Chapter 96: Nowhere Left To Hide From Him
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God, that was a complete disaster...
I dragged a hand over my face. Maybe if I stood here long enough, the floor would finally open up and swallow me whole. But unfortunately, life had never shown me that kind of mercy, and it wasn’t going to start today.
Slowly, I turned around.
Damien was still standing a few feet away. His hair was messy from sleep, and he was still without a shirt, his bare chest revealing something I’d have complicated feelings about under different circumstances. He looked like he’d just woken up, but there was no trace of grogginess left in his eyes; just quiet, steady focus.
That somehow made it all feel worse.
My stomach dropped. "So..how much of that did you hear?"
The words came out rougher than I intended. Damien didn’t even hesitate. "Pretty much everything."
Holy crap...I wanted to fucking die. Right then and there. I groaned and covered my face with my hands. "Fantastic."
"Oliver—"
"Nope," I interjected, pointing at him without looking, my voice muffled through my palms. "Nope. Don’t."
"Don’t what?"
"Whatever you’re about to do."
"What am I about to do?"
I lowered my hands and glared at him. "The concerned face."
His eyebrows lifted. "The concerned face?"
"You’re doing it right now."
"I’m literally just standing here."
"Exactly."
He looked mildly, genuinely offended. "I didn’t know standing was a punishable offense."
Normally that would have sparked some kind of sarcastic comeback, the usual banter we’d established over the past couple of months. But today, I didn’t have the energy for that. I dropped my hand, feeling the fight drain out of me all at once, like a tide pulling back.
Of course, Damien noticed... he noticed everything lately, which had stopped being annoying and had become something I quietly relied on. His expression shifted; the teasing disappeared entirely, and somehow, that felt worse than if he’d kept it up.
He took a few steps closer. Not enough to crowd me, just enough to let me know he was there.
"I’m not going to pry into whatever’s happening between you and Melanie," he said.
I exhaled a quiet breath. Thank God.
"That’s none of my business and I know you’d hate that," he continued.
My relief lasted about two seconds.
"But your dad..." He paused, choosing his words carefully, like he’d been holding them in for a while and was deciding how to let them out gently. "He’s been in the hospital?"
The apartment suddenly felt too small. I looked away.
There it was. The thing I’d spent months avoiding, the subject I never discussed with anyone who didn’t already know. I’d buried it under work schedules and overdue bills, maintaining the facade of everything is fine, actually.
"It’s...uh, not a big deal," I said.
The lie sounded pathetic, even to my own ears. Damien stared at me, unmoved. "Oliver."
"I’ve got it handled." I crossed my arms. "Can we not do this right now?"
"We are doing this right now."
I laughed, humorless. "Since when are you so stubborn?"
His expression didn’t change. "Since I found out you’ve been carrying something this big all by yourself and I had no idea..."
I looked away. The concern in his voice was too close to pity, and I couldn’t stand pity, not from anyone, especially not from people like him.
Damien stepped forward again. "What happened?"
I stayed silent.
"Oliver."
"Drop it."
"No."
I clenched my jaw. "Why do you even care. Come on let’s just go back to bed, okay?"
The question came out sharper than I’d meant. For just a second, something flickered across his face, hurt, brief and quickly buried, but I caught it.
"I care because you’re my friend and we’re not changing the subject," he said. "And because you’ve looked exhausted every day since I’ve known you. You work nonstop."
Silence, I fought the urge to burst into tears. There it was again, the f-word...friends.
"You barely sleep."
More silence.
"You’re always worried about money." He looked at me steadily. "And now I know why."
The apartment felt quiet again. I felt trapped, not by Damien or the room, but by the truth itself, which had apparently decided today was the day it wanted to surface, whether I was ready or not.
Eventually, my legs gave out before my pride could. I sank onto the couch, the cushions dipping beneath me, and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, staring at the floor like it might offer some kind of escape.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I laughed, a small, broken sound, hardly a laugh at all. "You want the truth so bad? Fine...my dad, um ...his liver started failing last year."
The words slipped out before I could stop myself. Damien sat down across from me, just listening — no interruptions, no unsolicited advice, no judgment in his expression. So, I kept talking, because it seemed once the dam cracked, it didn’t know how to stop.
"The doctors caught it late," I said, eyes fixed on the floor. "Initially, they thought treatment would stabilize everything."
I swallowed. "But it didn’t."
The memories came rushing back, vivid and exhausting, hospital hallways under fluorescent lights, stacks of medical forms with my signature on each one, machines beeping through nights I should have spent sleeping, and conversations with doctors that always seemed to culminate in another bill, another procedure, another complication nobody had warned us about.
"He keeps improving for a little while," I said, a bitter laugh escaping me. "Then something else happens, but now he seems to be really okay."
Damien remained silent, giving me the room to continue.
"He’s been admitted three times. Some of those stays lasted weeks." I rubbed my eyes. "The bills just keep coming, so he’s been in the hospital for some months now."
The words began to spill out faster, perhaps because I was too exhausted to keep the dam reinforced, or because someone was finally listening without flinching.
Understanding crossed his face, and I hated it, because understanding always led to sympathy, and sympathy made me feel weak in a way I’d spent years avoiding.
I looked away. "I can’t lose him, he’s the only family I have left and I–"
The words cracked, just a little, but enough.
The room fell completely silent. I stared at my hands, which I noticed had started shaking at some point without my permission.
"I already lost my mom," I said, my throat tightening. "I don’t—"
The rest got stuck. I swallowed hard, tried again, failed.
The exhaustion I’d kept locked away for months suddenly felt impossible to contain, like a structure that had held too much weight for too long and had finally, quietly, given way.
"I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him too."
My voice broke completely.