MALLEABLE

CHAPTER FIVE

imperious: person who displays an attitude of domineering, commanding, or overbearing behavior.
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S A B R I N A

"His health does not seem to be improving" Dr. Grimaldi whispered defeatedly as he examined father, checking his pulse and noting down his heightened blood pressure.

"It cannot be," my voice came out broken as all eyes turned towards me, including the tired eyes of my father from the bed and the cunning eyes of Quinton Bartholomew from beside me "You are a specialist in liver and my father never touched a bottle of liquor, there must be some way to cure him."

Dr. Grimaldi gave out a tired sigh as he injected a syringe in the glucose bottle attached to my father IV drip "We've been through this Sabrina, a couple hundred times may I add."

"Explain it a hundred and one time then." Quinton's low voice low and threatening as Dr. Grimaldi gulped momentarily in fear before shaking his head.

"His liver is toxicated, the scarring of his liver has become potent which is poisoning him slowly. The case is out of our hands now, we will give him a few months at best."

My shoulders shook in defeat as countless tears fell down my eyes, I slumped on the chair beside the bed and grabbed my father's hand while sobbing lowly "It's impossible" I wheezed "My father cannot leave me."

"Sweetheart—"

"No!" I cried out again, interrupting my father who was probably trying to reassure me, before a huge warm hand held my shoulders in a reassuring grip.

"I'll find better doctors" Quinton voiced out as he stroked my red hair away from my face "We'll find a way, darling."

"But no doctors can help him now, his condition keeps getting worse no matter what medicine I prescribe him." Dr. Grimaldi voiced, while adjusting his horn-rimned glasses over his stubby nose and furrowing his bushy white brows in disbelief.

"Shut up, Grimaldi" Quinton growled in aggression "If you cannot treat him, that just proves how incapable of a doctor you are."

"But—"

"Quinton calm down," my father interrupted the doctor "we all knew this would happen, this isn't news to us."

Father reached out to me as he wiped the tears off my face with pale, weakened fingers "I love you sweetheart, but I won't be able to see you grow up and make a name for yourself."

I cried harder while clutching his hand tightly "Father. . ."

"Please sweetheart just let me see you happy with your life for the last few months that I have, live a normal life and not the one burdened with me" he whispered as I felt Quinton's body go stiff behind me, as if expecting a blow to his face.

"Father  —"

"Go join a college, live a normal life teenagers are supposed to live" he said as I shook my head before he even completed the sentence.

I had declared that I would take a gap year, seeing my father's detoriating health and would be available to him twenty-four seven. I don't want to live with the guilt of abandoning my father for the rest of my life.