Destroy Me Gently:Ex-Enemy Becomes My Lover!
Chapter 29: Slice of pain

Chapter 29: Slice of pain

Chapter twenty nine

**Oliver West**

I didn’t go downstairs for dinner. I had to lie again to Mom about being sick and weak. She allowed me to take dinner up to my room, not that I could stomach down anything, not with the heaviness that settled like tons of bricks in my stomach.

Depression. Sadness. Grief.

These were the emotions that could describe the way I felt ever since Kieran had stormed out of my room this afternoon.

Currently, I lay beneath my bed covers but sleep wouldn’t come. All his hateful words from the past years kept replaying in my head.

He didn’t hate me. Or at least not enough to fully hurt me.

All those words had always cut like sharp knives to my heart, but pondering over it, he had never physically harmed me.

Maybe because somewhere in his mind he still missed the old moments we shared just the way I do? I couldn’t be certain my earlier words were right either.

My gaze fell on the locket resting on top of the stand.

He had not seen it earlier. No doubt he would have also ripped it away from me.

I slowly reached for it and entwined it between my fingers whilst staring in a daze-like state.

He had given it to me as a present for our first ever birthday together. I remembered I had also given him a lousy portrait of him in return.

Back then, Ginny had told me that the necklace came in a pair and that Kieran possessed the other half, although I had never for once seen him wear it. It had not stopped me from feeling wonderful and special.

Why did such a beautiful innocent world transform into a disaster?

That year Mom had been by my side. She had even quit her job so she could spend as much time as I needed, but even at that moment, I had needed Kieran so much, I wanted us to be together. Only then, I had already become the most hateful person in his life.

Most of the time I wonder how he had managed to pull through. I had a mom with me to call out and cry on whenever the memories struck.

But Kieran... Kieran had no one. His parents had barely acknowledged Ginny’s death, treating her loss like a minor inconvenience. He had been left alone with his grief, with his guilt, with the crushing weight of losing the only person who had ever truly mattered to him.

And I had been the reason why.

The memories sometimes were so vivid that it felt as though it had only happened yesterday.

We had walked into the summer camp that year as excited as could be. It was supposed to be the best week of our lives, but more importantly, it was Ginny’s birthday. Kieran had been planning something special for her for weeks.

We kept trying our best to cheer her up. She had been feeling weak that morning, but the camp nurse said it was just a cold. Once again, their parents weren’t around to witness her special day. Somehow each year, it became a routine. Their parents were never around on each of their special occasions.

Kieran had kept trying to earn a smile from her, which he only succeeded in when he offered to get her favorite birthday cake from the camp store. He had arranged it all beforehand—a small surprise to make her day perfect.

He told us to wait at the cabin while he went to get it. But Ginny said the cabin felt too stuffy, so we decided to go to the main lodge where it was warmer and more comfortable.

We had been waiting there for a while when Ginny started getting restless. She was excited about her surprise, bouncing on her feet with anticipation.

"What’s taking K so long?" she had asked, using our special nickname for him. "I want to see what he got me!"

I had tried to get her to sit down and wait, but she was too excited. Her eyes were bright with curiosity and impatience.

"I’m going to go find him," she announced suddenly, heading toward the door.

"Ginny, wait! He said to stay here," I called after her.

But she was already pushing through the lodge doors, disappearing outside into the camp grounds to look for her brother.

That was the last time I saw her alive.

It hadn’t been more than five minutes after she left when the loud explosion shook the entire camp grounds.

The gas leak in the kitchen. The blast that followed was deafening.

Children were screaming, Counselors were trying to get everyone to safety as the main lodge erupted into flames faster than anyone could have imagined.

I had stood in a state of confusion as chaos erupted around me.

The building was on fire. It spread so quickly, consuming everything in its path.

I had begun to run, but debris was falling everywhere. A piece of burning wood caught my leg, and I stumbled.

I had lost my glasses in the chaos and couldn’t see clearly. My legs hurt and were bleeding from glass cuts and burns.

I was so scared and trapped. The smoke grew thicker and the building around me was starting to collapse. The heat on my skin was something I would never forget. A huge shard of glass was stuck in my leg.

I had thought I was going to die. The suffocation, the heat, and also the blood loss.

