He Forced Me to Paint Until My Last Breath

Regina's POV

The villa was quiet—eerily so. On the nightstand beside the bed, there was still a photo of me and Darell.

He had his arm around my shoulder, and I was smiling like the happiest girl in the world.

I lifted the mattress with practiced hands and pulled out a letter that had been carefully taped to the underside. A love letter.

A letter Darell once wrote to me.

I could still picture how nervous he looked back then—his eyes full of excitement and hope.

He had said, “I don’t want to be your stepbrother anymore. I want to protect you for the rest of my life.”

I hadn’t replied right away. I stayed silent for so long that he finally looked at me with that pitiful expression and said, “Regina, if you don’t answer soon, I’m gonna lose all my dignity.”

He looked at me with such sincerity. That face I’d tucked away deep in my heart, the one I dreamed about constantly. At that moment, I almost said yes.

Yes. A hundred times, yes. How could I not like him?

When I was fifteen, my mom married his dad—and just like that, he walked into my life, telling me he’d watch out for me from then on.

I couldn’t forget the cocky look on his face, the way the wind played with his hair, or how just having him by my side gave me the kind of confidence I’d never felt before.

When I was twenty, my mom passed away. The grief hit me so hard that I lost touch with reality for a while. But Darell… he stayed calm, handled everything, and never left my side. Over and over again, he whispered, “I’ll always be here for you. You can rely on me. As long as I’m around, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

He was with me for ten years. The happiest, most peaceful ten years of my life.

So, of course, I wanted to say yes.

But that was the day after I got the diagnosis.

Brain cancer. Terminal. Almost no chance of recovery.

So instead of saying yes, I took the letter from him, and in front of all our friends, I slowly tore it to shreds and threw the pieces in his face.

I forced myself to hold back the tears, to keep my voice from cracking as I said, “Darell, you make me sick! Acting all sweet and noble—what, you think you can feed me just to bleed me dry later? You’re disgusting! My mom would never forgive you, not even in the afterlife.”

“If I’d known you were into incest, I would’ve stayed the hell away from you from the start,” I snapped.

The love letter fell to the ground in pieces. But I wasn’t done—I stomped on it twice, like it was our relationship itself.

Something I had to destroy, abandon, and crush with my own hands.

I still remember the look in his eyes—dark, devastated.

After that, we became strangers under the same roof. Rarely spoke. Rarely saw each other.

I only heard bits and pieces about how he was now openly pursuing a junior from our department. He got her the best mentors, took her on trips around the country and abroad for inspiration, and helped her network at art exhibitions and workshops.

The day his acceptance letter from that prestigious university arrived, I was just getting ready to head to the hospital for chemotherapy.

I stared at the envelope for a long time. I didn’t even notice the tears dripping onto the gold-embossed lettering.

I thought, maybe… if none of this had happened, the person walking into a brilliant future beside him could’ve been me.

Instead, I quietly put the letter back where I found it.

Someone like me doesn’t get to dream about the future anymore.

I spent the whole night awake. The doctor’s message urging me not to give up was still sitting there, unread, on my phone.

The house was empty, but it still felt like traces of Darell lingered everywhere.

Just then, the front door creaked open—sharp and sudden in the silence. And when that face I had dreamed about day and night suddenly appeared in front of me, I thought for a second I must’ve been hallucinating.

“Darell?”

My voice trembled as I called out to him.

But the moment I saw the anger in his eyes, all the warmth inside me went cold.