Guilty
720 Words
Chapter 9 - Present - Callum
The sharp sound of the knife chopping against the cutting board wasn't the only noise in the room, but even so, it seemed to be the most intense one amid the silence shared between Coleman's Alpha and Beta.
Richard could feel his eyes on him, yet he continued to pretend that he hadn't noticed his friend's presence while he was cooking.
He knew very well what he wanted to talk about... Yet, at the same time, that was a topic the Alpha would rather avoid for the time being.
... Coleman's leader was so happy to see his Mate with the eyes open again that he didn't want to talk about anything that might end such bliss...
"Ray, even though you have been able to hide this from William all these years, you know that it will no longer be possible now that Callum has woken up, right? It's only a matter of time before they found out as he won't be easy to fool as a child was."
No longer drifting into the silence, the Beta finally commented, sharing his thoughts with his old friend.
Boris understood that none of this was easy for Ray, and he couldn't even imagine what his Alpha's mind must have been like at that very moment. However, he still needed to be the voice that brought Richard back to the reality that he could run from in the midst of it all.
... In other words, he was the terrible being who was destroying his friend's happiness...
"I know..." His voice sounded faint, but not something too unusual as over the years, Coleman had gotten used to sometimes seeing the weak figure of their Alpha when something happened to his Mate. "But I don't believe he deserves to find out about these things right now. The sad reality that he'll soon learn about is already too terrible... It would be too much..."
... Yet badly knew that lovesick man how his adopted son has already given such news to his biological father.
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Once again, the awful feeling that Ray had been hiding something from me before returned to my mind as I felt like the ground beneath me had completely disappeared with William's words.
I had already expected that something was wrong as this, yet to confirm such a fact was far worse than I could even imagine... A truth that cut me apart even more brutally than the starving animals of a savannah would do...
... The tick-tock of the clock...
... The heels of the nurse outside...
... The noise of the laughs along with the tv no much far from here...
They all seemed to be so loud in my mind as if they would end up making it blown up at any moment then.
"D-dad... Dad, are you okay?!" Even William's yet unfamiliar voice was too loud, almost like he was yelling inside my head.
"Shut up! Everybody just shut up!" And perhaps ruining the image he had of me in his childhood memories, I ended up shouting back at him, wanting all those noises to go away along with the pain in my chest as tears welled up in my eyes.
I wanted so much that I could go back in time...
... As I wanted to disappear...
I just wanted I hadn't done anything then as it was all my fault!
I could perfectly hear the sound of Juliana's voice asking me if it weren't better if I called a professional to handle it.
Yet, I was too foolish, too selfish, too prideful, wanting to show to my wife that she had chosen the best man to be her husband...
And what was the purpose of all it now besides being used to feed the guilt I felt inside?
Ju had warned me a thousand times to be careful, not to touch anything if I didn't know what I was doing.
But still, I decided not to listen to her... Only to wake up now, after losing eleven years of my son's life, to receive the news from his own mouth that his mother and siblings were no longer here.
... That they had died because of what I did... Because I didn't think about their safety first.
- Writer
