For a continent ranked second driest, a rainy day was always good news. Farmers could be happy with the Australian Government fundings, but nothing was more wonderful than the rain that descended from the skies. Thanks to Joel and other people who advocated the cause of farmers and the severe Australian droughts, the problem gained even more awareness.
Joel was in the hospital, disconnected from the rest of the world, and unaware of the impact of his photography and winning speech. He enjoyed watching the rain from the window, it was one of the most enthusiastic and calming sights. That would be the day to replace his nose bandages and he was anxious to see the result of the reconstruction. The doctor would enter the room any time.
"To grow you need some rain." He recalled a song.
Joel didn't feel as exhausted as in the past day, so his brain was able to go deeper into the things that were happening. He couldn't get over the fact that he was hospitalized because Adam had thrown him down the stairway. Every time that thought came to his mind, it enraged and disappointed him. How was he supposed to forgive someone who had tried to kill him? Then there was Jesus and His authoritative recommendations: "But love you your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. Be you therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete with it shall be measured to you again." (Luke:35-38).
He had to admit that he was happy to be the victim. The problem of being the victim, however, is that you can never move forward and that jeopardizes all your relationships. First of all, because victims tend to end their life journey alone, as others advance and move forward, they stay stuck waiting for the whole world to repay them for all the good they did - which is no good at all because doing good expecting something in return is an exchange.
Joel wanted to be compassionate toward Adam, but it felt like defeat. But showing compassion was one of the expressions that proved how the Kingdom of God worked upside down: pay evil with good. He was struggling.
Finally, the doctor came into the room. He inspected his patient carefully and came to some conclusions.
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Debora had never spent so much money on taxis in her whole life! The hospital wasn't in walking distance, and even if it was, she was too busy to waste ten minutes walking. There was no time to lose. She left the office, carefully walking down the stairs because it was dark and the ground was wet. At the last step, she heard her name. She stopped and looked around to find someone looking at her, but nothing. From a blind spot, Adam came walking toward her. When he touched her, she was startled.
"Hi!" She didn't know how to put up with him, at first.
"How is Joel?"
"Now you ask?" She scoffed.
"Never too late." He tried.
"Recovering, thanks for asking." She tried to be cruel to him, but Debora was very compassionate and empathetic. "I don't understand why you could do something so cruel to your best mate." She expressed her disappointment.
Adam was silent, embarrassed, but he had an answer that corroborated his worthless attitude. He wanted to share it.
"It was an accident. He slipped off my hands."
"Adam, I saw the way you held him. You wanted him to fall." She was indignant.
"I was just warning him." He saw the inquiring look she gave him and added: "that I'd make his life miserable, if he didn't return to Melbourne." He felt ashamed of admitting the truth. "And leave you." He looked down, away from her disapproving eyes.
"You can't do that!" She vehemently replied. "Adam, I chose Joel." She declared.
"I know, but you were mine once and to lose you to him has been really hard on me." He admitted.
She understood him. He probably didn't deserve compassion, but after being fully accepted by God, how could she not be compassionate toward him?
"Adam, I understand that you've gone through a lot lately..." She remembered all his troubles.
"I knew you would understand me." He felt relieved and rectified to have another person understanding his place of victim.
Debora perceived it and replied:
"I don't agree with what you've done though." She called him out on that. "You handled everything in fear."
"What would you do if you were in my place?" He was showing his pride, and refusing correction.
"I don't know. I wasn't in your shoes." She was honest with herself. "But you have God, you actually have someone powerful to turn to." Debora tried to remind him of the one who was on his side, but little did she know that Adam had proudly decided to stop believing in the heavenly Trinity.
"Anyway," He didn't want to discuss his unbelief with her, so he decided to confess his plan. "I'm done with this country."
She looked at him inquiringly.
"I'm gonna move to New York." He clarified.
"New York, the USA? Are you serious?" She couldn't believe him.
"I need a dramatic change." He explained.
"Have you talked to God about this?"
The way he looked away uncomfortably just helped Debora confirm her suspicions, but she realized that confrontation wasn't what he needed.
"Never mind." She changed the subject. "Are you gonna extend the family business to the States?"
"No. I'm gonna try and work on my career. I think I have potential to succeed in the music industry there. I've got the looks, and I master the art pretty well."
"Alright." She didn't know what to tell him. He seemed confident of his decision. "I have to go."
"I can give you a ride somewhere if you need." He offered.
"I hope you understand, but I'd rather grab a cab." She didn't feel safe to go with him.
