Thomas stood on the ship's deck, watching the horizon of Tanjung Priok Port slowly fade away. The salty, cold sea breeze struck his face, but for the first time, the storm in his head had somewhat subsided. Mr. Rudi's advice about "being present" and "complete honesty" continued to echo in his mind.
The wound I caused might be permanent, but I cannot continue to be a parasite to my own peace, Thomas thought. He closed his eyes for a moment. I'm going home. I will apologize. Without excuses.
After nearly a day of sea travel, Thomas arrived in his city exactly at three in the afternoon. As soon as he stepped onto the pier, the land air felt heavier and more humid—like past memories suddenly clinging to his skin.
Upon arriving at his house, he knocked on the wooden door whose paint had begun to peel. "Dad... Mom..."
Silence. No answer. Thomas stood still for a moment in front of the locked door. They probably haven't come home from work yet, he thought.
The house still felt the same; silent and cold. He placed his backpack on a porch chair and leaned back. Thomas tried to practice what Mr. Rudi had taught: feeling the texture of the chair, listening to the sound of the wind. However, as his soul began to calm, Dimas's face appeared with haunting clarity. A mix of longing and dread pushed him to settle this matter immediately. He needed to see Dimas's face before his courage evaporated.
Thomas walked toward Dimas's house, covering the one-kilometer distance that felt like a march to a courtroom. However, when he arrived, the house looked dead. The doors were tightly shut, and the windows were dark.
"Are you looking for Dimas, dear?" a middle-aged neighbor greeted from behind the fence next door.
"Yes, Ma'am... I'm his friend. Where is Dimas?"
The neighbor let out a heavy sigh, her expression turning somber. "Dimas has been in the hospital for two weeks. Poor boy, his condition dropped."
"What is he sick with, Ma'am?"
"They say there's an infection. He's currently in the ICU at Harapan Hospital. His condition is up and down."
The word 'ICU' hit Thomas like a sledgehammer. Every nerve in his body tensed. Without a second thought, he said his goodbyes and immediately hailed a public van toward the hospital.
***
The sharp scent of antiseptic welcomed Thomas as he stepped into the lobby of Harapan Hospital. At the reception desk, his voice sounded choked.
"Miss... which room is the patient named Dimas Ahmad in?"
"ICU ward, Sir. Second floor on the left," the officer replied briefly.
Every step toward the second floor felt like dragging a thousand-ton weight. Once he reached the front of the ICU, Thomas stopped. Through the large glass window, he saw the person he was looking for. Dimas lay weak with various tubes attached to his body. By the bedside, Dimas's father and mother sat with slumped backs, looking utterly exhausted.
Suddenly, Dimas's weary eyes opened and moved toward the window. Their eyes met. Thomas froze. Dimas slightly moved his pale hand, pointing toward the glass. Dimas's father and mother turned in unison, seeing Thomas standing stiffly outside.
The door opened. Dimas's mother came out with a swollen face and red eyes, showing she had hardly slept for two weeks. Upon seeing Thomas, she was momentarily stunned.
"You're Thomas, aren't you?" her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. She took a short breath, then made way. "Please come in, son."
"Thank you, Ma'am," Thomas replied softly. His voice felt foreign to his own ears—dry and burdened.
Thomas stepped inside. Every step on the cold hospital floor felt like a hammer blow straight to his chest. The smell of antiseptic and the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor greeted him, emphasizing how fragile life was within this room.
"Hello, son," Dimas's father greeted from the bedside. His shoulders were slumped, yet he tried to force a smile that looked painful. "Are you Dimas's friend?"
"Yes, Sir. I was his elementary school friend," Thomas replied, bowing his head in respect, unable to look directly into the eyes of a father guarding his child's life.
Dimas's father nodded slowly. "Thank you for coming all this way. He is very happy whenever a friend visits."
Thomas swallowed hard, trying to hold back the tightness in his chest. He forced a thin smile, then stepped closer to the bed.
"Dimas..."
"I'm fine, Thomas," Dimas whispered faintly. His pale lips formed a thin, sincere curve of a smile. "Don't look so sad. I'm okay."
Dimas's kindness felt like a razor blade slicing through Thomas's heart. Thomas wanted to kneel; he wanted to scream in front of Dimas: "I dropped you on purpose back then! Please don't smile at me!"
However, Thomas froze when he saw Dimas's father standing in the corner of the room. The man looked so broken, yet he still looked at Thomas with a gaze of gratitude. Thomas was choked by his own dilemma. If he were honest now, would that honesty free his soul, or would it be the final bullet that destroyed the remaining peace of this family in their critical hour?
"I... I just arrived from Jakarta and came straight here," Thomas swallowed, struggling to find words. "I'm sorry, I just found out you were hospitalized."
"It's okay," Dimas replied softly. "Is your college going well? Jakarta must be busy, right?"
"It's going well, Dim. It's just... the assignments are a headache," Thomas answered, trying to pretend everything was normal even though his heart ached. He forced a small laugh that sounded hollow. "Later, when you're healthy, we'll go out, okay? Wherever you want to go, I'll take you. I promise."
Dimas laughed weakly, then coughed violently until his chest heaved. "Promise, okay?"
Thomas nodded quickly, unable to make a sound. His eyes couldn't leave Dimas's legs, which appeared small and stiff under the blanket—an eternal reminder of the sin he committed nine years ago on an old wooden table.
Soon after, a doctor entered with a nurse. "I'm sorry, visiting hours are over. We need to perform routine checks and wound cleaning."
