Chapter 113
Yes, I definitely deserved better than that.
The next day, I visited my mother at Silver Star Hospital during my
lunch break. I’d brought her favorite pastries from Sophia’s café-
low–sugar apple turnovers that wouldn’t spike her blood sugar.
As I approached her room, I heard her voice, uncharacteristically
raised. I paused outside the door, my heart instantly pounding
against my ribs.
“I don’t have that kind of money!” she was saying, her voice trembling
with anger. “You can’t just disappear for years and then-”
A bout of coughing interrupted her words. My hand tightened on the
door handle, knuckles turning white.
“She’s your daughter too,” my mother continued, her voice weaker
now. “Your responsibility—”
My blood ran cold, a sudden wave of nausea washing over me. That
fucking bastard. There was only one person she could be talking to. I
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pushed the door open just as another coughing fit seized her. The
phone slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor.
“Mom!” I rushed to her side, helping her sit up as she struggled to
breathe. My hands were shaking, rage and fear battling for dominance
inside me.
Her eyes widened when she saw me, a flash of guilt crossing her pale
face.
I knew immediately. “That was him, wasn’t it? Leon?”
I couldn’t bring myself to call him “dad.” Not after everything. The
word “father” had been burned out of my vocabulary years ago,
replaced with nothing but contempt.
Mother’s silence was confirmation enough. My stomach twisted with a sickening mixture of anger and dread. What the hell does he want
now?
“He called about money,” she finally admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “He said he’s in trouble again.”
“Of fucking course he is.” I couldn’t keep the venom from my voice. I bent down to retrieve the phone, checking to see if he was still on the line. The call had ended. “Still pulling the same shit after all these
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years.”
I placed the phone on her bedside table and sat down, trying to
L
control the rage bubbling inside me.
“You didn’t agree to help him, did you?” I asked, dreading the answer.
My heart pounded with suppressed fury.
Mother shook her head. “I told him I’m in the hospital. That we don’t
have money to spare.”
“Good.” I squeezed her hand, noticing how fragile it felt. The silver
veins of her toxicity were more prominent today, spreading further up
her wrists like poison ivy. “Don’t worry about him. He’s not your
problem anymore.”
She looked at me with those sad eyes that always made my chest
ache. “He asked about you.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I said flatly, the words hard and cold. “Still being
able to make phone calls means he’s not dead. That’s all I need to
know.”
My mother didn’t argue. She knew better than to defend him to me.
Instead, she changed the subject, asking about work. I gave her vague
answers, not wanting to burden her with my problems. She’d been
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through enough.
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