CHAPTER 124: HE NEVER CARED

**KIERAN MORISSON**

Consumed by emotions, their voices and words kept replaying in my head over and over again. I didn’t try to stop it. It all almost felt surreal, but the searing pain in my heart was anything but.

And if I hadn’t stumbled upon their discussion, I still would have been left in the dark.

If dad’s condition was as severe as mom said, then these few weeks might be the last time I would get to see him alive, and mom had deemed it not important to tell me.

Damn it.

So those hospital visits for cancer patients hadn’t been fake after all. I thought he was doing it for public attention, but all these time, he was a patient?

I clenched my fingers painfully tight, my eyes closed as I exhaled raggedly through clenched teeth.

And Ollie? He had known about it. He had spent these weeks with me, and he hadn’t said anything either.

He chose my mom over me.

I should be his most important person, he should always pick me above everyone else! He’d broken the promise he made to me just to keep hers.

Then, everything he had done, all our special moments had been out of pity for me?

The ugly thought made my heart churn.

I should have known that everything he gave me was too good to be true.

But still, I had allowed myself to live in every ray of sunshine he flickered my way.

Allowed myself to hope.

I lay facing the ceiling, my chest more stuffy with each ticking second that went past. My eyes stung, and the ceiling became even more blurry. It was a different kind of pain sizzling through, piercing hard a million times.

I couldn’t decide which of the pains hurt the most, but I was suffocating in it. It was breaking and tearing me slowly.

The door pushed open, allowing a streak of light inside the darkness of the room. The door shut and at the next moment, the bulb flickered on.

Not bothering to spare a glance in Vince’s direction, I closed my eyes.

"How are you holding up?" he asked. I didn’t open my eyes but I knew he was standing just beside me.

"Why? Did my mom ask you to check on me? Then go tell her that I’m fine," I breathed angrily. Why did it turn out that the people who I actually thought cared about me are doing so because Mom asked them?

More than hurt, I felt anger directed at all of them and myself. They could go to hell with their pity party!

"I care about you, you’re my family, do you think I would let you destroy my place if I don’t care?" Vince gestured at the room which had turned into a mess from my earlier outrage.

Liar. He let me destroy it because he could always get the money from my mom!

I’d had to leave.

I couldn’t bear to say words that might hurt Ollie and whatever we still had between us, I told myself that it was better I left until I was calm.

But I couldn’t fucking relax, I jolted out of the bed, my muscles tensed with pent-up frustration as I gripped at Vince’s collar, he staggered slightly but held his ground.

"Tell me, did you also know about my dad?!" My voice was raspy and raw.

His jaw tightened, a flicker of emotion passing through his eyes.

"I asked you something. Fucking answer me damn it!" I hissed.

The silence fell on us for the longest moment. I eased my grip and took a step backwards. He didn’t need to utter anything - his silence and the guilt in his eyes already spoke volumes.

"I wanted to tell you."

"You didn’t!" I spat in his face, then choked on a laugh. Why were everyone of them mentioning how they wanted to tell me? The fact was that they fucking didn’t!

"I’m sorry, Kieran," he mumbled, his gaze lidded with guilt as he slowly strode out the door.

Sometime later, I was lying on the bed, different thoughts flickering through my mind.

I thought of dad. It had been almost six months since I last saw him physically.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember any of the good times and memories spent with him.

Sadly, I couldn’t remember any. Okay, I could remember just one. It happened so long ago, I vaguely remember, but still, that was the only happy moment I could remember spending with both mom and dad.

We had gone on a picnic. It had been the next day after they brought Ginny home to live with us.

Aside from that, there was nothing.

The rest of it was blank and unpleasant.

Each time they returned from business trips, it had always been fight upon fights between us, instructing me on what to do and what not to.

The last time we fought was the night before he went to Europe for a business trip. It was over something about returning home drunk, how my behaviours would ruin his hard-earned reputation. I couldn’t clearly remember the words, but I remember how I felt.

A part of me that I’d never admitted had always hoped that it would get better, that we would still get to live as a family. It never did happen.

And now? He might lose his life and escape his mistakes easily?

My mind wandered to Ollie. I should never have found him in that living room with Mom. If I hadn’t, then we might still be fine as we were.

Even if it were all lies, so long as I didn’t find out, it would have been fine.

Anything, just anything would be better than this suffocating agony that threatened to consume me.

It wasn’t even just about Dad anymore. It wasn’t just about Mom. It was about him..

I was more concerned that he’d kept something from me. Again.

A sharp buzz startled me out of my spiraling thoughts. My hand shot toward the phone resting on the nightstand. The screen glowed with his name.

’Mine.’

It was what I’d saved his name as.

My thumb hovered over the screen, trembling. Every instinct in me screamed to open it, to read it, to answer him, to let him explain.

But I didn’t.

I dropped the phone face down, shutting my eyes against the sick pull in my gut. I forced myself still, forced my lungs to drag in air even though it hurt.

Let him suffer.

Let him squirm, let him wonder if I’ll answer, let him feel this gnawing hole clawing at his chest the way I feel it now.

A dark thought slithered through me, one I didn’t try to stop.

I wanted him to chase me. I wanted him desperate if it meant reaching me.

Because if he didn’t... then maybe he never cared at all.