Thomas realized it was the cue to leave. He held Dimas's hand for a brief moment. "I'm heading out, Dim. Get plenty of rest. I'll come again."
Dimas nodded weakly. "Thanks, Thom."
Thomas walked out of the room with Dimas's parents. In the quiet corridor, he gathered the courage to ask. "Sir... what actually happened to Dimas?"
Dimas's father didn't answer immediately. He just rubbed his worn face, as if trying to wipe away the deep-seated exhaustion. "Complications, Thomas. For nine years he could only sit and lie down... his body finally gave up."
He took a long, trembling breath. "The doctor said the infection has spread throughout his body. His vital organs are starting to fail. They call it severe sepsis. Dimas's immune system can no longer fight back."
Dimas's mother suddenly covered her face and sobbed loudly. "He is our only child, Thomas... He's all we have. Why has fate been so cruel to him since he fell from that table nine years ago?"
Thomas stood frozen. Every word was a death sentence for him. Nine years ago. That table. Me.
But the revelation that Dimas was an only child hit Thomas harder than anything. His breath hitched; his knees grew weak.
All this time, he felt guilty for making Dimas paralyzed. Now he realized his mistake was much greater: if Dimas left, he wouldn't just be destroying a friend's future, but also extinguishing the only hope of his parents.
Seeing Dimas's mother nearly collapsing, Thomas reflexively reached out, hesitated for a moment, then touched the arm of the chair where she sat as a sign of support, though he felt his own hands were too dirty to touch them.
"Ma'am… I… I really don't know what to say," his voice trembled. "I am so sorry. I am deeply saddened to see Dimas like this."
Thomas swallowed, his chest tight seeing the destruction before his eyes. "Hopefully... hopefully there is still a miracle. Nothing is impossible for God, right, Sir?"
Dimas's father nodded slowly. "Yes, Thomas. Thank you. We can only surrender now. We are trying to stay strong because we are all Dimas has... and Dimas is all we have."
A suffocating silence enveloped them for a moment. Thomas was unable to meet the hopeful gaze of Dimas's father. He felt every second he spent there was a crime; he could no longer stand before people who were so sincere to him while he kept such a foul secret.
"Sir... Ma'am... I think I should head home now so you can focus more on looking after Dimas," Thomas said quietly. His voice was almost drowned out by the hiss of the oxygen machine from inside the room. "In the coming days, if permitted, I will come to visit again."
Dimas's father patted his shoulder gently. A simple gesture that felt devastating. "Thank you so much for coming. You brought a little spark to Dimas's eyes. That is more than enough for us."
Thomas shook their hands with cold fingers, then left without looking back. As soon as his feet hit the sidewalk under the dim streetlights, his defenses crumbled. In the silence of the night, his tears flowed silently, falling onto the asphalt—as hot as the fear and guilt that now burned his soul more fiercely than any infection.
***
At ten o'clock at night, Thomas arrived home. His father and mother were already in the living room, while Eben hadn't returned from work yet. Upon seeing Thomas, his father's face immediately lit up with a characteristic glow of pride—an expression that now made Thomas feel nauseous.
"Well, our Engineer is home!" Dad stood up, patting Thomas firmly on the shoulder. "Why were your things on the porch earlier? Where have you been?"
"I was at the hospital, Dad. Visiting a friend," Thomas answered flatly while greeting them. His hands still felt as cold as the hospital floor.
"Oh, visiting a friend? That's good; maintaining relationships is important," Dad remarked. He didn't ask who was sick or how serious the condition was; he only cared about social image and utility. "But you must take care of your health too. Don't let yourself break down; you have to stay focused on your studies. Your future is still long."
Future. The word rang in Thomas's ears like the sound of an ICU monitor.
Thomas's mother, who had been silently observing, finally spoke in the flat tone that was her trademark. "Your face is very pale, Thomas. It looks like there's no blood in it. Were you exhausted on the ship?"
"I just need some rest, Mom," Thomas whispered softly. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that half of his soul was left behind in a sterile ward on the second floor of Harapan Hospital.
"Alright then, go take a warm bath and head straight to bed," Mom continued without further expression. "Tell us about it tomorrow. Don't think too much."
His father nodded in agreement and gave Thomas one more pat on the back. "Your mother's right. A healthy body is your main asset. You can't be careless with yourself," he said in a firm tone that still sounded concerned. "Get some proper rest. We'll talk again tomorrow with a clear head."
Thomas hurried to shower. Under the stream of water, he hoped the stickiness of the antiseptic scent and the sweat of fear would wash away, but the image of Dimas's shrinking legs remained etched in his memory.
After finishing, Thomas went to his room without saying much. He closed the door and lay on the bed, staring at the pitch-black ceiling. The darkness slowly turned into a screen replaying Dimas's face, his mother's crying, and his father's broken, hopeful gaze.
This guilt is like the sepsis attacking Dimas, Thomas thought painfully. Invisible, bloodless, but it is eating my soul from the within. I carry this germ of a lie wherever I go.
He remembered Mr. Rudi's advice about "complete honesty." In front of Dimas earlier, he had the chance to end it all, but his tongue was tied.
In the face of honesty, I am still a loser, he thought bitterly.
Thomas closed his eyes as his body surrendered to extreme exhaustion. However, behind his eyelids, the world did not stop. In the distance, in another corner of the city, the monitor in the ICU continued to beep rhythmically—a digital hourglass counting down the remaining time, while Thomas could only lie there, waiting for the true storm to strike.