The best hope now was to just sit on this curb forever and hope no one ever bothered, spoke to, or even looked at him again. But maybe that wouldn't be a problem. The only person who mattered obviously hadn't looked twice. The child sniffled and remained, sitting miserably on the curb, and knowing that no one would ever come looking for him.
He sat there, glaring at the joggers, and dog-walkers going by. How could they be happy? Because they had it. People, who noticed them. Or they were just ignorant. Ignorance is bliss? Yeah, they didn't have people who made them know everything—even then things they didn't want to know. Like what a new ring could mean.
"Shawn," someone said. The child stiffened. Of course his dad would find out where he was. His dad knew everything. But he didn't want to talk to his dad.
"Where have you been?" the elder Spencer asked. "You were supposed to be home an hour ago. I called Gus and he said he hadn't seen you all afternoon. What were you thinking?"
Shawn hunched his shoulders.
"Are you going to answer me?"
The boy shook his head without looking at his father.
"Hey, now," Henrey said, sitting next to his son. "What's going on? What's wrong?"
The boy angrily wished he had something to hide his face. Was it that easy to read?
"Nothing," Shawn said, settling on sullen. "Go away. You wouldn't understand."
Henry shrugged. "Try me."
Shawn shook his head.
"It can't be that bad. There's usually a way to fix things…"
"No, you can't fix it when it's permanent."
"What is permanent?"
The boy thought a minute. He hand solemnly sworn to himself not to tell anybody what happened, except for Gus maybe. But he was kind of tired of sitting there and not telling.
"When Miss Matheson came in today, I saw her new ring. It's an engagement ring—she's getting married," he said, impotently furious.
"Ah," his father said, leaning back, thinking through to the quickest solution.
"Well, did she know how you felt about her?" he asked.
The boy's eyes widened; he shook his head.
"Well," his father said, "You've saved yourself most of the problem already."
"What?" Shawn asked. "Were you even listening?"
"No, now hold up," Henry answered. "Just think for a minute how much worse you would feel if Miss Matheson had known how you felt, and was marrying someone else anyway."
Shawn sat there a minute, thinking. He could feel his face reddening at the mere thought of it.
"You see," his father said, "People always let you down—they're a pretty bad lot. I should know—I work with the worst of them every day. But you can save yourself a lot of the problems by just not letting all of them in."
The boy sat, thinking hard. "How?"
"Most people go about it different ways. They can try to come across as angry, or funny, or quiet, so that that's all you know about them. You don't know what's going on in their heads when they don't want to. If you don't want a person to hurt you, don't let them in."
"Don't let anybody in?"
"Well, no, I didn't say that. Most people have their close friends and family that know them too well to be fooled. But the others? If you work at it, you can fool them. And if you really try, you can get to the place where you can fool yourself out of the pain. See?"
The child sat quiet, and then nodded.
"Now come on back to the house. There's supper waiting," Henry said, standing and starting to walk back to the house.
Shawn sat a few moments more. It did hurt right now. And if this worked, he could get out of a lot. He wondered who he could fool. May as well just scratch Gus off that list. But…who knew? Maybe if he worked really hard he could fool everybody else, even his dad. He got up and followed his father to the house.
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Psych © USA
Story © TheInkgirl
No copyright infringement intended.
Just another random Psych one-shot. I like the relationship between Shawn and Henry, both the younger Shawn, and the older Shawn. And I always like the moments when Shawn cracks, a little. Reviews are smiled upon, kindness rewarded in smoothies. Thanks for reading!
~TheInkgirl