Little stump

CHAPTER 13

         "You need to know the full story if you're going to understand Damien, Maddy" Diana said to me gently, after finally guiding me to the bed and sitting down beside me.

     That familiar painful feeling in my chest had returned, the one I didn't fully understand yet. The one that kept proving me otherwise anytime I argued with myself that I didn't love Damien. It was a cold, lonely feeling. The exact opposite of the fire that I felt anytime that Damien touched me. I stared into space as Diana slowly and gently nugged me. I turned to her.

    She immediately gasped, and raised her hands to wipe the tears I hadn't even realised had started to spill down my face. Why, why, why did it hurt so much?

   "Oh Maddy, you actually started falling for him, didn't you?" She whined as she cleaned my face with her palms.

      I put my hands to my face, cleaning the tears away, I didn't have any right to cry. Why was I?

     "Tell me the full story" I said, forcing the tears to stop once and for all.

     "Are you sure..... you..... you seem a little......." I cut off Diana's stuttering.

    "Just tell me, please. No more secrets". I said, bringing my knees to hug my chest and leaning my back into her headboard.

    Diana sighed, "alright, I'll tell you, but you have to promise me that Damien won't know about this"

   I stared up at her. Not having the energy to argue, I just nodded.

    "Okay, it started back when you had just left, six years ago" I winced at the sentence, the way she said left made it sound like I had done it on purpose. I don't like to hear the word.

    "When Damien got the news, he didn't take it very well, he threw a huge tantrum and retreated back to his room, locked himself up and didn't come out for about a week. He took it even harder than I did" Diana continued, I was now very interested in the story. I'd wondered how little stump would've behaved every single day after I was forced to leave that night. I was way closer to him than even Diana. He had been my little brother, and the thought that he was suffering from my absence had been destroying me every single day. I was finally hearing how it destroyed him.

     Diana continued. "Eventually, he started withdrawing and stopped hanging out with people, he even started begging mom and dad to homeschool him, he stopped talking unless he was spoken to, he literally wouldn't even speak for weeks sometimes except he was asked to actively participate in the conversation." This story was starting to really break my heart, Damien had suffered that much from my absence. My father really was a monster, how could he make me do that to him?

      "Mom and dad started to get really scared, so they called an expert therapist and he was eventually diagnosed with depression and some other antisocial disorders" My eyes widened. I just remembered that Diana had mentioned that, but like the selfish person I was, I'd only remembered the part where she said I was his first love, I was an asshole too.

    Diana looked at me with a sympathetic look. "Maddy, I can't describe what you meant to him, but I need you to know that it was a lot. I went into his room one night and asked him what was wrong, he told me how he found out that he was in love with you just after you left, he told me how he was heartbroken, Maddy. He was also really angry and told me that you were dead to him" I winced at that sentence, he had been so broken, I could understand his pain. However, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. It was destroying me to listen to this, the amount of hurt in Diana's voice proved to me that it wasn't only Damien that was affected by my leaving, it was so clear that she also had a lot of hidden emotions as well, but she was trying so hard to seem strong.

     "I'm so sorry I did that to him, Dia" I said, and I meant it, I was seriously sorry.

     "It's okay, Maddy, really". Diana said as she rubbed my shoulders gently. The story wasn't over yet though.

     "Tell me what happened after that" I asked, Diana sighed but continued.

     "That night, he made me a promise that he would forget about you, and he advised me to as well. He actually did get better after that, he still kept going to therapy but he opened up a lot more, he went back to school and started getting better grades and he finally got a girlfriend." I couldn't explain the weird feeling that enveloped me in that moment, so I didn't bother to put a name on it. However, I knew pretty well it was jealousy.

    "It was Damien's first relationship, he was just 14 at the time so this was a big deal for him. He gave her his all, Maddy. He really loved her". I was tempted to scream 'okay, we get it' in Diana's face, but I restrained myself. I had no right to be getting jealous.

    "But she didn't love him back, she cheated on him with a college guy and she got pregnant". My eyes widened, that little skank. I already disliked her immensely.

    "Damien was destroyed" I stared into Diana's eyes as she said the words, and I could see the clear disdain in them. She really disliked this girl too. "I had to watch him revert back into that shell that he'd just come out of, I tried to talk to him, get to him, nothing worked. He got even worse than he was before and therapy seemed to stop working completely. He was dying, Maddy." The tears had started to gather around her eyes, I immediately stood up to comfort her. I gently rubbed her back as she relieved the horrible memory of watching her brother turn into a living zombie.

     "You don't have to tell me anymore if you don't want to, Dia." I felt guilty that I didn't mean the words, I wanted to know everything, I was already so into the story, I needed to know the ending.

     "No it's okay, we're almost at the end anyway and besides, we've already come this far" Diana wiped her eyes and smiled at me. I returned it.

     "Anyways, after what she did to him, Damien lost a lot of self confidence, he blamed the fact that everybody kept leaving him on his looks and the fact that he was so tiny, he became obsessed with his body after that, he started lifting weights, eating healthy and getting tattoos, he said he was going to become so 'hot' that no girl would be able to resist him, and well, he did, he got really good looking and became really popular, but he also developed a god complex, he believed that there was no such thing as true love, so the only thing he could do was screw girl after girl and just dump them afterwards". The words hit me hard, I had been the start of a string of domino events that led to what he was today. I was the reason he was an asshole. I was to blame. I looked down at my palms. I really had broken him.

     "I wish I could apologise personally to Damien........I do......". I was cut off when the door opened abruptly, revealing a very angry Damien.

     "Don't bother, I have nothing to do with your pointless apology." My eyes widened, as well as Diana's. He had heard everything.

     "What the fuck, Dia?!!" He roared.

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      For some weird reason, I keep mistaking Diana as Madeline. Please, alert me if you notice the mistake. 😂 . Also please, leave a vote if you enjoyed the chapter, it really means a lot.