Blessings (A YiZhan Short Story)

Chapter 13: Blessings

Three Years Later

Xiao Zhan POV

A month had come and gone since the day I returned from D'Iberville, an emptier shell of a man I once was. Even more so than when YiBo first left me all those years ago. Back then, my time was focused on finding him. Now I spend my days working like a madman, barely eating, barely sleeping. Barely surviving. But this time, I didn't feel. Not even the pain that was buried deep inside my heart. This was my penance after all.

A knock sounded at my door and before I could give permission to enter, my dad walked in. I clamped my teeth shut; so many insults wanting to fly out but what good would it do? YiBo wasn't coming back. Ever.

"What?" I ground out as I glanced around my dad at Leo Wu who mouthed "sorry." I understood his predicament. Who would dare say no to the CEO of the company?

"Zhan, we need to talk!" My dad said, his voice half hard, half pleading.

"If it's about work, then go ahead and talk. Anything else, I don't want to hear it," I warned him. I really wanted to quit this job and find another, but my parents were getting older, frailer, especially this past year. Despise them I may, they were still my parents, and I would be the dutiful son and take care of them as they did me. However, that didn't mean I have to like them. Or respect them.

My dad closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he opened them, there was a weariness in them that I had never seen before.

"My son, you must take better care of yourself!"

"I am," I replied in a bored tone.

"Bullshit! Working eighteen-hour days is not taking care of yourself. You're practically halfway to the grave!"

I sighed. My dad was the one working himself into an early grave worrying about me. He needn't have bothered.

"Did you forget the Yunmeng Project, dad? We're about to break ground soon, of course I am working longer hours!" I tried to play it off, but he was having none of it.

"Working yourself to death for a project I could care less about!" My dad bellowed, and it startled me. Business was everything to him.

"Well, as you can see, I am perfectly fine." I wasn't fine though. I'd been feeling under the weather lately and getting out of bed was becoming a chore, but I'd be damned if I was going to let him know that.

"Those bags under your eyes would say otherwise, my son. As do the clothes that now hang off your body." This time tears welled in his eyes, and I forced myself to ignore the concern in his shaking voice.

"All part of the job, dad." I turned away from him, trying to be nonchalant. "Now, if there is nothing else, I really do need to head out to a meeting with the contractors."

"Zhan, wait!" He reached out and grabbed my arm. "I... I heard you found Wang YiBo. Is he okay? Is he coming back?"

"How dare you?" I whirled around and wrenched my arm from his grasp, anger and hatred warring inside my body as it shook with rage. Emotions that I had managed to suppress came tumbling out of me in waves that almost brought me to my knees. "How dare you speak his name in front of me! Have you not done enough? Have you not destroyed my life? My happiness? Do you want to see me on my knees begging for death? Because believe me, death sounds preferable to the existence I have right now, Father!"

He jerked as if I had slapped him. My calling him "father" in such a contemptuous tone finally hitting home.

"Well, my dear Father, let me tell you what happened when I met Wang YiBo." I swallowed the pain that raked across my once-frozen heart, pain I had entombed deep within myself in order to survive. But he had to do this, had to force my heart to thaw just a little, to feel the pain so raw as if it happened yesterday. "Nothing happened, Father. Not a goddamn thing!"