39. Lina #2
She continued, “I worked hard day and night so you could go to school and one day take care of us. Now you’re just a greedy person who won’t even bother picking up my calls.”
I stared back, acting indifferent. I’d tried talking to her, my dad, and Mai about Neng.
There had been so many attempts made to have an adult discussion with them about the problem at hand.
However, no one wanted to. All they wanted was for me to give him money to shut him up.
They never wanted to hear or talk about solutions that would address the root problem: his alcoholism.
I waited for her to continue as her body shook with fury. She said nothing else as her words and the silence settled heavily on everyone in this place. They were all waiting for my answer.
“Niam tais,” said Jonathan in my place. His voice carried a stern edge to it. “Yog koj yuav tuaj hais lus li koj rau Li Nam xwb ces thov koj tsis txhob tuaj lawm.”
Auntie, if you’re only here to speak to Lina like that, please don’t ever come here again.
My mom turned to Jonathan at once, face red and lips twisted and ready to strike viciously. Before she could say anything, he placed his arm around my shoulders. His grip was firm yet gentle on my shoulder.
“I’m Lina’s boyfriend,” he said. “If you’re going to come and say these horrible things to her, I’m going to have to ask you two to leave.”
“How dare you!” my mom managed to seethe. “Who’s son are you to say such cocky and arrogant words to me when this is a family matter—”
“Mom,” I interrupted her with a firm voice. “Go home. Please. I’ll come over tonight and we can—”
“I refuse! I will only leave when you agree to give Neng the money he needs!” she screamed.
She continued to shout profanities at me as I heard Grace ask Jonathan if she should call security. That was when my patience and calmness cracked, and all I saw was the blur of my mom and Neng’s faces shrouded in red.
“I’m not going to give you any money when I’ve done enough to help!” My voice thundered and shook our entire pharmacy. My mom’s cries and yells came to a halt as I huffed out ragged breaths. With a softer voice, I added, “Mom, you need to stop. I’m not going to give Neng the money.”
She turned to me with tears streaming down her face. “After everything we’ve done for you, you’re so selfish you won’t even help your own brother? Ten thousand is nothing compared to—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of deep cobalt blue. It was the same color as the chairs we had in our waiting area. I barely registered it before I felt a sudden yank, my body pressing against a warm, firm chest as Jonathan’s cologne filled my senses.
Our techs screamed as the sound of glass shattering reverberated through my bones.
Jonathan’s arms around me tightened as something hard pushed and hurled us to the ground.
He made sure to fall onto his side to cushion me from the fall.
A painful groan slipped out of him as his breath became uneven.
With my vision obstructed by his biceps, I pushed myself out of his embrace to find shards of broken glass everywhere and one of the chairs from our waiting area strewn beside Jonathan and I.
I couldn’t hear anything as I stared down at him.
Blood poured profusely down his face from a deep gash on his eyebrow. A look of pain twisted his face.
Tears blurred my vision as I struggled to take off my white coat.
Eventually I was able to tear it off and use it to stop the bleeding, however much I could with my quivering hands.
One of Jonathan’s hands reached for mine while the other held my face.
His touch was gentle as his lips formed words.
His gaze darted all over my face, searching for any cuts on me.
He continued to talk, brows knitted, but all I heard was the sound of my heart.
I couldn’t hear anything until sirens blared through our small pharmacy. I pulled out of the half-daze I was in. My heart was still racing as I realized my mom was wailing.
I could hear my brother grunting from the front as a man said, “You can try, but you’re not getting out of this chokehold after acting like that.”
Grace, Sheryl, and Carmen were crying as they looked over at Jonathan and I.
Hearing how distressed they were made the emotions I had wrapped under feigned indifference begin to bubble to the back of my throat.
Tears burned the corners of my eyes as blood continued to trickle down into Jonathan’s eyes.
