Her Substitute Groom

Connor POV

“You can’t be treating Claire like this. You asked me to leave, and I did. You can’t treat her like she’s not a human just because of the mistake I made. It’s not fair,” I said to Dad, and he scoffed.

“Who are you to tell me what is wrong and what is right? What do you? It was all your fault, and you still dare to show your face to me and tell me that trash?” He fired at me, and I bit my lip.

“Do you think you have the right to tell me that when you already ruined this family? You are nothing, but a disgrace. A disgrace I regret giving birth to,” His words pierced through my heart, but I tried to fight back the pain, reminding myself that I deserved all he was saying to me, so I shouldn’t think of getting hurt by his words.

I slowly went on my knees, and I heard Claire gasp behind me.This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me. All I’m asking is for you to leave Claire out of this, please. You can’t hurt her because of this,” I pleaded with him, but he scoffed instead.

“Leave my house when you are done, and you are free to take her with you if she wants to come with you,” He said to me before he turned and dashed out of the room, slamming the door hard behind him in a way that made shut my eyes.

“I’m tired of being here, Connor. You should take me with you, please. I don’t want to stay here anymore,” She cried to me once I was standing on my feet.

“You can’t come with me, Claire. You need to stay back here. Mom is going to lose her mind if you leave too,” I cupped her cheeks in my palms, staring into her eyes as I whispered to her for no reason.

“I don’t want to be here,” She shook her head, insisting, and I sighed.

“Dad is going to cut ties with you too if you should come with me, and that is the last thing I want…”

“I can’t take this anymore. I feel like dying. I don’t want to stay here,” seeing her in tears hurt me and I desperately wanted her to leave this hell she was in, but that would be the biggest mistake of my life if I tried it with her.

“I’m going to try to fix everything so we can go back to the way we used to be, ok?” I assured her even though I knew that things would never go back to being the way they used to be.

She slowly nodded her head, and I pulled her in for a warm embrace.

“Don’t contact me for now, ok? Let’s keep our distance for now. I’m going to fix this, I promise,” It hurts this way, but it was the best I could do.

I finally left her room, and descending the staircase minutes later, I stopped on the last stairs when I saw Mom in the living room. She was standing on her feet and staring at me from there, and from the look of things, it seemed like she was waiting for me before now. My heart skipped a beat.

“Are you happy this is happening?” I was going to just walk past her and leave because I didn’t know what to say to her, but her words brought me to an abrupt halt, and I slowly clenched my fingers beside me.

“You’ve always wanted him dead. How does it feel now that he is gone?” I heard her speak, pain was evident in her voice, but I didn’t dare to turn my face to look at her, for fear of being consumed by this nervousness and guilt that was eating me up.

“It was all your fault that he committed suicide. You could’ve forgiven him, and who knows, maybe this would’ve been avoided. He wouldn’t have committed suicide if you had just forgiven him. Our family wouldn’t have been ruined if you had let go of the past…” She paused and sniffled.

“Your Dad has disowned you and your brother, your sister is now living like a prisoner in her father’s house… The same house she used to live in as a princess in. Your Mom is now left heartbroken, thinking of the death of her son and how the lives of her children are going to end, not to talk of your Dad that is going through a hard time because he is trying to be strong without you… Because he is trying to stick by his decision. Are you happy now?” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My heart was broken into shreds of pieces, and it felt like each piece was being stomped on. I didn’t plan for this to happen, I never wanted this.

‘Is this what you want? Are you sure this is what you want? You should let go of the past. This guy is your brother’ Now, I regret not listening to those words from my friend. Now, I regret not listening to everyone that has tried to talk me out of it.

Without sparing her another glance, I advanced toward the door and stepped out of the house, heading to the parking lot where my car was parked. I drove out of the house at once.

I pulled over at the side of the road barely ten minutes into driving when my vision became blurry from the tears that won’t stop streaming down my cheeks. While the guilt of being the cause of his death was stomping my heart and consuming me, the guilt of seeing my family splitting because I made the mistake of never forgiving him was killing me slowly.

“You are a monster, Connor. You killed your brother,” I cursed under my breath, hitting my hand on the steering wheel and venting out all my pain, but it was still there. It was something living in my heart, so how would I vent it out?

“This is all your fault, Connor. You ruined everything. You ruined your family,” It felt like a voice was suddenly speaking in my head, so I clutched my ears tightly and shut my eyes, trying to escape this frightening reality that was terrifying me.

“You are a murderer, Connor. You are nothing, but a monster. You deserve to die. Die! Just die!” Again, the faint voice which I knew only existed in my illusion spoke in my head, but sounded so real and frightening. It felt like I was losing my mind.

“I… I… I didn’t kill Carl. I’m not a murderer,” I shook my head, fighting the voice that didn’t even exist in the first place. Slowly, I sank my fingers into my hair, grabbing handfuls of it and slowly pulling it, yet aggressively. My scalp was supposed to be burning from the pain, but the pain in my heart was so much that I couldn’t feel any other physical pain.

The knock on the car window pulled me back to reality, and I snapped my head to find a young man leaning forward, his eyes dangling in their sockets. It seemed he was trying by all means to see who was inside the car, but the glass was tinted. I wined down the glass, but he flinched when he saw me.

“H… hi,” He stuttered, his eyes scanning me. I knew I was already a mess, and probably looking like a mentally deranged person now, but can he just fucking go straight to the point and tell me why he was disturbing me?

“What do you want?” I asked him since he didn’t seem ready to tell me why he was bothering me.

“Uhm… You are parked on the road. Can you move your car, please?” He asked politely, and I had to look back to check. I thought I was at the roadside, but turned out that I was mistaken. Gosh! I’m losing it…