Stay with Me by Awesomekristii (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📖

It brought back so many memories. I gripped his arms, feeling too overwhelmed with emotions. “H-how?”

He took my hands in his, rubbing over them, flooding a sense of comfort in me in all the chaos my mind was in. “You asked me why I have your initials, this is the place which will answer you everything.”

•••••

My eyes gaze across the lawn, as we are seated side by side on the concrete raised platform near the lawn. My fingers picked the dead cells around my nails, as I tried to get in the situation well enough to hear him speak.

He was seating beside me, but I felt a little away from him, not physically but emotionally.

“When you used to live here before being taken away by your new family, I was the cook's son.” A gasp escaped my lips, and my mind ran wild thinking of anything to tell me he was him. And then it struck me like lightning, the similarities in their eyes. The same darkness, depth, and small flecks of deep blue. It was always there but I never guessed.

“Adam?”

His lips in a lopsided grin as he took in my surprised features. “Yeah, but I’m Damien now. Caroline was never a mother to me, since the time I was pushed out of her vagina. She has been always bitter, considering the fact, that I was an unwanted child. A mistaken baby who took away all the freedom and plans of her life.”

My heart pained as I heard him speak, my fingers itching to wrap around him but I restrained. “She loved cooking, and the only job she could get then until she had money enough to support us both and the orphanage was giving us both food and shelter.”

“It was the time after you left,” his eyes turned a little foggy, and my heart broke a little more. “I was in grief when there wasn’t any note or anything left from you after I got back from school. Caroline just said you left.” I gulped down the guilt rising in me.

“It was a few months later and I was just a year away from being eighteen. It was the first time I felt I could get away from here and live myself in a better place away from Caroline, even though some part of me wanted her to have the same lavish life I wanted. She was a mother after all.”

"But before that, she announced about my new home. She said she couldn’t bear with me anymore, she had wasted seventeen years of her life on me, and she had finally met the endpoint. The day I left the orphanage, despite not being an orphan to live with someone else, was the day I left her of all the responsibilities that somehow took away everything from her. I never looked back, and never met her again.” His eyes were shining, the tear residing on the rims.

“And when I was adopted by William Black, my father, I was met with what one called a family. It was the time I had done that ink work. You were the only one I had. Caroline was never a mother and I didn’t have any friends.

“ William wanted an heir to his company, and because of having no son, since his daughter didn’t want his business, he thought of adoption. Marking me as his guardian, I began to live in that big house. Days, weeks, and years turned only for the better. I received degrees and experience until I was capable enough to have his company.” His throat bobbed up and down.

“It was the day of his retirement, and he was more than happy to give me the company and I was even more excited. William had been a father to me, a mentor and above all a friend, and a teacher. Everything.” I gripped his arms when the first tear rolled down his cheeks.

“But destiny had other plans. William's best friend whom he trusted the most was a scumbag. He, in the name of something important, had signed away everything from him. It was tragic for William, he was beyond heartbroken, seeing his years of hard work, and sweat going into the drain. He got a heart attack and I couldn’t do anything to make him live.” 

“T-two years later, I started my business from scratch. Doing whatever I have ever learned from him. Following his path, the one he used to make that dream company, and it took me five years to stand at this position.” His eyes held passion, and achievement and it warmed me inside.

“I brought back the house he- we used to live in. And I missed him the most to share everything with.” It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to engulf him in a hug, his face hiding in the crook of my neck and I could feel the moisture in there.

I had been too immersed in myself to not see the pain he was going through all these times. My chin rested over his head as he seated there for a long while. “Do you want to meet the caretaker?”

“The ones we had in our times, she had died two years back. I had attended her funeral, and I met with my mother, Caroline.” His voice is scratchy as if it pained him to speak.

“And I saw him with a little boy, and a man by her side. She was happy, Lilah. She was married, had a kid, and was happy. And I felt…” I rubbed his back urging him to say everything out. “I felt happy… She deserved everything, all the things I had snatched away from her. She deserved to be happy, and that was only possible by leaving me.”

I kissed his head multiple times, tears flooding my vision. “You know my secret?”

“Huh?”

“You’re an angel, Damien.. the most precious one.”

•••••

Thank you for reading.

I didn’t make it longer ‘cause it's gonna be a hotchpotch if I add everything in one. So, I decided to break the chapters. Hope it's fine.

PLEASE READ----

And, I think I will give the book back its former title. Many people didn’t like the current one, and it's my mistake to not have asked you, people, before changing. I wanted to make it a series and wasn’t getting a good title for the next book so decided to change this one. But don’t worry I got back my sanity and will keep “Stay with me” only.