When The Rich Son Falls

Eighteen

“You know you don’t belong here.”

When those words escaped James, something within Topher crumbled, rendering him silent and without a comeback for the first time in the tumultuous week he’d had. He remained frozen in his seat, unmoving as he watched James leave the bakery. If it weren’t for Rosa coming by to check in on him, he wouldn’t have realized that he had been sitting still for minutes. Once he had paid for the bill and somehow managed to thank the young woman for the service and even buy takeout for the staff, he walked back to the hotel like a stupefied zombie.

For once, he didn’t find the heat annoying, nor did he feel discomfort from the humid air or the sweat on his skin. He was just there—one foot going in front of the other, more aware of the way his heart sank than the people and things around him.

James was telling the truth when he said he didn’t belong there. Topher knew that very well. In fact, he knew he didn’t belong anywhere; not even in the city where he grew up, not with his family, not with his so-called friends, nor in any of the various places he’d gone to. What James said was not wrong; all he did was slam the truth that Topher had been trying to ignore for nearly three decades. Topher even found it bitterly funny how badly he felt because of a few words said by a man he met barely a week ago, when he had spent most of his life in the receiving end of his family’s endless criticism.

The hours passed in a daze, and at some point in the night, Topher got up and decided to something—anything, really, just to get his mind off it and feel like himself again. So, at ten in the evening, he went out of his room and down to the lobby. It was empty at that time, with a sign saying the front desk personnel—Glory—was on a break, so he went ahead and worked out in the gym without letting her know.

Topher pushed his limit and somehow, it worked, but by the time he hit the thirty-minute mark, he was already spent. Not wanting to get back to his room just yet, he decided to check out the sauna. It was just a small room that could probably fit four to five people, with the stones and a pale of water in the middle—much like some of the traditional saunas that Topher was familiar with. However, he failed to remember Mandy’s precaution about the faulty lock, and he proceeded to close the door much like how he would with any other kind of door, turned on the heater, applied water to the rocks, then sat in a corner and closed his eyes.

When James arrived back in the hotel, the first order of business he attended to was to put the cake in the kitchen’s refrigerator. In his mind, he couldn’t believe that someone could have the audacity that Topher had, to keep pestering him for special treatment and then to ask if he could crash in his place, especially after teasing him like he did just the day before. Rich people really were built differently, he thought. But as he did his typical routine of checking in with the staff, maintaining the garden, and running errands until nighttime, he could feel his guilt growing slowly in his gut.

Maybe he had been too harsh with his words. His godmother had warned him about his ability to say truly hurtful things in the height of his emotions, so he had always tried to be good—and he had been good. He knew it in himself that he was kind to strangers and friends, he helped out whenever he can out of sheer altruism, and he only displayed unfriendly behaviors to those that deserved it; and with Topher coming in out of the blue with his incessant badgering, James thought that he deserved it. So, why was he feeling guilty?

James stayed in his office from for hours until he realized that it was already 11 in the evening and he should go home. After all, he had to wake up early the next day to visit his godparents. But his guilt stopped him from walking out of the lobby, and instead, he found himself going up the stairs and walking to Topher’s door.

The guy may have been a bit too flashy, quite self-centered, and annoying, but he wasn’t a bad person.

James knocked on his door, ready to apologize for his words; but by the third time he knocked and no one answered, he went back down to the lobby and approached Glory by the front desk.

“Have you seen the guest from 304?” he asked.

Glory thought about it for a second. “304… Topher Stevens? No, I haven’t seen him around. Carl did the routine check around the premises before 10 and I don’t think he saw him either.”

“Alright, thanks,” James said, deciding he would just talk to him the next day. He was about to turn when he noticed a small box from Mama’s Bakery on the side. When Glory saw where he was looking, she smiled and said, “Topher brought a few takeout slices this afternoon.”

“Oh,” James muttered. “That’s nice of him.”

“It is,” Glory answered with a sorry look on her face. “Poor guy, though.”

James gave her a questioning look. “How exactly is he a poor guy?”

“Well, he has all that money but he doesn’t have a place to go,” Glory said with a shrug. “The press might eat him alive when they learn where he is or when he goes back, and his family practically wants to disown him. Rumor has it that they were going to have him thrown away somewhere and cut him off, that’s why he ran away.”

“But he’s a grown man,” James stated. “I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

“But he’s not any normal man from a normal family,” Glory rebutted. “Rich people have their own world and their own set of rules. If you watch celebrity news or go on twitter, you’d probably see how much trouble he’s in just because of one photo. His entire family’s angry about it, too, and with random people and trolls jumping in with their opinions, the issue’s just getting larger and larger. You know how some scandals make or break public personalities? I think this is it for Topher. So, I kinda get why he’s holed up in this town. Can you imagine having tons of reporters and paparazzi following you around and your family not having your back? Even his friends are turning their backs on him, just so they wouldn’t get dragged down along with him. Sheesh.”

“I… I didn’t know that,” James muttered, feeling his guilt grow even more so. He really did hit home with the words he said to the man that afternoon.

“Anyway, sorry for dumping all that gossip on you,” Glory sheepishly apologized. “Are you headed home?”

“It’s okay.” James nodded with a troubled look on his face. “Yeah, I’m going—” he stopped when he felt his front pockets to be empty except for his phone. He frowned and checked his bag, then turned to Glory again. “I don’t suppose you saw any set of keys lying around?”

“Nothing from the lost and found, no,” Glory replied with a worried look. “Are your keys missing? Maybe you left them in your office?”

“No, I checked the place before I left,” James said as he checked his pockets and bag once more. “I probably dropped them somewhere. I’m going to go look for them.”

“I’ll tell the others to keep an eye.”

“Thanks,” James gave a small smile before he walked to the back door that led to the pool area. Retracing his steps, he went to the garden with his phone light on, then rummaged through the bushes and looked under the plants. He found his keys just under a tree, which he had previously climbed to check on the bird’s nest that was stationed on one of its branches.

James sighed in relief as he dusted the keys and placed them securely back into his pocket. He had just walked out of the garden, headed back to the lobby, when he passed by the gym and sauna room and felt a small odd breeze of hot and humid air. He stopped and looked around curiously, only to notice that the light inside the sauna room was turned on.

Thinking that the staff may have forgotten to turn it off, he decided to do it himself and just give them a reminder about it tomorrow. When James opened the door, a cloud of steam greeted him off the bat. Keeping his eyes squinted, he placed a hand on the wall to feel the light switch, but then he noticed someone lying on the seat.