74. -73-
Dorian
The room was wrapped in silence. Nina rested on my chest, her body pressed against mine as I absentmindedly combed my fingers through her hair.
Our breathing finally evened out, and my heartbeat slowed.
The postorgasmic bliss slowly evaporated, and my mind returned to its usual control-freak mode. But nothing felt the same anymore.
For years, I’d convinced myself I’d buried that part of my life so deep it could never reach the surface again. I was wrong. All it took was one video, and a decade of carefully constructed control collapsed as if it had never existed.
The argument we started set it in motion, and the events that followed only escalated my actions.
I couldn’t just brush it off and continue acting as if nothing happened.
I knew that. Nina deserved better, but I was terrified.
For the first time in my life, I dreaded admitting what I’d done because it could be the end of us.
What sane woman would be with a man who was responsible for his child’s death?
None, the demon reared his head from my exhausted subconsciousness. So keep your mouth shut and go to sleep, idiot.
My lips pressed into a thin line. The fight in me was endless, but then my mom’s words echoed in my mind.
I was fourteen years old and fell in love for the first time.
However, the girl I liked was from a Christian family, and I contemplated lying to her about my name so she wouldn’t leave me.
When I told my mother about it, she took me into her precious dungeon with silver-engraved knives, chains, and the aquarium with piranhas, and said in her kindest voice:
“Never lie to the people you love about who you really are. Because one day, they find out the truth, and their leaving will hurt much more knowing you could have been honest and prevented it from happening.”
I listened to her advice, and the girl didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
Still, when I told Nina the truth about killing her grandfather, she didn’t run away.
Just the opposite. She stayed, and we made love.
If that wasn’t proof she wasn’t about to leave me, I didn’t know what was. But tell that to my brain, right?
Go to sleep, the demon snarled at me, and I wanted to listen to him. I truly did, but couldn’t. Instead, I did the exact opposite.
With sheer force of my will, I pushed him back where he belonged, beneath almost collapsed walls I carefully built, and exhaled so deeply as if trying to release a decade of guilt that gnawed at me.
“Ten years ago,” I started, my arm curling tighter around Nina. I wasn’t sure if she was awake, but I had to get it all out. “I lost my family.”
A huge lump formed in my throat when the memory of Caroline emerged, her light brown eyes and bright smile slashing my soul like a sharp knife. My breathing seized, and I couldn’t say a word. Just a mere thought of her was so painful I couldn’t function properly.
“I thought I had my entire life… sorted out,” I whispered, forcing the words out. “With a beautiful girlfriend, the extended medical license, and money to fulfill my dream and build a hospital, it was p-perfect.”
My lips trembled. Leaning closer, I inhaled the familiar jasmine scent of Nina’s hair and continued.
My life was a dream come true. Really. From a young age, I fantasized about being a respected doctor, saving lives, and having my own huge hospital for everyone. And at thirty years old, it was within my arm’s reach. But it came with a lot of work, too.
On average, I spent sixteen hours a day at the hospital. Surgeries, examinations, consults, or a fucking bureaucracy—it all consumed my life. I came home to kiss my girlfriend and sleep. That was all.
She understood who she was with, though.
Caroline was amazing, a kindergarten teacher with a big heart, a kind personality, and endless patience with everything related to me.
Not once did she argue with me when I stayed at the hospital late, nor did she suspect me of having an affair or whatever bullshit women could come up with when their man wasn’t at home on time.
Respect and trust were her core values, and they accompanied us throughout our relationship.
However, things changed when I assisted in the surgery of a New York senator’s wife.
The main surgeon made a mistake that almost cost her her life, and my quick reactions prevented a tragedy.
The senator was so grateful, he made me the chief of surgery, the youngest in the country.
It was unbelievable, and I took it like a starving lion would take a juicy steak.
But it also meant that I barely saw Caroline anymore.
A few times, she prepared a romantic dinner for us, but I came home after midnight and found her curled up on the couch. Another time, she just glanced at me with her beautiful, soft eyes, like she wanted to tell me something but chose not to, and I didn’t ask.
If she didn’t want to talk about it, it wasn’t important, right? My job was important. Saving lives was important. Whatever she needed could wait. That’s what I told myself until one day, about two months after I’d accepted the promotion, Caroline’s brother brought her into the hospital.
I ran to the emergency room like crazy, finding her on the bed, crying. Her shorts and T-shirt were covered in blood; she trembled uncontrollably, and her blood pressure was dropping. At first, I thought she'd been attacked, but my assumption was quickly proven wrong. Caroline was pregnant.
My world collapsed when the doctor came out of the operating room and told me the worst news any man could hear. They couldn’t save the baby. Actually, the damage was so severe that they had to remove Caroline’s reproductive organs. She would never be able to have kids.
