keep the smart ass out of your tone, Harold.”

Harry looked around, throwing his hands up as if asking the people in the restaurant a question. Harry’s father gave him a look and Harry laughed without humor, shaking his head. “My real name isn’t Harold, are you joking? You literally named me- that was all you. You had one job.”

Edward stared at him. Instead of addressing the fact that he had just called his own son- to which he did in fact name- he stared at him with a deadpan expression. “I want to talk to you about interning, we just had an intern drop.”

Harry snorted, crossing his arms. He had gone from willing to talk to his father to wanted to be the angst ridden, sarcastic teenager he had once been. In fact, he had the urge to flick off priests and fondle nuns. “Not happening, I want absolutely nothing to do with your company. In fact, I think I actually told one of my co-interns to do something anatomically impossible with themselves when I left last year.”

“Listen here, son-"

“No, you listen, I don’t want to be a lawyer, and even if I did want to be a hypocritical, insincere antagonist in this story that we call life, I wouldn’t do it for your firm in a million years.”

His dad drained the scotch that had been given to him before setting it on the table firmly. Harry took a sip of his water. He still was not touching alcohol. “It’s that girl, isn’t it? I bet you she has you taking classes somewhere, filling your head with ideals that you can be anyone and do anything you want. That isn’t how it works.”

“You’re right.” Harry leaned forward, narrowing his green eyes in a threatening manner. “This is how it works: I can either be miserable or I could be happy. You are a miserable, pessimistic ass who cannot have lunch with his own son to ask how he’s been or if he’s happy or if things are going well with his girlfriend.”

“I don’t give a damn about the girl.”
“Watch your tone.” Harry’s voice had grown very dark, and very low. It was that kind of tone that sounded like very quiet, very low thunder in the distance, making one question if there was a storm heading their way, or if it was going to go somewhere else. “If you’re quite done, I’ll be leaving.”
“That girl, is distracting you from what you could be, she had sentimentalist ideas and she lives in this fantasy where-"

It happened quickly. Like lightning striking at the same time as thunder sounded, Harry lashed out, unable to hear his father discuss Rae in such a manner. Harry’s hand was under the table and it gripped the bottom, pushing upwards and completely flipping the table, sending the glasses, centerpiece and causing several people to yell in the place before it went silent.

Edward was sitting in his chair still, looking at Harry as if he had expected it. Everyone around was silent, but all Harry heard was the blood roaring in his ears and the hard breathing that was coming from himself, staring at his father who sipped from the glass again, completely ignoring the fact his son had just thrown a table.

“Don’t come near me,” Harry said, voice raw as he stabbed a finger at his father. He was shaking with rage, and he hated that he had just done that in front of people. But he was feeling the rage deeper than ever. “Don’t ever come near me, and don’t ever talk about her.

Stepping over the table and walking around his father he made his way for the exit, stopping to tell the manager who was hurrying out, “Bill him for it. He’s my father, he’ll pay for it. If he doesn’t, here’s my card.” The manager said nothing as Harry exit the building.

*

“Hi- okay,” Rae corrected herself, breathless as Harry walked into his house and right past her. She could feel the cold hair still clinging to him like fog clinging to the ground in the morning. She delicately followed him to the living room, where he was shedding his clothes. “What’s the matter?”

Harry said nothing, putting his jacket on the arm of the couch and turning and walking into the kitchen. Rae frowned, and remained standing where she was, waiting for the sound of his return. He did, and then sat down on the couch.

Her eye twitched. “Harold-"

“Don’t call me that!” he shouted at her, whirling on her, making her flinch. It had been a very long time since he had looked that angry, especially with her. She was reminded of the night she snuck out, and began to curl her lip in irritation. “And don’t ask questions; I had lunch with my father, that’s all you need to know.”

“Your father? Why the hell would you do that? You know how much he sets you off, Harry!”

“Sure,” he growled, standing and facing her, throwing his hands her way. She did not like where this was going, and was trying to find a way to diffuse the tension. “You have all the answers, don’t you? I know I shouldn’t have gone but I did. Thank you for pointing out perhaps the most obvious detail today.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re being an ass to me for no reason, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” He stormed past her, pacing. He didn’t seem to know where exactly to go, but he was getting extremely angry. She could see it in the way that his chest was rising and falling and she took a step forward. “I don’t know anything, so just leave.”

She sighed. “Harry, you’re angry-"

“Obvious again.”

“-but you need to breathe,” she pushed on, taking another step. He stopped short, glaring at her and making her stop. It was like watching the grass bend in the distance as a gale force wind swept over it. “Just breathe, okay. You’ll be alright, Harry.”

“Just leave, please.”

“Harry-"

“Rae!” he bellowed turning around and striking a lamp. She flinched, hands flying up to her mouth in a sound of surprise as the lamp went right off the table and into the wall, shattering it. She stared at him in disbelief and he covered his face with his hands, trying to breathe. “Why won’t you leave, dammit?”

“Because,” she said thickly, moving towards him again. “You keep giving me reasons that I need to stay.”