CHAPTER TWELVE: A STING OF LAUGHTER
1314 Words
The air inside the hospital ward was beginning to settle. Afternoon sun crawled through the half-closed blinds, striping the floor with pale golden lines. Ron sat propped up by a thin hospital pillow, arms folded, legs stretched across the bed, the very picture of ease—too much ease for someone recovering from a near-fatal collapse.
Lady Hew, in her crisp white doctor’s coat, stood by the window with her arms behind her back. Though her posture was calm, her eyes never stopped calculating. She had a face that rarely smiled but spoke volumes. Her nose was sharp, her cheekbones high, and her voice—when she chose to use it—was clipped and forceful, like the c***k of a whip.
“I have one question,” she said, breaking the silence between them. “Why are you so determined to reject my sister?”
Ron rolled his eyes with a smirk. “Ah, Lady Hew, I think we've been over this three times already.”
“Say it again.”
He sighed like it was a burden. “Because I don't want to be a pet project, or her act of rebellion, or some poor boy in a rich girl’s fantasy. Simple.”
Lady Hew tilted her head slightly. “And you think she’s chasing you because of some fantasy?”
Ron turned toward her, resting his elbow on his knee. “Isn’t that obvious? Wyonne is used to getting everything. Fancy cars, private tutors, trips to Europe. I don’t even have proper shoes, and my dad’s old van coughs like it has tuberculosis. She doesn’t love me. She’s just... bored.”
Lady Hew's lips pursed slightly. She paced once across the room, her heels soft against the linoleum. “And so what if she likes you? Must every emotion be punished because it doesn’t follow your logic?”
“She doesn’t like me,” Ron replied flatly. “She’s just tired of being told what to do. And nothing screams rebellion louder than chasing a broke boy with a half-dead friend.”
That struck a chord. Lady Hew’s jaw tensed, but she said nothing.
Ron chuckled quietly. “You know what’s funnier? Your father—Wyonne’s father—is the city magistrate. A man feared by criminals, respected by senators. And yet... the mighty magistrate can’t even control his youngest daughter. She's chasing after some street boy like a lovesick puppy.”
He laughed aloud this time, not out of joy but sheer disbelief. “That must sting. Real bad. The great Honorable Mawondo, undone by a boy with second-hand jeans.”
The words settled like a bad smell in the room.
Lady Hew turned slowly to him. Her eyes were like knives now, her composed demeanor starting to fracture. “You speak of my father with mockery?” she asked, her voice low and dangerous.
Ron raised an eyebrow. “I’m just saying what everybody’s thinking. Man like that, all that power, and his own daughter acts like he’s invisible.”
Lady Hew stepped closer, a thin tremble in her shoulders now visible, but her voice stayed ironclad. “Watch your tongue, boy.”
“Why?” Ron said coolly. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? I’m poor, but at least I know who I am. Unlike Wyonne, who doesn’t know whether she wants to be her father’s heir or my personal nightmare.”
Lady Hew’s hand twitched at her side. She didn’t slap him—though every muscle in her arm longed for it. Instead, she leaned forward until their faces were a breath apart. “You think you're bold because you speak carelessly. But all I see is a child drunk on resentment. You think my sister’s affection is a burden? Fine. But don’t you ever—ever—mock my father again.”
Her voice was now glass cutting through fog.
“You don’t know what that man has sacrificed. What it took to build this city. While your family nursed pain and bitterness, my father fought against a thousand evils just to keep the streets you walk on safe. And now a boy with dirty sneakers wants to laugh at him?”
Ron’s smirk faded slightly, but he didn’t break eye contact.
Lady Hew stood upright again, adjusting her coat with trembling fingers. “He may not control Wyonne. But at least he raised a daughter brave enough to love someone beneath her station.”
Ron’s silence said more than words. For a moment, he stared at the floor, but not in defeat. More like someone trying to process a hit that landed too close to the heart.
“I didn’t mean—” he began.
“Yes, you did,” Lady Hew snapped. “You meant every word. And that is why you’ll never be fit for her. Not because you’re poor, but because you are proud. And pride in poverty is just another form of fear.”
She began to turn, but paused at the door, her back to him.
“You think Wyonne is reckless. But I watched her cry the night you collapsed. I watched her hold your brother’s hand like he was her own blood. Do you even know the lengths she’s gone to just to be near you? No... you don’t care to look.”
Ron swallowed hard. Something heavy was forming in his throat, but he forced it down.
Lady Hew continued. “You think strength is in rejection. But sometimes, strength is in accepting what you think you don’t deserve.”
She stepped out into the hallway, leaving the door to swing slowly shut behind her.
---
Ron stared at the door for a long while, face unreadable. The room was quiet again, but inside him, chaos brewed. His thoughts rushed like riverwater after a storm, tugging memories loose—Wyonne helping him bandage a wound on Jerry’s arm, her laughter when Minos tried to pronounce “cranberries,” her silence during that rainstorm at Oppey Gulf.
He hadn’t asked for her affection. He hadn’t even wanted it. But maybe, just maybe, he’d misunderstood the heart behind it.
Still, his pride held tight.
He threw off the covers and rose to his feet. The IV stand protested, the needle in his arm pulling back slightly, but he ignored it. Walking to the window, he watched Lady Hew’s silhouette fade into the hospital courtyard.
“Strong words,” he muttered. “But words don’t feed a family.”
Just then, the door creaked open again. It wasn’t Lady Hew.
It was Jerry, holding a polystyrene food tray and looking sheepish.
“You done insulting magistrates?” Jerry asked, walking in slowly.
Ron exhaled, rubbing his forehead. “Did you hear all that?”
“Bro,” Jerry said, setting the food down, “I heard that from the parking lot.”
Ron chuckled reluctantly. “She’s scary, huh?”
“She’s like a human version of a storm warning,” Jerry said. Then he paused. “But she’s not wrong, you know.”
Ron looked at him. “You taking her side now?”
“I’m taking the side of whoever doesn’t want to die alone and bitter.” Jerry sat beside him. “You’ve been pushing everyone away so hard, I’m surprised the walls haven’t fallen in.”
Ron didn’t reply.
Jerry nudged him with an elbow. “C’mon. You can keep being mad at rich girls, or you can stop acting like one of those bitter old men who thinks love is a trick.”
Ron sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Start with not mocking the father of a girl who cries when you bleed,” Jerry said simply.
Silence again.
Then, slowly, Ron nodded.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s time I stop laughing..."
- Writer
