Winning the Heir Who Bullied Me Chapter 99

 I spend the next fifteen minutes talking to June.

They’re on the car ride to school, and she excitedly tells me about her first night in Penny’s home. They had dinosaur nuggets and fries for dinner, and this morning, pancakes and scrambled eggs.

She introduces me to Jackie and Jamie—two caramel-skinned children with obviously opposing personalities. While Jackie greets me with almost as much enthusiasm as June, Jamie barely looks up from his sketchpad, offering a small wave instead.

As we talk, it’s hard to keep my tears at bay. Because while I’m glad June isn’t having a hard time settling in, the ease with which she’s done it makes me feel like she never really needed me.

And when we have to say goodbye because they’ve arrived at her school, it’s all I can do not to wail as she waves and hangs up.

My hand drops to my side, and I slide down the wall to the floor, hugging my knees to myself. Nathan joins me and places a hand on my knee.

“Why do you look sad?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m happy, it’s just...” I sniff. “It’s silly, but seeing her so happy without me makes me feel awful.” I shrug. “I guess I’ve always needed her more than she needs me.”

Nathan shifts, sliding beside me, and gathers me in his arms, resting my head against his warm chest. The sound of his heart beating in my ears soothes me. “June will always need you, April,” he says firmly. “Never doubt that.”

“She also needs space,” I whisper. “And a normal childhood.”

There’s silence in the room for a while, and then Nathan asks, “How did they die?”

I stiffen.

Instantly, Nathan backtracks. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to—”

I shake my head. “It’s okay.” I lift my head from his chest and gently cup his face. “I…” As the words form in my mind, I’m shocked by how much I mean them. "I want to tell you."

Somehow, I’m no longer the April who wanted to keep all the ugly parts of herself hidden. Maybe because he’s let me in, too, slowly, gradually. He’s not perfect, and neither am I.

Nathan knew he would have night terrors, and yet he came to me last night. He let me see that broken part of him, and I find that I want him to see the broken parts of me, too.

“When I was fifteen, my dad had a car accident and had to undergo surgery.” My voice sounds rough and hollow, and as I start the story, my stomach churns. “He was given a shit ton of painkillers, and by the time he came home and started getting better, he was hooked on them. Instead of helping wean him off them, my mom joined him.”

I’ve never voiced out the details—not even June knows the full story—and it feels like I’m peeling back the scab of an old wound. Still, I forge ahead.

“It wasn’t obvious at first, and they could still function as human beings and parents. For the first year, I didn’t even notice. But then June, who was only four at the time, got diagnosed with diabetes, and ‘trips to the doctors’ were long and suspicious.” I chuckle bitterly. “Sometimes they’d go without her.

“I found myself shouldering more and more of the responsibility in the house. Taking care of June, especially. Eventually, it became clear that something was seriously wrong with my parents.

“They would stumble home at odd hours sporting all kinds of injuries.” I glance at Nathan, whose eyes are fixed unblinkingly on me. Somehow, his gaze gives me the strength to continue. “That’s how I know how to treat injuries so well,” I tell him. “I practiced on my parents, not June.”

I sigh. “Anyway, fast forward to Thanksgiving of freshman year in college. I had been busy with midterms, so I couldn’t call home as often as usual. The day before Thanksgiving, I came home and—” The rest of the sentence sticks in my throat, and I suddenly can’t breathe as the image blooms in my mind.

Nathan pulls me back to him, resting his chin on my head. “You don’t have to continue,” he whispers.

But I force the words out, exposing the wound to bleed.

“I found both of them lifeless on the floor with needles sticking out of their arms, and June—” A sob rocks me. “June was passed out next to my mom, looking just as dead.”

I inhale sharply. “Apparently, they’d been dead for two days, and she hadn’t eaten or gotten her insulin shots in that time. The next couple of days were like a horror movie. I had no idea if June would make it.

“For months, I would wake up screaming and throwing up because of the nightmares. It got to the point that I couldn’t sleep if June wasn’t in bed with me because I used to dream of finding her dead.”

I bury my face in Nathan’s chest as a fresh wave of tears soaks his shirt.

“I think I projected my trauma onto her,” I sob. “She was so young when it happened and barely remembers them. But I—”

The image slams into me, unbidden—grey skin, blue, foaming lips, glassy, dead eyes.

“The nightmare comes only once a year now, but the memories never fade,” I whisper. “Neither does the feeling of having my whole world come crashing down around me, of knowing that for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be someone’s baby anymore. There was no one left to take care of me.”

I clench my eyes shut, burrowing deeper into Nathan as a whimper escapes me. His arms tighten around me, one hand cradling my head like he’s trying to protect me from the images. From my own mind.

“Having my sister made up for losing my parents,” I whisper. My voice is soft and muffled against Nathan’s chest, so I doubt he hears me. Still, I talk.

“I don’t… I don’t think I know how to exist without her.”

I know I sound pathetic, even to my own ears. But it feels liberating to bare it all out.

“You’re wrong,” Nathan whispers.

He pulls back and cups my face, his thumb wiping away my tears as his emerald eyes sear into my soul.

“You have someone to take care of you,” he tells me softly. “‘We’ll take care of each other,’ remember?”

A smile breaks out on my face through the tears as he continues. “You don’t have to be strong on your own anymore, April.” He leans forward and presses his lips to my forehead. “You have me now,” he murmurs against my skin.

I cling to him like a lifeline, knowing that if I let go, I’ll drown in the flood of emotions I’ve unleashed in this coat closet.

Some might think it unhealthy, foolish even, to always need someone to depend on. I should learn to stand on my own. But how can I do that when there’s a part of me that will always be damaged, always be broken?

Like a broken leg, it can heal, but it will never be the same again.

And the words in that note Nathan wrote, the words I memorized, float up to the forefront of my mind.

*Thank you.*

*For not turning away.*

*For not being afraid of the broken parts.*