Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
CADEN
Past
“He did it, I know he did. He killed your mother.” Joe’s face was comically pinched. My father was an idiot, but for the first time in his life, he had made a clever allegation.
I did it.
Lord Damon, the savior, was quick to come to my defense. “Dad.” He sounded exhausted, his red-rimmed eyes making him seem older than a teenager. “That’s so fucked up. Our mother just died, and you’re blaming Caden for it. He was the one who brought her to the hospital.”
“Not in time!” Joe shouted. “He intentionally brought her too late to save her.”
My face was impassive as ever, giving nothing away. Once more, he was right. It was interesting how my parents always knew exactly what I was, but Damon refused to see it.
Damon shot up from his seat, furious. “Mom overdosed! Caden found her on the floor and rushed her to the hospital. It wasn’t his fault that the doctors couldn’t save her.”
Joe stared me down with venom. I quirked an eyebrow, challenging him to find a crack in the story. I had made sure this couldn’t be traced back to me.
“He hasn’t shed a single tear for his dead mother.”
Damon closed his eyes. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting, too.”
Oh, yes, it does.
“Everyone experiences grief differently, Dad.”
We were in the medical suite where my mother had taken her last breath.
While we were waiting for paperwork and for the body to be released, my father had devised a plan to send me away to boarding school.
Boarding school was a fancy term for a mental institution, and knowing my father, probably the worst of its kind.
However, Damon insisted on going with me.
Joe lost it at that suggestion. For one, he didn’t want to send away his heir.
Secondly, Joe wanted to ship me off to a place grimmer than a mental asylum, where I would never see the light of day again.
Joe’s hands would be tied if Damon joined me, and he would have to send us to some fancy school in Switzerland instead.
Damon knew it, too. He was diplomatic, not obtuse.
“I see evil in that boy,” my father murmured, speaking about me as if I weren’t here. “He has to go. I can’t look at that boy anymore.”
“We just lost our mother,” Damon told him, exasperated. “Act like the grown-up for once, Dad. Console your sons. Don’t blame us for Mom’s death.”
Joe reeled back like he had been slapped. “I know you would never hurt your mother.” He reached a hand to comfort his favorite son.
Damon stepped out of his reach. There was a sneer on his face. “Then stop trying to send my brother away. Because if you do, I’m going with him. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. I hate to burst your bubble, but twins are a package deal.”
Joe was visibly hurt by Damon’s words, but not enough to deter his intentions.
“I know you’re a good boy, Damon.” He looked right into my soulless eyes.
“But I have to send him away. The doctors said your mother could’ve been saved, and I just know he purposefully brought her here too late.
I can’t look at him anymore, not after he killed your mother. ”
Once more, I was impressed by my imbecile of a father. He wasn’t generally this sharp.
Damon, on the other hand, was too distracted to see what was right in front of him. “Enough.” He slashed a hand across the air. It was so unexpected from my even-tempered twin that my father quieted, and I glanced up at him.
Hm. Our mother’s death must be affecting him more than I had expected. Oh well, in time Damon would see this was for the best.
“Please, Damon. Don’t go with him,” was my father’s desperate plea. “You should be here with your family at a time like this.”
“So should Caden.”
“He doesn’t care about us.”
It was true.
I had returned home earlier than expected and found my mother mid-seizure. See, that was why you should never mix drugs with alcohol.
She stared at me helplessly, her eyes widening when she realized it was me, not Damon, that had found her on the floor. She silently pleaded for help, though we both knew the chances of me helping her were slim to none.
Sure, the hospital was only a five-minute drive, and she had at least thirty minutes before the symptoms kicked in and caused brain damage, possible cardiac arrest, and eventually death.
I was almost fifteen and knew how to drive.
All I had to do was grab a key and throw her in the back seat of one of our cars.
Hell, I could have even called an ambulance.
But I had to play the odds here.
It just so happened that I had walked in on her while she was having a seizure from an overdose. Since my mother had no interest in changing her ways, this would likely happen again, and she would die regardless of my actions today.
Our mother’s debilitating addiction had turned into a real inconvenience. Damon had personally taken her to rehab four times in the span of two years. She couldn’t bear to be apart from her golden child, so my brother and father often opted to stay at nearby hotels.
My twin and I had our differences, but I had always admired his mind. He was tech-savvy and could achieve great things if he focused on them. Instead, Damon let our mother drag him down with her into her spiral of demise.
I was on track to graduate from high school in six months.
Damon could have been on that path, too.
Unfortunately, he had missed too many classes playing our mother’s emotional support human during her recovery.
Except she never recovered and returned home just to restart the same vicious cycle.
It was affecting Damon’s future. He should be working on his craft, not living out of his suitcase at remote mountain resorts.
Letting her die was a necessary but calculated risk. Although I was doing my twin a favor, it couldn’t look like I was involved.
Instead of pulling her off the floor, I pulled up a chair and started the stopwatch on my phone.
I had to take her to the hospital right as she was at the cusp of death.
It had to appear like I tried to help her while ensuring there was nothing doctors could do to save her at that point.
The brain damage and the lack of oxygen needed to set in.
She had stared at me with hatred as I let her die, knowing she had been right about me all along.
I had merely shrugged. Despite what she thought, I wasn’t letting her die out of hatred.
Farmers put down sick animals to put them out of their misery.
Humans were no different. My mother was sick and showed no signs of improvement.
She would never get better and die regardless of my actions today.
At least if she died now, Damon would have a shot at a bright career.
If she died later, she might fuck up his future beyond repair.
