TAINTED LOVE (Racer×CEO)

F O U R

He was both everything I would ever want...

And nothing I could ever have...

***

FOUR: CONFUSION & CONFUSION

Theodore Raymond's POV

I SAT ON the steel stool in the hospital looking at my unconscious father, holding his hand in mine. Wrinkles rented his entire face, making him look older than his actual age. The medications and surgical procedures had taken a drastic toll on his health.

He appeared almost limp and dead. And even though we haven't been in the best father-son relationship after my mom's death, yet it ached my heart to look at him in this condition.

It regretted me not to behave as an ideal son, not understanding my father and most significantly not forgiving him for snatching away my childhood, which he planned to make me the best CEO of the New York City.

Now, when he was on the verge of descending from this world, the only thing I could feel was emptiness and void. It made me feel powerless, which I wasn't known to be. I was the best and the ruthless person ever known, and that's how the world knew me and I liked it.

His eyes started opening, struggling at the brightly lit atmosphere of the hospital room. His eyes met mine and a look of astonishment passed and immediately I felt a knife stabbed into my heart.

"Son," his voice held no domination. It almost made him unknown to me.

"Father." I greeted, straightening my back.

"I didn't expect you'll come." He asserted in a feeble tone.

"Yeah, you must have thought that I won't come to you when you are in such a condition." I mocked the fact that he didn't have faith in his own son. He just smiled, the corners of his eyes filling with moisture. And I regretted retorting back immediately.

"No, son. I know you'd have not left me to rot and die alone because regret is a stronger emotion than ego. And you are my son, you have no idea how proud I am to even say that." His face held that sincerity and pain which made my eyes well up.

Arching my face up, I took a few breaths chanting to be strong and contained and have a grip over myself. But eventually, what I felt was-fuck being strong, I need to be myself for my father. He might never see the real me in his life at all. The thought crumpled my stomach.

"You know son, I loved your mother so much. I know you hated it when I brought home ladies every night after her death. But trust this dying man, it was because I couldn't let her out of my brain. When I slept at night, in that bed, the only thing I wished was her. It was her place. I never wanted to trade it with another woman. Bu-but it became so hard, impossible to breathe when she was my shadow. And when your shadow betrays you, you have no idea how that feels. And I hope you never have to go through that ever in your life." Tears were falling incessantly, like a channel, and gathered around the area of the white pillow.

"Dad... " I choked and held his hand firmly in my own. I've not been like this for so long, it almost felt surreal.

"But now, I feel that your mother is calling me and I want to oblige. I wanted to go to her the day she went to God's paradise but her voice echoed in my mind, telling me to not leave you alone. And even then, I distanced you from me as well as your own charming self at such a young age and tortured you-"

"No dad," I whispered.

"Don't cut me when I am talking to you young man. I thought I had taught you well." He chuckled with welled up eyes, making me shake my head with a smile playing on my own lips.