The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 211

"Nothing?" she softly spat the word. "Hackett, the scars from those five lashes on my back still ache when it rains. That unborn child of mine didn't even have a name. Was that nothing, too?"

Hackett's hand, frozen in midair, went rigid.

"Whatever affection you're looking for was thoroughly butchered out of me three years ago in that operating room by you, your mother, and Clarissa," Annelise's voice was remarkably steady. "Cut away until nothing was left. The reason I can stand before you now without crying or screaming isn't because I'm forgiving; it's because the place in my heart that used to hold you has been empty for a long time."

"You want to shove things back in there, but you couldn't even drive a nail into it now."

Hackett's arm slowly dropped.

He opened his mouth, but it felt like a wad of scalding cotton was lodged in his throat. For a long time, no sound came out.

Annelise bypassed him and kept walking.

After three steps, Hackett let out a broken, ragged shout from behind her.

"Anne, I can't accept this!"

Annelise stopped in her tracks.

She didn't turn around, only tilting her face slightly.

"You can't accept it," she said. "But the things that happen in this world have never cared about what we can or cannot accept."

"When Clarissa lay in that hospital bed crying foul, did she care what I could accept? When I was on my knees begging your mother not to touch my baby, did I want to accept that?"

"Nobody ever asked us what we wanted to accept."

With that, she started walking again.

Hackett stumbled after her for two steps before a violent coughing fit forced him to double over.

He leaned heavily against the freezing brick wall, coughing until he couldn't breathe, his vision tunneling into blackness.

By the time he recovered, Annelise had already reached the next intersection.

"Anne," he shouted, using every last ounce of his strength. "Please, just give me a chance. Just one."

Annelise finally turned back.

From halfway down the empty street, she stared at the man who could barely stand against the wall.

The streetlight stretched his shadow, making him look thin, elongated, and utterly pathetic.

There was no pity on her face, nor any vindictive pleasure.

She simply looked at him, as if verifying whether an old, discarded item had truly been thrown out for good.

"Hackett," she spoke, her voice not loud, but it cut clearly through the biting wind and reached his ears.

"Get lost."

Just two words.

Not heavy, not rushed. Utterly flat.

Yet more devastating than any hysterical scream.

The hand Hackett used to brace himself against the wall trembled violently.

For over thirty years, he had been pampered, revered, and put on a pedestal. No one had ever dared to say those words to him.

But coming from Annelise, devoid of any emotion, it was like she was shooing away a stranger blocking her doorway.

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