8
We went to a Cantonese restaurant. Sean Parker ordered shrimp dumplings and pork siu mai.
He still remembered my favorites.
After a moment of silence, he asked painfully and bitterly: “Why did you hide everything from me?”
This question would have to be answered sooner or later.
I gave a desolate smile.
“What did you want me to tell you? That I was a murderer? That you should wait for me to get out? Or did you want to come see me in my prison uniform?”
Sean Parker shook his head in anguish, his hands clenched tightly, knuckles white.
“How do you know what I was thinking? Even if you made a mistake, I could have waited for you. We could have kept in touch, we could have written letters, couldn’t we?”
I looked at his reddened eyes and said flatly: “What letters would we write? You could share your daily life with me, you could tell me about your work experiences. But what about me?”
“Should I have shared how I was sewing and knitting sweaters in prison?”
Sean Parker was at a loss for words. He instinctively glanced at my hands, his gaze freezing.
I knew he must have seen the scars left from years of manual labor.
Sean Parker’s face flushed red, tears welling up in his eyes.
In all the years I’d known him, this was the first time I’d seen him on the verge of crying.
I suddenly felt a bit regretful.
These sarcastic, somewhat resentful words not only hurt him, but also carved new wounds into
my
still–unhealed scars.
I sighed and said resignedly: “It’s all in the past. Let’s not bring it up again.”
Sean Parker rubbed his eyes, still not satisfied.
“Fine, even if you had a thousand reasons to hide it from me back then, what about after you got out? Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Why could you tell Claire but not me?”
6:35 PM
<
“And why did Claire have to arrange a job as a maid for you? That clearly wasn’t suitable for you!”
“Enough, Sean Parker.”
I cut him off and told him very firmly.
“Actually, I was happy during those few days as a maid. There, many people would call out to me every day. When they called me, they used my name, not a number anymore.”
“And I wouldn’t have to squat by the wall for forgetting to respond to roll call.”
Sean Parker lowered his head after hearing this, his shoulders trembling slightly.
Sitting across from him, I couldn’t see his expression, but I could see his tears falling like pearls, one drop after another.
“Thea, I’m sorry.”
Sean Parker slowly raised his head, covering his face with his two beautiful hands.
“I was too impulsive before. I shouldn’t have yelled at you without understanding the situation.”
“I hurt you. I’m really sorry.”
I shook my head. I really didn’t mind anymore.
After finishing that meal, Sean Parker seemed to gather a lot of courage. He took out his phone and handed it to me.
I looked at him in confusion, not sure what he meant.
He said a bit sheepishly: “I had some really important things to take care of before, so I never found time to contact you. Whenever I had a free moment, I would write down what I wanted to say to you in my notes app. When I checked the other day, it had taken up about a third of my text storage.”
He looked at me, his eyes shining.
“So, do you want to take a look?”
I stared at the unlocked phone in my hands for a long while, then firmly pressed the power button to turn off the screen.
I smiled at him.
“Never mind, that’s your privacy. I won’t look.”
