𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐬 [𝟏𝟖+] ✓

27

This chapter has time lapses and they're important, so please don't complain about them.

━━━━━━━━━♚━━━━━━━━━

Katrina Diaz

I had lived more than a decade of my life in fear. Fear that someone may find out about my self-harming tendencies. Fear that I would get locked up in a mental institution, or even worse, in an exorcist's house. Fear that I would be stripped away from everything that I wanted to do.

I had always been self-conscious when my scars were in view. Anxious that people would judge, criticise, and prod. Self-conscious because I couldn't take my watch off lest all my scars would be visible. But ever since my fall, some strange anxiety — strange fear of people, my surroundings, of everything — followed me around. Staying at the hospital, watching and trying to gauge the nurses' expressions, was agonising.

I had begged Hayden to discharge me from the hospital so I didn't have to see their faces, and Hayden had agreed. He had been taking care of me for the past week, feeding me, combing my hair, helping me bathe, changing me into fresh clothes every day, and walking me to the balcony if I wanted fresh air. He had treated me like a newborn with such precious care and gentleness that I wouldn't have expected from someone like him. He hadn't just left me alone nor given my phone to me. He had given me chocolates, set up some web series on his laptop, blast music on speakers, or let me listen to stupid audiobooks, but he hadn't given me my phone.

Today, however, I found my phone in his closet and turned it on, catching up with all the messages and notifications. Reading my mother's unanswered message, I pushed my lower lip between my teeth, pain wrapping its cruel arms around me, Kendra's words echoing in my ears.

Hayden's footsteps snapped my attention to his face. "You're the one who texted her? She has been at this stupid proposition for months now. What does she think of me? That I have access to your credit card?"

"You do now." Velvet and chaos said as a valet landed onto the bed beside me. "Do what you want with it."

"Fuck her and you! I'm done caring and trying to get her approval." I picked the valet of one of London's richest people and threw it in the rubbish bin beside my bed, anger knotting at my nape. "And I don't want to add sugarbaby to my resume."

I felt like a constant failure and burden as it was.

He stilled in his tracks, scrutinising me. "What do you want to add, then?"

My death date.

Training my eyes over the ring that Hayden had slid over my finger, I swallowed my words. Caregiver burnout wasn't a joke and with every kind, patient word Hayden offered me, I felt his kindness multiply the guilt in my chest. I knew I inevitably would let Hayden down one day because those thoughts of hurting myself or putting an end to this misery were like an addiction that had no recovery.