Then I saw him.

My heart leaped against all odds as Kieran struggled his way toward me through the flames and debris. His face was streaked with soot, his eyes wild with panic.

He scooped me up without hesitation and yelled about Ginny’s location.

"Where’s Ginny? Where is she?"

In my panic and confusion, struggling to breathe through the smoke, I remembered seeing her leave the lodge just minutes before the explosion. I had seen her walk out those doors with my own eyes, eager to find Kieran and her surprise.

"She went outside! She left to look for you!" I gasped between coughs, truly believing she had made it to safety.

I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t trying to save myself at her expense. In that terrifying moment, I genuinely thought she was somewhere safe outside the burning building, probably already evacuated with the other campers.

But I was wrong.

Somewhere between leaving the lodge to find Kieran and the explosion, she must have gotten lost or confused. Maybe she had gone to the wrong building, or she may have heard the blast and run back toward the lodge thinking I was still inside. Maybe she had been trying to help someone else.

I would never know what happened to her in those final moments.

She had been inside all along, trapped somewhere in that burning building while Kieran carried me to safety based on my mistaken belief.

Most of the time I wonder if she had been calling for help, calling for her brother, while he was saving me instead.

But then it didn’t matter. She was gone, and nothing—not even my life—would be enough to bring her back.

The guilt had overwhelmed me.

After the funeral, Kieran stopped talking to me completely, and I spiraled into the darkest place I had ever been.

I couldn’t eat.

I couldn’t sleep, every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ginny’s face. I heard her voice calling for help that never came. I felt the weight of Kieran’s hatred crushing down on me than I could hear.

I had tried to talk to him, to explain, to apologize, but he wouldn’t even look at me. The boy who had once been my best friend, who had saved my life, now looked at me like I was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.

The loneliness was unbearable. The guilt was suffocating. I was a murderer according to him. Looking at it this way, he was right.

I remembered the night I had taken all the pills from Mom’s medicine cabinet. I remembered sitting on my bedroom floor, the bottle in my shaking hands, thinking that maybe if I was gone, Kieran’s pain would lessen. Maybe he could heal if the constant reminder of his failure—me—was no longer there.

Mom had found me before I could go through with it. She had cried and held me and gotten me help, but even now, years later, the guilt of that moment haunted me almost as much as Ginny’s death. Mom also never mentioned that issue, it was like a forbidden topic in our house.

How could I have been so selfish? How could I have even considered leaving Mom and Pumpkin behind? How could I have thought that adding more grief to an already broken world would somehow make things better?

Maybe it was also the reason why I understood Kieran’s repulsion. He had saved me while he couldn’t save his sister. The guilt and self-loathing was an emotion I understood too well.

If hurting me was his way of dealing with his anguish and grief, then I could do that much for him. It was the reason why I had never fought back against his abuse over the years.

I owed him that much. I owed Ginny that much.

Even if it was slowly killing me inside.

A knock sounded, disrupting my thoughts. I called for the person to enter. I expected to see Pumpkin, but it was Mom.

She approached me with a glass of milk in her hand.

I pushed away from the covers and straightened to a sitting position.

"Sweetie, are you crying?" Her voice was soft and at the same time filled with alarm.

I reached a hand to my face and was surprised to find it wet.

I tried to smile, but it faltered.

I racked my head for a quick lie. I couldn’t begin to tell her about the walls between me and Kieran over that incident.

It had always been a sensitive topic for me. She would no doubt try to protect me, but did I want her to?

I studied the tired lines etched on her features. She must be so worn out after working two shifts. I couldn’t further disturb her rest for any reason.

"I fought with William... so..." I allowed my words to trail off.

She looked visibly relieved as she kept the glass of milk on the nearest stand.

"Oh dear, I’m sure you two will reconcile soon enough. You guys do that each time after each fight. You didn’t have a lot for dinner, so I want you to drink this and get well soon, okay?"

I nodded my head slowly.

She only left after I emptied the entire glass in her presence.

I closed my eyes. I still had to go to school tomorrow. The moment my eyes began to feel droopy, I knew my dreams were bound to be haunted by a certain grey-eyed boy.

But tonight, they would also be haunted by the memory of a sweet little girl who had loved us both, and who had died because of my words.

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