Chapter 4 - The Final Breath of a Fool
The machines around Victor were flashing red,
the alarms blaring so loudly that nurses began rushing down the hallway.
Victor tried to speak,
his lips moving frantically,
but only bloody bubbles came out.
He looked at Mr. Sterling,
the man who had betrayed him,
the man who had slept with his mistress and fathered the boy.
Sterling wouldn't even meet his gaze,
staring firmly at his shoes,
already calculating his own legal defense.
Then Victor looked at Melissa,
the woman he had risked everything for,
the woman who was currently weeping over her lost fortune,
not over him.
She didn't look at him either,
too busy hugging her knees,
mourning the luxury cars and the free ride that had just gone up in flames.
Finally,
Victor looked at me.
His eyes were desperate,
pleading for forgiveness,
pleading for a single ounce of the love I had freely given him twenty-one years ago.
I walked back to his bedside,
leaning over the metal rail,
blocking his view of the rest of the miserable room.
"You wanted to see me break," I whispered softly,
my voice a soothing balm in the chaotic storm.
"You waited for your deathbed to humiliate me,
to leave me with nothing but a pathetic lake house."
I reached out,
gently brushing a lock of grey hair from his forehead.
"But I stopped crying for you twelve years ago,
Victor."
The door burst open,
and a team of doctors and nurses flooded into the room,
shoving past Melissa and Sterling.
"Code Blue!" a nurse shouted,
grabbing a crash cart,
pushing me gently out of the way.
I stepped back,
standing next to my son,
sliding my hand into the crook of Ethan's arm.
We watched together as the doctors frantically pumped Victor's chest,
trying to revive a heart that had been dead to me for over a decade.
"Charge to two hundred!" the doctor yelled,
pressing the paddles to Victor's chest.
His body arched off the bed,
a violent,
unnatural movement,
before slamming back down onto the mattress.
The monitor remained a flat,
unwavering green line.
A long,
continuous tone filled the room,
signaling the absolute end of Victor's miserable,
deceitful existence.
"Time of death," the doctor announced,
glancing at the clock on the wall,
"four forty-two PM."
I felt a profound sense of peace wash over me,
a heavy burden lifting from my shoulders,
floating away into the sterile hospital air.
It was over.
The waiting,
the acting,
May you like
the endless smiling through gritted teeth.
It was finally over.
