Page 75 of Veil of Obsession

Are we going to talk about what happened last night?

That text was from two days ago and I still haven’t gotten a reply.

I don’t know why he’s doing this. I was happy with just staying in the shadows and watching him from afar, but he just had to find out my true identity and fuck with me.

“Stop looking at your phone, Princess. You know the rules when you’re sitting at the table.” My mother’s sharp voice cuts through the silence, and I look up.

I really want to throw my steaming coffee cup in her face, but actions have consequences, and I don’t think the small satisfaction of pissing her off and giving her superficial burns are worth those consequences.

“Sorry,” I murmur, pushing around the scrambled eggs on my plate.

Dad clears his throat, and we all turn our attention to him.

“I’ve got some news.”

We all hold our breaths, hoping its good news, but we know the chances of that are slim to none.

“The doctors overestimated the time I have left,” he finally says.

It feels like the whole room is spinning. My heart slams against my ribcage, fighting to get out.

What? That’s not right. It has to be some sort of sick joke. Because the opposite of that is stone, cold, hard, reality, nothing less and nothing more.

“That can’t be right, Da—” I stop myself from calling him Dad in front of Mother. “Father, that can’t be right. There has to be something they can do.”

My father exhales, slow and measured, before placing his coffee cup back onto its saucer with a quiet clink.

“There’s nothing more they can do,” he says simply.

The finality in his tone is a gut punch. I stare at him, my scrambled eggs forgotten, the weight of his words pressing down on my chest and squeezing the air out of my lungs.

I try to swallow it down, to push the lump in my throat back where it belongs, but it lodges itself there, heavy and unmoving.

He’s dying. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Silence chokes the dining room, filling the space between us like a tangible thing, thick and suffocating. My mother is the first to recover. She places her napkin delicately on the table, her movements precise, controlled. As if this is nothing more than a business transaction gone wrong.

“Then we move forward,” she says briskly, not even sparing him a glance. “The arrangements will need to be adjusted, of course, but this doesn’t change anything.”

I grip my fork so tightly my knuckles turn white.

That’s it? That’s all she has to say?

She doesn’t ask him how he’s feeling. She doesn’t reach for his hand. She just accepts it. Because in her world, emotions are useless things.

I glance at my brothers, but they say nothing. They sit, stiff and silent, as if speaking would make this more real. Maybe it would. Maybe that’s why my voice remains stuck in my throat.

“I want to be left alone,” my father finally says, pushing back his chair.

He doesn’t wait for a response. He just stands, adjusts his suit, and walks out.

I watch him leave, my hands trembling in my lap. Then I look at my mother. And I know she feels my stare because she lifts her chin, eyes flicking toward me with thinly-veiled irritation.

“What?” she says coolly, taking another sip of her tea, completely unaffected.

I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s been preparing for this moment her entire life, and she expects me to do the same.

But I don’t. I can’t.