Chapter 4

It had been exactly three weeks and two days ever since Linda Clarkson opened up her account on Mingles. With the sultry pictures that she had on her profile, it didn’t come as a surprise that there were so many men and women who were interested in having an affair with her. As a matter of fact, she became accustomed to blocking off random contacts on her Mingles account because of the unsolicited pictures and comments that they passed at her.

All the same, she was still having the time of her life as she went on numerous dates with random men and had a swell time out with her acquaintances. The downside to it all was that, although the men that she had dates with were handsome. There was always a put-off with them. If it wasn’t their dressing preference, it was their eating mannerism. Linda began to feel like she was the one with the problem. At a point, she felt like giving up on those dates, but she had already mapped out her goals when she decided to open an account on the dating platform. 

“And my girls say that this website worked for them, right? Y’all know I don’t give up things easily. I won’t chicken out on this,” She commented while replying to one of the many chats that she got on that Saturday morning.

Hello, my name is Toby, and I think I find your profile to be really interesting. Mind if we become friends?

The message read. Linda wondered what sort of person chats up a lady in the way that the message came in. She decided she was also going to check out his profile. After all, he had checked in on hers.

The one way that one knows if the person at the other end of the cell phone had read a chat on Mingles is that you get to see two read check lines. This was how Toby realized that it was possible that Linda might have snubbed him. “I really do like this girl. She probably doesn’t understand,” Toby commented while skimming through the other pages of the dating site. In all that he did on the website for that day, his memory kept on flashing at the chat with Linda and all of the pictures that she had uploaded.

Toby thought about using some of the pick-up lines that he found online on Linda, but he thought them too bland. “She might have heard the line that I am going to use. It sounds stupid to me, bro!” He soliloquized.

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The weeks that passed after Toby was discharged from the hospital were not an easy one for the duo. For a short while, Toby had a deficiency with hearing things. Booker spoke to him at intervals, but he realized later on that his younger brother had an ailment as a result of the recurring sounds of the bullets that had punched into his body. All along, he had thought that Toby was avoiding him because of the incident that had happened with the supposed unknown gang.

It was while they went back to the hospital together for his final stitch cleanup that their choice doctor, Doctor Mark Wilberforce, had asked Toby about his ear. “I don’t understand, doctor. Did I just hear you ask Toby about his ears?” Booker looked more confused with the short ranting of the doctor. A few minutes after the doctor had informed Booker about Toby’s ears, he finally understood all that had been happening while he was home with his brother.

“How come nobody ever said anything about this?” Booker iterated repeatedly. As he barked out those words through his lips, Doctor Mark could see the tears gathering around his eyeballs. His incessant hug of Toby was a way of preventing a loud scream should he burst out in tears. It was a therapy to avoid being perceived as a weak man.

Doctor Mark saw through this moment, and he couldn’t help the smile. Booker looked a bit ahead in the direction of Doctor Mark. It was right then that he saw the doctor smiling. He knew that smile. He knew for sure that there was something else that the doctor wasn’t telling him.

Booker released his brother off of his grip and took two steps ahead in the direction of the doctor. The ripples piling up in his eyelids disappeared in an instant. Those tears had suddenly transitioned into an awkward tension. For the first time since Booker had frequented the hospital alongside his brother, Doctor Mark was able to see on a closer scale the tattoos inscribed over his body. They were nothing like the tattoos that he had seen on the streets of Florida. He knew for a fact that they were fraternal incisions, and the fear of being harmed made Mark sweat profusely.

“Is there something else that you might want to let me know?” Booker inquired. His voice reverberates deep into the corners of the medium-sized office of Doctor Mark. The way that Booker sounded disclosed a weird form of danger. It felt to Dr. Mark that he was threatening him. “Er…m, I was just going to say that the hospital already provided a hearing aid for him. Seeing that his case was an exceptional survivor case.” The tremble in Doctor Mark’s voice seemed more like he was certain that Booker wasn’t going to believe him.

“Oh, alright. Is that all that I should know about?” Booker bargained further. Doctor Mark had only responded with an affirming nod of his head before Toby was taken back to the operating theater, where his hearing aids were inserted.

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Booker was glad that he was able to rekindle ties with his brother after all that had happened. Toby was already back home, and they began to think about ways that they could start out their lives afresh. Toby laid back there in his room on that Friday, two months after he had been frequenting treatments at the hospital.

“You know what, Toby. After everything that has happened to us lately. I don’t think this place is safe enough for us anymore. Why don’t we start out our lives afresh in a new city?” Booker interrogated his brother. Toby seemed to buy the idea of moving to a new location. He just wasn’t ready for it at the moment.

After a few minutes, that looked like he was cogitating about all that Booker was speaking about. Toby gave a sigh that expressed the pain he felt. He was yet to fully recover from the wounds sustained as a result of the gunshots, and Booker understood. “We could talk about this when I fully recover. Let’s focus on your promises while I was still at the hospital. Remember?” Toby iterated. His words were blunt and direct, but Booker couldn’t recall what Toby was driving at.

“I know what you are about to do, Booker. You are my brother, and I know you too well.” They both giggled aloud. In the midst of their loud chatter, Toby inquired of his brother, “Bro, I have a suggestion. And I really don’t know if you would like it.”

“Oh, okay. Tell your big bro about it. C’mon!”

“Oh well, do you realize that ever since mum and dad died when we were younger. You have never really been with any other woman.”

There was a long period of silence between the two brothers. “I know what you are getting at Toby, but I don’t think this is the right time. There is so much I am scared of right now. Losing you, for instance. I could have lost you, brother…” Booker was ranting about all of his fears when Toby cut in on his words.

“I get you. You have a point. However, you know all of those times while I was at the hospital. I was all along thinking about me and you and growing up.”

“You are not a bad person, brother. I see that now, and I know. We grew different, and that is just fine too,” Toby added. From the tone of his voice, one could tell that he was close to tears. His sympathetic stare into Booker’s eyeballs was so emotional that one could tell that if more sentimental words were uttered, they would end up in a pool of their own tears.

“It gets better from here, Toby. I promise,” Booker responded to Toby’s words, and from there, they both retorted into their medium-sized kitchen to fix themselves a meal for the evening.