Adam perceived her fear, and felt sorry for that. He had inflicted pain and broken her trust. It finally hit him that he had lost Debora for Joel. And his loss was only caused by his own actions.
"Alright." He accepted her decision.
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Joel would be discharged from the hospital, but he wasn't fully recovered. The ribs would still need attention. The doctor highly recommended him to beware of brisk moves, to take deep breaths to avoid pneumonia, and to ice the area often. He was also prescribed with an ibuprofen for pain relief.
"We will schedule an appointment 3 days from now to take a look at those stitches and possibly remove them." The doctor informed his patient, while observing his head. "As for your nose," He lifted Joel's head to look inside the nose. "We're gonna keep this packing in your nose and a dressing on the outside for a week." He gave a paper to Joel. "Here is another prescription for antibiotics to prevent bacterial infection."
Joel inspected the prescription and sighed silently.
"It's just for a week." The doctor tried to encourage him. "Do you have anyone to pick you up?"
"I'm working on it."
"Alright, so I will see you in three days." The doctor departed from him.
"See ya, doctor!"
Joel stood up on his feet and before he started moving, he called Debora, asking her to get him something from the mall. He didn't need anything from there really, that was just an excuse that would give him time to arrive home and surprise her.
"I've just arrived at the hospital!" She protested.
"Can't you go to the mall first?"
"I've already paid for the cab, Joe."
"I'll pay you back." He insisted.
Debora perceived his insistence and felt even more inclined to try and find out what Joel was up to. She suddenly acknowledged that Florencia was right about the fact that they needed to develop their trust. And for that matter, Debora decided to obey Joel.
"Alright, I'll go get that brand new propelling pencil." She replied. "I'm just intrigued because you could buy that online, you know?"
"That would take like two to three days to arrive." He replied, falling short on arguments to convince her. "Never mind." He gave up on the surprise, but kept the news of his discharge.
"If that's so important to you, I'll get it." She tried to amend the situation.
"If it is important for either of us, it should be important for both of us." He declared, intending to invoke the mindset they should have as a couple.
"You're right!" Debora acknowledged. "I'll get that pencil, but since you're not in a rush, I'm gonna go home before I come and see you."
"Yeah!" Joel smirked. "Sounds good to me!" He was victorious that his plan would work. "I have to go." He hung up, and limped his way out of the room.
He took an elevator and descended to the main floor. As the doors opened he noticed that the hospital was busy, but not crowded. He was minding his own business failing to notice that he was the only person wearing visible bandages. People passing by pitied him, but tried to disguise it. There was one however that expressed that pity loud enough for him to hear, and even said his name in the end. Joel lifted his head and recognized his mate: Adam.
"Can we talk?" Adam tried, even though he knew that Joel was the kind of person that would be moody instead of dealing with a misunderstanding right way.
"Out of all the people, you're the last that I want to talk to." He was honest. "You should know that."
"I know, Joel." He replied, humbled. "But I also know that you still love me, despite your disappointment."
As they walked through the long lobby, Joel looked at his mate.
"How did you know where to find me?" He was raw and curt.
"I followed your fiancée." Adam chose that word to prove his defeat.
Adam had finally admitted defeat? Joel could hardly believe it. He was speechless for an instant, but decided to give Adam the benefit of the doubt.
"Let's go outside and talk." Joel suggested, fearing that the conversation could escalate.
It was cold outside, and it rained, but they took cover under the porch at the hospital entrance. They stayed between two of the columns that embellished the area. Adam put his hands in his pockets and Joel leaned on to the wall, with his arms crossed to his chest. The debate should have begun, but they were articulating their ideas mentally.
"Uh, well..." Joel mumbled, but didn't continue.
"You were saying?" Adam trying to encourage him.
"Nothing. You go ahead." Joel tried to wash his hands from that conversation. He was having a hard time facing his best friend.
"Joel, I don't know myself anymore." Adam was seriously ashamed. "What crossed my head that day was just..." He reproached his own behavior.
While Adam struggled to find the words, Joel realized why his mate could have interpreted the news of his engagement to Debora as betrayal, and completed his best friend's sentence:
"You felt betrayed."
Adam opened his mouth in wonder. He didn't expect Joel could understand his pain.
"I didn't know it would affect you this much." Joel admitted.
"Neither did I." Adam confessed. "I didn't have a need to feel betrayed. But my life has been involved in so many deceiving schemes lately, that..." He sighed. "But anyway, Debora was always honest with me. With her words and her actions she made clear that she was over me." He faced Joel. "Maybe then, she liked you already." Then he looked away.
