Page 91 of Lessons in Cruelty

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.