What I hadn’t accounted for was Damon’s reaction. Sure, I expected some tears over his dearly departed mother. But I assumed he would be ultimately relieved. She was an obstacle in his path to achieve greatness. It was impractical to want such a nuisance.
Watching Damon now, you would think he was anything but relieved. He was getting more agitated with each passing second.
“I swear to God, Dad. If you accuse Caden one more time, you don’t have to bother sending him away. We’ll leave voluntarily.”
“I’m not trying to send you away. Just try to understand, Damon. I can’t live with someone who killed my wife.”
Damon stood to his height, nose flaring with fury. “If Caden had hurt my mother, I’d personally bury him six feet under. I know for a fact he isn’t capable of it, and the fact that you can’t see it is your problem, not ours. I love you, Dad, but sincerely, fuck off.”
I stared at Damon, gobsmacked. Had I broken him beyond repair?
While our father shouted, I left the room and made my way to the rooftop for a cigarette. For the first time, I doubted my actions. I had done Damon a huge favor, yet he was utterly devastated. It was concerning. I had never seen him this way. Perhaps their bond ran deeper than I had expected.
Damon had spent his life giving up things for my sake. When we were twelve, he wanted nothing more than a stupid gaming console. My mother said I wasn’t allowed to play it, and he was willing to give it up as a show of solidarity.
Now, I had taken away the most important person in his life.
We were both in agreement that Joe Maxwell was an idiot, and while Damon dealt with our father diplomatically, his rock had ironically been our drug addict mother.
Without her, he had no support system because I couldn’t provide that for him.
He needed to stay in New York, surrounded by his friends and the cousins we were close to. Instead, he was willing to move to Switzerland with me and doom himself to a life without emotional support. Damon was giving away what he wanted for someone who took away what he loved the most.
As much as I hated to admit it, there were two people in Damon’s life who had been dragging him down. The first person was out of the picture while I was still standing.
I wasn’t sure exactly when I landed on the whole suicide thing. It must be somewhere between the first and second hour of deep contemplation. But once the idea came to me, it seemed like a damn good one.
The first reason was obvious. Damon would thrive without me dragging him down.
The second reason was even simpler. I was really fucking bored.
Part of living in a thriving society required honing your interpersonal relationships, and it was a skill I would never perfect, nor would I bother working on it. Everyone fucking bored me to tears, and everyone I met was below me. Why should I try?
It seemed other human beings found each other interesting. I had no idea why, because I didn’t. Clearly, I was a defect, not fit for society.
As I said, farmers put down faulty animals that served no purpose. It wasn’t enough to own a brilliant mind. Society demanded more, and I had no interest in lowering myself to meet those demands.
It seemed killing myself was the most logical solution.
I wasn’t depressed or anything. I considered other avenues before coming to this conclusion.
For example, I could emancipate myself. But I had a feeling that would be too big a scandal for a family like ours, and Joe would do everything in his power to stop it from happening.
He would convince a judge that I belonged in an institution.
All it would take was for one person to look at my arrival time at home and the time I brought my mother to the hospital.
Despite his accusation, Joe wasn’t smart enough to think of it.
However, if he accused me in front of a judge during an emancipation case, the time stamps would be thoroughly investigated.
Joe wouldn’t budge on his decision to send me away, either. He had been itching for a reason for years. Damon was stubborn and would insist on sticking together. Even if I ran away or I were emancipated, he would follow me to the end of the world.
How come he felt the twin bond so strongly when all I felt was the mild responsibility to strengthen his future?
As I said—malfunctioning.
I dropped my cigarette to the ground, crushing it with my feet. I sighed, staring at the water underneath. God, this was going to be an annoying way to die.
A sound from the opposite side of the roof tore my gaze from the water. A scrawny kid—maybe a preteen—was hanging off the railing.
Great.
Someone else had the idea to jump before me. That was what I got for contemplating my suicide plans for too long. If I jumped now, it would be unoriginal. I hated nothing more than looking like a follower.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t even die in peace.
My head tilted when I heard her soft sobs drifting from the other side of the roof. It was an annoying sound, though it triggered my brother’s voice in my mind.
Save her, Caden.
Talk to her, Caden.
She needs your help, Caden.
Ugh! Stupid brother with his stupid savior complex. If I didn’t save her, his voice would annoy me while I drowned. Plus, I sort of owed him a life, considering the whole letting our mother die thing.
Muttering some colorful cuss words under my breath, I marched across the roof. This wasn’t how I had planned on spending my afternoon. I longingly stared at the blue water below. It could have been done and over with by now.
For the first time in my life, I decided to be a good brother and do something Damon would want—save a life. Unfortunately, I wasn’t capable of achieving such a thing and wondered if there was a way to tip the scales in my favor.
The kid’s long, wild hair blew in the wind.
Before I could reach her, something fell out of the pocket of her hoodie.
I thought it would tumble down to the water.
By some miracle, it landed on the ledge instead.
Crouching down, I picked up the earrings that fell out of her pocket—blue diamond studs.
Hm. If all else failed, perhaps I could bribe her into coming off the ledge. I could buy her blue diamond earrings ten times the size if she didn’t jump. It wasn’t like I had a lot of other great ideas in my arsenal. The likelihood that I’d say something to push her over the edge was much higher.
Malfunctioning, remember?
This wasn’t me feeling sorry for myself, but, rather, I was stating a fact of life. The only way I wouldn’t be defective was if I actually made enough of a connection to talk her out of it.
All I had to achieve was one human connection to know that my wiring wasn’t so faulty that I needed to end things. If I managed to talk her down, Damon would be fine in Switzerland with me because it meant I could talk him down, too.
Everything hung in the balance of this moment. Here goes all or nothing.