Joel let that comment die down, and decided to clarify some of his doubts:
"Ade," Joel was intrigued. "I gotta ask you something, though."
"Whatever, mate!" He exclaimed, invitingly.
"Why Debora? She's not even your type." Joel was very intrigued.
Adam chuckled and covered his face with his hand for a second and brought it back to his pocket again. After a deep breath he replied:
"I don't exactly have a type." He disclosed.
"Blue-eyed blondes are your type." Joel was intrigued with the new information he had received from his mate.
"That's what I tell everybody. But, honestly," He hesitated for a while. "I'm like Samson: pretty women are my weakness." He confessed.
Joel studied his mate's head wondering if his new shave had anything to do with Samson - that Bible character. He was struggling to breathe out in the cold of that evening.
"But why Debora?"
"After being misdiagnosed, knowing that my days were counted, I finally devoted myself to God, and turned away from my old mundane ways." He scoffed, "I was afraid to die, cuz I'd obviously go to hell."
Joel quickly turned his face to him, and then looked away.
"And then a few months after, Debora mysteriously showed up for a casting in our church." Adam looked away, dreamy. "There was something about her that drew me right in. Then one day, I saw her and I found her so attractive that it took my breath away." He smiled. "I knew it was inevitable; I'd fall in love with her." He sighed. "But with my numbered days... I didn't want to use her, because she's the type of woman you want to please mindfully."
Joel nodded his head in agreement.
"I guess repressing my feelings out of fear didn't help at all." Adam admitted. "Because then, I just realized the sexual tension between us and how much I craved for that mindless sex I used to have during college."
Joel was speechless, lost in the memories of the past months. Adam had always been someone he looked up to, and to see his true colors, was just disappointing; that was why it felt so hard to forgive, but since the Larking was being honest for the first time, Joel wanted to know the whole truth.
"When have you lost your virginity, by the way?"
Adam didn't care about his reputation as much as he did in the past. He was decided to come clean about everything, hoping that his friend would show even more compassion toward him.
"In college."
"Was that with someone I know?" Joel suspected something.
"No. It was a girl in my class."
Joel had met Adam in college. He used to spend a considerable amount of time with his new Christian friend, even though they studied different subjects. The only thing that was off about his new college mate was that he had different female friends from time to time - one at a time -, and the way they acted around him was more sensual than innocent. Adam's womanizing appearance changed from the moment Joel called him out on that. Still, there were attitudes about his mate that triggered some suspicion, which he refused to bolster. When Joel started dating a female student, struggling with falling into sexual temptation with her, those suspicions faded, because Adam claimed - lied, better said - that he had triumphed over sex temptation, he even encouraged Joel with words of wisdom. Because of that, Joel began to look up to Adam, never questioning his faithfulness toward God.
"So, back in college, all those girls that you said were just friends... you slept with them?"
Adam nodded, hoping that his mate wouldn't ask any more questions. It was hard to go through a past he wasn't proud of.
However, with the truth in the open, Joel couldn't ignore some of the suspicions he had had in the past. Especially in one specific season, when Miriam often came to Sydney allegedly to visit him. Since he wasn't someone who enjoyed going out at night, he entrusted his sister to his best mate, sure that she would be guarded and protected from vile filthy young men. He didn't know that Adam was probably one of the most dangerous lads his sister could be around.
"Uh..." Joel was unsure whether he wanted to know the truth. His heart was beating hard and his body felt suddenly warm. "Have you ever slept with my sister Mim?" He just blurted out the question.
"Whatever, mate." Adam replied. He didn't know where to look, where to go. His face was suddenly warm and the red was easy to notice in his pale skin. It was especially bad, because he remembered how he had used his persuasive skills to take Mim's virginity and sleep with her occasionally afterwards.
Joel didn't need a spoken answer, his mate's demeanor showed it all.
"How could you? I entrusted her to you every night..." Joel didn't want answers, he was just indignant. "No wonder she still thinks of you..." He realized, talking to himself.
Adam was silent, recalling that whenever he craved for sex, he would say the most beautiful and romantic things, even though he was lying. The promises he used with Miriam were very elaborated, because she was a strong-minded Christian girl.
"For the record, I didn't do anything your sister didn't want." Adam exculpated himself in vain, because he knew exactly how successfully he had enticed Joel's sister.
"Get out of my sight!" Joel commanded. "Before I break your face." He tried to avoid a scene, but his assertiveness felt like a scream.
Adam obeyed just because he was ashamed. He knew that Joel couldn't beat him, much less now that he was injured.
Joel took a cab to his apartment and left the hospital.