Bully stepbrother

79. Truce

CADEN

The day had been going smoothly, much like the past few weeks when she was always by my side. However, Professor Giant Tie decided to bring up a topic related to my life story during a lecture.

Since that awakening lecture, which I was obligated to attend for an entire semester (hell, I know, right?), I had been faking my demeanor, trying to be the person Mad deserves. I could have taken the easy way out and provoked the professors to kick me out, but I resisted.

After classes, Mad and I shared a passionate kiss for a good ten minutes in a narrow hideaway between two buildings.

I complimented her beauty and admitted how she turns me on when she's focused in class. She blushed and advised me to calm down until we were back home.

Pouting, I pulled her in for another long kiss, reluctantly letting go when she insisted on returning to her friend for coffee.

With my plan in mind since the first lecture, I agreed to give her some time while I executed my own agenda. The plan: pick her up when she's done having coffee.

I parked my Jeep across the street and entered the imperial building named Center Yorker.

Risky, I know, but I had to do this. Knowing Mad wouldn't agree, I kept it a secret.

Fortunately, there was no receptionist, and the guard was busy on the phone, likely planning a date with his lover. I sneaked into a corner and stopped by the private elevator that led to the highest floor.

"You can do this!"

With determination, I stepped into the elevator, anxiously waiting for whatever awaited me upstairs.

*Ding!*

The door slid open, revealing the familiar penthouse where I had once attended a party.

This time, it was tidy, warm, and grand. I emerged from the elevator and entered the living area filled with the scent of flowers.

There were numerous bouquets and cards scattered around the house.

Then she appeared from a corridor wearing headphones, holding a basket of laundry, dressed in black shorts and a plain white t-shirt.

Her alarmed green gaze met mine, swelled up and dark just below her eyes. The basket fell, though I doubted she noticed.

She grew even paler than before, and trust me, she was already quite pale. I didn't move any further, remaining careful not to scare her more than she already seemed to be.

I watched her take off her headphones, swallowing uncomfortably, drawing noisy breaths audible even from the distance between us.

"I am not here to hurt you," I started. "I came to apologize."

After the lecture by Professor Giant Tie, I made up my mind. Despite lacking all parental investment, love, and understanding that he had mentioned, I was finally understanding how good life feels when you feel whole.

To support Mad and make it easier for her to help me become human, I had to make the hardest decisions – including apologizing and facing my fears.

Daisy blinked, seeming unbelieving. I guessed she found it strange, but she didn't say a word, just kept staring at me from across the room.

"Your father! Madison! They were both right," I admitted. "You didn't deserve it. You're innocent in all of this." I sadly scoffed.

"Does my father deserve it?" I heard her quietly ask, her voice barely audible in the space.

"Maybe!" Maybe not. Maybe the prison was enough for what he had done. "I don't know!" I confessed, feeling confused myself.

"He has been in prison for years... We..." She gasped and stopped, biting her lip before struggling to continue, correcting herself this time. "I-I have been without him for years. Don't you think that's enough?" She scrutinized from a distance.

I didn't know why, but suddenly it felt uneasy. Like the room was closing in on me, or the air was poisoned, and I could barely breathe.

"The pain never stops," I mumbled, thinking back to Cara's smile – gone forever.

"I know," Daisy murmured weakly.

I shook my head at her and nervously shoved my hands in my pockets.

"You don't."

She knows nothing about losing the only person you shared emotional affection with – someone you depended on. The only person who saw light in you when all you saw in yourself was the shadow.

She knows nothing about my pain.

"My mother died ten days ago," she gulped painfully.

It was a surprise.

I felt her declaration in every possible way, numbing me completely, as if hit with pails of ice.

Indeed, she knows exactly how it feels. She was living in it.

She now knew what it felt like to lose love, comfort, and cognitive assistance.

"I-I am sorry." It was all I could give. It was what I got too.

And that's the problem – that's all people could give you. Because they can't change the inevitable.

"She was the only one I knew after everything that had happened. She was the only one left. She was the reason I came here. I wanted medical school; I just needed to cure her. But look how life messed with us." She wiped her eyes with her fingers and looked away. "Still in my first year, but she's gone," Daisy whispered, mostly to herself.

"What happened to her?" I asked.

"Cancer."

"Oh!"

"See! I know how it feels now. I've lost a lot growing up. My friends, parents, college funds – mostly everything. I knew how it feels to be away from those you love. But now I know how it feels to lose them forever." She sadly smiled. "I can't tell you how much I wished what happened that day outside your home could be reversed. Every time I wished it didn't go that way." She swallowed.

"Because truly, my family took the most loss in the incident." She choked. "I am sorry it happened that way! I am so sorry about Cara."

Leaving me weak in the knees, my shoulders slumped, and eyes downcast.

"It could never be reversed," I reminded her. "Some things that were meant to be had to happen through the process. Be it good or bad," Reagan, my former therapist, had once said.

"Was there good in yours?" Daisy questioned, catching me off guard.

I slightly nodded. "I got a stepsister."

Washing the small smile pulling on my lips, I asked her, "What about you? Was there good in yours?"

"No," her tongue swept across her lips. "Anything that went good now had been better eight years ago. And those that went worst were never bad before."

"I am sorry," I found myself repeating.

She took forward steps and stopped by a floor lamp, three or maybe four steps away from me.

"Is not your fault either," Daisy ascertained. "We were the kids; we were only victims."

Just as she closed her mouth, a man thundered behind me: "Stay away from her." What the hell? "Do not move." He ordered.

But instinct and, you know, my behavior, in particular, got me swirling around, not obliged to anyone's rules.

At that moment, I was able to comprehend three things.

First: the man's familiar face.

Second: the pistol he was pointing at me.

Third: Daisy's panicked scream. "He's not going to hurt me." She informed the person.

With that, I was hit by the tiniest, most powerful steel that went through my stomach and made a hole inside me.

Blood... Blood...

Sweet cheese!