Page 29 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Bastian

The hand draped over mine is skeletal. It belongs to a starving person, or a terminally ill patient who’s already slipping away from the world.

I suppose both are true.

“She refuses to eat,” the nurse at my side says, concern etched into every word. “If you can’t persuade her, we’ll have to use a tube.”

There’s a tray of small finger foods on the nightstand.

It smells revolting.

Or maybe it’s just the room.

The sick woman living in it.

“They’re right.” I stroke the hand in mine. “You’ve lost a dangerous amount of weight. Please, Evelyn.”

Brown eyes framed with dark lashes dance over my face, barely keeping contact with mine before dancing away.

“Try to feed her,” the nurse whispers to me.

My jaw clenches as I pick up a yogurt container, peel it open. But when I try to feed Evelyn a spoonful, she turns her head away.

“May we please be alone,” I murmur to the nurse, bowing my head like I can’t bear to look up at her .

“Yes, Mr. Rooke, of course. Just ring if you need anything.” The nurse lays a hand on my arm and then leaves, casting a sympathetic look at us over her shoulder, nodding like she’s encouraging me not to give up hope just yet.

“The food here is godawful,” Evelyn snaps, dragging my attention back to her. “You’d know if you bothered to read my letters. I’ve sent you dozens of them.” She adjusts the maroon robe swaddling her emaciated body. “Is there a reason you didn’t reply to a single one?”

I roll my lips together, biting them between my front teeth as I toss the yogurt carton back onto her nightstand. It tips over, creamy liquid oozing onto the metal surface.

The urge to correct her claws like trapped rats inside my chest.

When Dr. Evelyn Rooke sees me, she’s looking into the past. Trying to drag her into the here-and-now is a cruelty I’ve been advised against. Her physician says it doesn’t help. That it simply confuses her even more. That it could lead to distress, severe disorientation, or even a mental breakdown.

I wouldn’t wish early-onset dementia on my worst enemy.

What’s the point of such exquisite torture if they can’t realize it’s happening?

She grabs my hand again. How weak she’s become, her fingers barely dimpling my flesh.

“You’re ice cold,” she says, mouth pulling like I’ve offended her deeply. “Have you been sitting in the rain again? You’ll catch your death one of these days.”

My pulse thrums, a sudden intense heat building in my chest. But I take a slow breath, and then another. Another.

Her moment of lucidity disappears as swiftly as it arrives. But its effect lingers on as a prickle in my fingertips.

“How long do I have to stay here? That maid is using my perfume, you know. And she doesn’t clean the toilet properly. I’m going to have her fired.”

Despite what I’ve researched on the condition, despite what the doctors and staff tell me, I’m still convinced that I can make her understand what’s happening. There must be a way to avoid her reaching back into the past to torment me.

Or perhaps I’m just testing her limits.

“You’re in a nursing home, Evelyn. You have dementia, and you can’t look after yourself?—”

“Liar!” Her slap doesn’t carry half the strength it used to, either. But the sting tugs on deeply buried memories like a dead man’s bell.

…you crying again, Bash? You’re pathetic.

You know crying won’t get you anywhere. Sybil used to cry.

She cried all the time. Look where that got her.

You want to end up like her? Is that it, boy?

Do you want to take a razor blade into the bath with you?

I’ve got plenty. Here, let me go fetch you one…

I grab her wrist. Shove her arm against her chest and keep it there. I can feel the bones in her wrist grating together, and it just makes me squeeze harder.

Pain flashes in her eyes. Confusion. Then anger.

“You told me you were taking me to California as soon as you were done with your business trip, Jonathan. Two weeks! That’s how long you said I had to wait. But it’s been months. Months .” Her feral hiss dots spittle on her lips.

Distress.

Severe disorientation.

Mental breakdown.

I’m just supposed to accept the fact that she thinks I’m my father. To validate her experience and gently bring her back to the present.

As if she ever treated me gently.

My lip curls into a sneer before I catch myself.

“You’re a smart woman, Evelyn,” I say, ducking closer to her so my voice won’t carry.

Not that the woman lying in the bed nearby is doing any better than Evelyn. She’s on a ventilator, mouth gaping, fast asleep. But the nurses walk past the door now and then, and one of them could decide to check in on the once great Dr. Evelyn Rooke.

She tugs, but I refuse to let her go .

“You knew the moment I left that I’d never come back. All I wanted was a quick fuck.”

I wipe at a strand of hair that’s escaped Evelyn’s bun.

“I never wanted a child. Especially not with you.”

Coldness creeps into my heart and spreads through my veins. With it comes the numbing. Loss of touch, smell, taste. And anger, fear, confusion, pain.

If I were to close my eyes and cover my ears, I’d be transported into the imaginary sensory deprivation tank where I spent most of my godforsaken childhood.

Evelyn’s eyes widen as I lean in even closer.

Does she still see Jonathan? Or does she recognize me for who I truly am?

“Not after you told me how you planned on raising him,” I rasp.

Tears fill her eyes. She blinks them back almost bravely, as if she doesn’t want the love of her life to witness such hysteria.

Who knows?

Maybe Evelyn had been capable of loving someone at some stage in her life.

But in my experience, the only thing inside her chest is a lump of coal.

“How dare you speak to your mother like that?” she whispers, voice shaking as much as the bony hands she clutches at her chest.

I release her, straightening to my full height so I can gaze down at her in all her pathetic frailty.

“You were never a mother to me, you fucking hag.” I shrug, flicking my hand at her as I turn to leave. “Eat, don’t eat. I could give less of a fuck. You’re just prolonging your own suffering.”

At the doorway, I pause, a rueful smile touching my mouth. I lay my hand on the door frame, glancing back at her over my shoulder.

“I almost pity you for not being able to appreciate the fucking irony.”

“Bastian! ”

I ignore her wail, so sorrowful that the nurse I pass on my way out gives me a double take.

Go on. Call me Lucifer.

It’s taken me over a decade to draw that witch’s claws out of my heart.

I’m sure as hell not letting her sink them back in again.

I stalk past the reception counter, my ears buzzing with suppressed fury. I’m nearly at the exit when I hear someone calling my name. Not Evelyn. In her condition, her voice would never carry this far.

Turning, I tug at the sleeve of my tweed jacket. “Yes?”

The receptionist holds up a package wrapped in black paper embossed with vintage gold florals. “Your mother wanted you to have this.”

I consider leaving without taking it.

But one of the few things that kept me going through life was curiosity.

The woman behind the counter grimaces apologetically as she holds out the package. It’s the right size, and almost heavy enough, to be a ream of printer paper.

“We thought it best to keep it here, in case she forgot to give it to you.”

“Christmas isn’t for months yet,” I say dryly.

I’d open it, but that feels like giving in to her. My curiosity, however, is having a field day. I suppose that’s the only reason I came here in the first place when they called. I couldn’t care less if Evelyn dies of starvation. She’s using her own money to pay for this place, not mine.

Jonathan’s abrupt departure thirty-four years ago spurred her to become a strong, independent woman.

Sometimes, when I’ve had too much whiskey, and the night is pressing against the window panes, and the relief of being alone is warring with the pain of having no one, then, sometimes, I wonder if my father ever thinks of me .

How different my life would have turned out if he’d been in it.

He could have stopped her. Or he might have joined her. I could be a different version of myself.

Or not here at all.

Not all of Evelyn’s offspring survived childhood.

That, I suppose, was the point.