I pushed into the laceration harder to apply whatever pressure I could to stop the bleeding. He winced sharply.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked. A sob ripped through my chest as the pressure I applied against his skin softened. “I’m so sorry, Jonathan.”
“It’s okay,” he said. His voice was too gentle, too calm. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not. You’re bleeding so much,” I cried.
He parted his lips, and that was all I could remember. What happened next was a blur. The police came in and apprehended my brother. My mom was wailing and screeching. The paramedics rushed in and examined our injuries.
Apparently, my brother grabbed a chair from the waiting area and flung it into the divider in the heat of the moment.
The middle-aged patient who was in the waiting room tackled my brother and pinned him down.
What I had always thought was a Plexiglas divider turned out to be real glass, and it shattered upon impact.
Shards of it flew and spewed everywhere.
Jonathan took the brunt of the impact hitting us.
He shielded me from the chair, which also meant he was the closest to the shards of glass as they sprayed across our side of the pharmacy.
His injuries consisted of various cuts littered across one side of his cheeks and neck; the deepest and most serious one was the gash on his eyebrow.
“Alright, Jonathan,” said an EMT after he cleaned up the wound. “That’s a pretty big cut, so you’ll be needing some stitches.”
Jonathan reached out for me, and I held his hand in mine. Our clasped hands shook as I kept trembling.
“Come with me,” he said. His hand tightened around mine before he was transferred to a stretcher.
“The team though . . .” I said.
I let go of his hand as the paramedics pushed him to the ambulance.
I turned to look at our three pharmacy technicians.
There was a minor abrasion on the top of one of Grace’s cheekbones; her hands were trembling.
For the most part, Sheryl and Carmen looked fine, albeit reeling from the shock and fear of what happened.
“Go with Jonathan,” Grace urged. “I’m going to contact John. He lives close by so he can come over to help us clean and close up.”
With John being the owner and a retired pharmacist himself, they would be in good hands. Some stress lifted off my shoulders as all three pharmacy technicians nodded at me.
“We’ll be fine,” nodded Carmen.
“Go, Lina,” said Sheryl. “You’re his girlfriend after all.”
My cheeks flushed. There was no point in hiding our relationship from the team now. I nodded at them.
As I stepped out of the pharmacy with still trembling limbs, my mom’s screams and wails echoed through the air.
She looked at me when I came out into the strong rays of the afternoon sun.
Without the chaos of a dozen police cars and an ambulance surrounding me, it would’ve been the perfect early spring afternoon with clear, sunny skies and a cool breeze.
“Li Nad! Lawv yuav ntes nws os! Pab nws ma! Ua cas koj tsis pab nws?” my mom cried out to me, gesturing wildly at one of the police cars.
Lina! They’re going to arrest him! Help him! Why aren’t you helping him?
The gentleman I saw sitting in our waiting room earlier was talking to a police officer as the EMTs loaded Jonathan into an ambulance. One of the paramedics walked straight in my direction. I turned to my mom to look at her genuine anguish.
“Koj paub tias nws ua txhaum lawm. Yog nws xaiv nyob lub neej li no ces, cia nws. Kuv twb ua tau raws li kuv ua tau lawm,” I said, and I left it at that.
You know what he did was wrong. If this is the life he chooses to live, let him. I’ve already done all that I can.
I ran up to the paramedic as they guided me into the ambulance.
Jonathan’s and my eyes met as soon as I entered.
Even with his bloodstained face and the obvious pain strung through his pinched expression, he still managed to give me a grin—elated to see me as if I wasn’t the harbinger of his suffering.
I tried not to cry as he reached for me, but I failed miserably. With him, I didn’t have to force myself to hold anything back. With him, I could just be me. So, I allowed myself to cry and sob away every emotion coursing through my shaking body.
At my side lay the man who understood me the best. My academic rival in another life over a decade ago.
My pharmacy manager in my professional life now.
Regardless of all the labels between us, he was my friend.
He was also the one person who would always think about me and the people he loved first.
Jonathan Lo is that man.