It was a hard blow. I tried to be strong for her, support her when she reached the absolute bottom, but I was failing spectacularly.
Mostly because I couldn’t understand why she would keep her condition from me; she just kept repeating that I was always at work, that I ignored her attempts for a conversation, that I chose my patients over her, so eventually, I stopped asking because her answers hurt more than a knife into my heart.
At that time, I didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t a man who would choose my job over my family. I would die for Caroline if it were the case. But all she saw was that I wasn’t there with her when she needed me. And eventually, I started to see it, too.
When she yelled at me that I didn’t love her enough, I didn’t argue because if she didn’t feel my love, it probably was the truth.
When she threw things at me and physically hurt me, I didn’t defend myself because I deserved it, right?
I was at work the night she lost our baby when I should’ve been with her.
What were a few punches compared to the pain she experienced?
What I didn’t register back then was my own pain and guilt. I focused on her, on her attacks and accusations instead of trying to process my own feelings.
I lost my baby, too. I was a father, and I didn’t even get to see the ultrasound because she burnt it.
And to top it all off, no one truly cared about me.
Everyone asked about her. How was she doing?
How was she holding up? Was she feeling better?
But nothing about me, like my feelings didn’t exist. Like I had no right to be devastated by the loss.
People just expected me to move on while she grieved.
But it was my baby, too! I had every right to mourn.
Not around Caroline, though. She turned every mention of the baby into an argument, into an endless cannon of accusations.
One night, I simply left because I couldn’t bear it anymore.
When I returned, she was crying in the living room, kneeling on the carpet, hugging a stuffed animal.
I approached her, intending to hold her through it.
I wanted to be close to her, but she started yelling.
Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! As if I had an infectious disease.
I tried to calm her down, but she just cried and yelled at me. I remember how helpless I felt, how completely useless I was at helping her. She was so broken, so devastated, and I just stood there like an idiot, unable to relieve her pain.
The situation escalated to massive proportions. The more I tried to calm her down, the more upset she was. Eventually, she grabbed the car keys and wanted to leave. I stopped her, but she kicked me and again yelled, Don’t touch me, bastard!
Those were her last words to me. Fifteen minutes later, when I followed her car on my motorcycle, she drove under a train.
At first, it looked intentional. A huge red light signaled the incoming train, and the loud honk carried for miles.
But she ignored all of that, and her car collided with a locomotive.
I was the first one at the scene. The vehicle was completely smashed, and I struggled to reach her.
She was barely responsive, her pulse was weak, and there was a lot of blood everywhere.
I did my best to stabilize her, and when the paramedics arrived, she was still alive.
But two hours after the crash, she died.
And with her, my ability to operate evaporated, too.
Every time I picked up a scalpel, I saw her bloody face in the car.
Every time I looked at my hands, I saw them pressing against her body, trying to stop the massive bleeding on her abdomen.
Whatever I did in the OR was cursed by her.
Until seven months ago, when Zyon was shot, and I had to perform surgery to save him.
A shaky exhale escaped me, and I realized I was crying while still glancing at the white ceiling in my house.
“A week after her funeral, I tortured and executed seven men, convicted child rapists, in four days,” I admitted quietly. “Malin destroyed the evidence and disposed of the bodies. But it never helped me feel better. After that, I just tried to survive.”
I wiped the tears with the back of my hand.
“So, that’s pretty much it.” My entire body trembled from the rush of emotions that consumed me. Decade-old guilt and pain rushed to the surface like searing lava, burning my lungs, my throat, clogging my windpipes.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the gentle, familiar, hushed voice reached me through the thunder in my ears. Nina lifted herself, glancing at me with wet eyes full of sympathy. “You didn’t kill her, or your baby.”
“Didn’t I?” I breathed, barely able to breathe.
“No,” Nina stated resolutely. “You didn’t.”
“She tried to tell me she was pregnant.” My voice cracked. “I was too busy saving someone else.”
“You didn’t know,” she claimed in a firm voice.
“I should’ve.”
She shook her head.
“You should’ve been there for her.” The words hit harder than if she had lied. “You should’ve listened. You should’ve gone home earlier.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know,” I mumbled, barely audible.
Nina’s thumb brushed away a tear from my cheek.
“But none of that means you killed them.”
My chest clutched painfully.
“Tell that to the man who’s replayed that day every night for a decade.”
“Dorian…” she whispered, resting her forehead against mine. “You’ve been punishing yourself for ten years.” Another shaky exhale left my mouth. “I think you’ve served your sentence. It’s time to move on.”
“But I don’t know how.”