I Gave My Brother Twenty Years of My Life, But My Parents Still Didn’t Love Me

4: 4

Dad drove so fast he ran two red lights.

I sat in the passenger seat, watching the veins stand out on the hand that gripped the wheel.

His phone was jammed between his ear and his shoulder, redialing my number without stopping.

The seventh time. The eighth.

"The number you have dialed is currently unavailab—"

"Pick up! Odette, pick up the damn phone!"

He finished yelling into the receiver and slammed the phone down on the armrest.

From the hospital to home, a fifteen-minute drive, he made it in eight.

The car had barely stopped before he shot out of the driver's seat and jogged into the building.

Key into the lock, twist, door open.

The living room was a mess, the cake still on the table, the cream melted into a puddle.

"Odette!"

No one answered.

"Odette, get out here! Your brother's in the hospital fighting for his life and you're in there throwing a tantrum?"

Dad strode toward my room and shoved at the door.

It wouldn't move.

Something was blocking it from the inside.

"Odette, open this door!"

He slapped the door, hard enough to rattle the panel.

"Odette! Your brother's lying in the ER and you've got the nerve to hide in here in peace! How can you be so heartless?"

Dead silence behind the gap in the door.

He hit the door harder and harder, until flakes of paint shook loose from the wall.

"Playing deaf and dumb, are you? You'd let your own brother die. How did I raise something this cold-blooded?"

He swore, stepped back half a pace, and rammed his shoulder into the door.

Two blows, and the lock cylinder cracked.

The door sprang open a crack, then caught on something heavy on the floor, dragging with a dull scrape.

"Still playing this game? Open the door!"

I lay slumped behind the door, the front of my uniform smeared with dust.

My phone was pinned by my leg, screen lit, nothing but his missed calls.

Dad jabbed a furious finger at me through the gap.

"Don't you pull this with me. Get up right now and go to the hospital!"

I didn't move. Not even a flicker of my eyelids.

"Still playing deaf on me, huh!"

With a huge crash, he kicked the door open without an ounce of mercy.

My body was forced half a meter along with it, and my right arm gave a sickening crack as it snapped clean.

But from start to finish, I didn't make so much as a sound of pain.

He strode over, grabbed my shoulder, and yanked hard to pull me up.

The moment his hand touched me, he froze.

His eyes locked on that twisted arm.

His breath cut off.

"No... it can't be..."