Chapter 49
Oliver’s POV
Receiving news of Seth’s awakening was an answer to prayer. I couldn’t believe when I last prayed, but for his sake, I did. Just like a week ago, when I heard the news of his attempted suicide, I cancelled the rest of my appointment for the day and drove straight to the hospital. I met with the doctors, who told me they had transferred Seth to another unit after his awakening and led me over to see him.
I pushed open the door to his room, and I saw Ivory still seated beside him, holding onto his hand. She hadn’t left his side in the past week. Robb couldn’t return to his role at the company, as he spent his time here beside his wife and others, going around to get food and whatever else she needed. If she had left his side, it wasn’t up to an hour.
Ivory believed this was her punishment for being a horrible person, and yesterday, I found her with her eyes closed, mumbling something under her breath. She was praying. She might have realised the error of her ways and how she had lived her life for a while. Trampling everything that didn’t bring her profit or a good name wasn’t the right way.
I shut the door and took a step forward. Ivory’s head whipped around to see me, and her eyes warmed
- up.
“Hey, mom.” I began, even though my attention remained on Seth, whose head still had the bandage from the fall.
Her smile came off as painful, but she pressed down on his hand. “Hey, Oliver. Seth is awake.” She told
me the obvious.
I nodded and drew closer. “I see that.” I stood before his bedside, and Seth’s eyes moved, landing on me.
He smiled a little, but he looked utterly confused. “Hey, Olly, nice hair.”
He used to call me Olly many years ago, during the times he took me to Vegas, but he started calling me by my full name after our parents found out about his escapades. He hadn’t called me Olly in almost a decade, but he was doing so now. Still, I brushed it off as casual.
Right now, what matters is that he is awake.
“Hey, buddy.” I smiled back at him and took his syringe–connected hand into mine. It felt warm. “It’s nice
to see you awake. How do you feel?”
“Me too. I feel fine. My head hurts, and I can’t feel my legs, though.” He raised his brow. “I hope they are still there.”
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I laughed and nodded. “Do not worry, your feet are still here,” I reassured him.
He stared at me for a while. “How long was I out?”
I turned to Ivory, unsure why she hadn’t told him yet. Did he not ask her?
It didn’t matter; he was asking me. “A week.”
His eyes widened. “A week. What did I get myself involved in that knocked me out for a week?” he asked. genuinely lost, and his eyes moved to the ceiling as if thinking it up. He glanced back at me and said, “1 can’t remember.”
That was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because, though he attempted it, he didn’t have to revisit the horror of almost dying yet, and bad because his memory might have been tempered.
I turned to Ivory. “Can you give us the room?”
There was a reluctant look on her face, but she nodded and rose to her feet. “I will be outside the hall if you need anything.” She said and kissed Seth’s cheeks before walking out.
“What the hell was that?” Seth whisper–yelled as soon as the door closed and followed up with other questions. “Since when is she so nice? Why is your hair so short when you prefer longer lengths? What the hell is happening, Olly?” His eyes fluttered, and he groaned.
“Are you okay?”
“My head hurts so bad.” He groaned, moving his head from side to side. “And I feel too weak to move my hand. What is happening?”
“What do you remember?” I asked as I came and sat down beside his bed. There was an aura around him
now that was so much different from the Seth I now know.
“Getting into a fight after leaving Speed Casino. You were faster, and I was behind.” He paused. “I guess the thugs caught me and did this to me.”
While those were actual memories, there were memories made eight years ago. A lot has happened since then, but he couldn’t remember.
“That was eight years ago,” I replied.
He stared at me quietly for a few seconds, and his eyes narrowed after I didn’t tell him I was joking. “What? How? It feels like yesterday.”
It still did for me, too. Those were happy times.
He frowned. “If that was eight years ago, why am I here, Olly?” He asked a difficult question I didn’t want
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to answer.
With his memory gone, he trusted me more than anyone else, and I owed it to him to tell him the truth.
“You tried to kill yourself, Seth.”
“Why would I do that?”
I didn’t want to speak, but he grabbed me by the hand and held me in firm arrest. “Tell me.”
I spent the next twenty minutes summarising everything that had happened to him in the last eight years, and he listened attentively.
“I am sorry I did that to you.” He said. He was referring to the truth about Imela, which I told him a while ago. “I can’t believe I did that to you.”
I shrugged it off. “It’s in the past,” I replied.
“It doesn’t look to be in the past.” He said, his eyes scanning me like a readable file.
“I got a message from you hours before your suicide attempt; you said you were sorry for everything,” I began, changing the subject.
“Maybe it was what I did with your wife?” he suggested.
“No, I feel like it’s more,” I replied. “You sent the same message to Nina and Ela.”
He became silent as if thinking about it all. “I wish I could help you, but I cannot remember anything.”
The doctors came in to take Seth for an MRI to determine the full extent of his memory loss, and I followed behind them.
I came out to meet Ivory, and Robb was already at the hospital with her.
“He doesn’t remember anything from eight years ago,” I told them even as we fell in line with the doctor. “To an extent, I think it is for the best that he doesn’t. His life hasn’t been the best in those years.”
The result showed that while he might recover his lost memories in the future, there was still a slim probability that he never would. I asked about his paralysis, and the doctor assured me he would regain the use of his lower body as the trauma to his head didn’t affect the part that controlled movement.
It was such a relief, but Seth wanted to remember. He told me he wanted to remember everything for my sake.
The doctors advised keeping him in the hospital for close supervision for a few more days, which we agreed to. Nina called, apologising for not being able to make it. She told me that Jesse had become a handful at the last minute. I told her everything she needed to know and promised to come pick her up
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before visiting tomorrow.
I returned home earlier than most days, and I discovered a somewhat quiet house with no music. I just concluded that Cecil had yet to come home, so I entered the bedroom. Sighing, I shrugged off the suit I had on me, happy to finally be out of it, and tossed it onto the bed as I closed the door behind me.
I spotted a file in the drawer close to Cecil’s side of the bed, which caught my interest. Usually, I wasn’t one to snoop around; Cecil’s business was hers to deal with, and she would tell me in time, but something about this felt different. I picked it up, and there was a court order on it. I flipped it open, and the court ordered Cecil to pay up her debt to the government, with the total cost going up to a million dollars.
Just then, the door opened, and Cecil walked out in a brown towel. She froze on her step, and her eyes widened in panic.
Red flashed in my eyes. “What the hell is this?” I raised the file in my hand, demanding an explanation.
