Chapter 4
The next day, I texted Noah to break up with him. I personally severed Noah from my life.
And he agreed too quickly. Almost no argument, no explanation.
He treated me like expired luggage, setting me down effortlessly.
Our three months of memories were crushed to nothing by his single word “okay.”
I stayed in the hospital for several more days, my wounds wrapped in layer upon layer of bandages, like a roughly patched–up rag doll.
My mother never visited once, and my sisters didn’t even call.
The entire Donovan family seemed to have erased me from their family tree.
But unexpectedly, my father rushed back from his business trip in Boston.
He arrived dragging luggage, carrying a briefcase, still wearing his tie that he hadn’t had time to remove, the faint wrinkles on his face deepened by worry.
When he pushed open the hospital room door, travel–worn and exhausted, and saw me lying in bed wrapped like a broken mummy, he froze completely.
“God, Daphne…” his voice was so low it was barely audible. “I’m sorry, my precious daughter.”
He came over and sat beside my bed, his trembling hand gently stroking my hair.
“I failed you. I should have been by your side. I just… I really don’t know how to deal with your mother.”
I looked at him–this quiet, gentle middle–aged man, his eyes flowing with emotions completely opposite to my
mother’s.
He wasn’t the type of father who would roar. He never yelled at anyone, but he also never fought back. His love was warm, but like an umbrella that wouldn’t open–useless in a real storm.
But in my abandoned world, he was the last person who still called me “precious.”
When my mother’s anger erupted like a volcano, he was the one who stood between us, trying to extinguish the
lava-
Even though he couldn’t do it, even though he was away for years at a time, only occasionally returning home to be
an ornamental husband and father.
He wasn’t a hero, he never won, but he tried to protect me.
02:40
Fatal photos: My Mom Tried to Kill Me, and the World Cheered?.
30.0
Chapter 4
That was enough for me to forgive all his weaknesses over and over again.
I gripped his hand tightly, like clinging to a final lifeline.
“Dad,” I said quietly, my eyes reddening, “can you promise me something?”
He paused, then smiled–that kind of smile that could melt ice, his only weapon as a father.
“Of course, sweetheart. Whatever you say.”
I used all my strength to stare into his eyes.
“Please promise me… Never look at the photo albums on mom’s phone and don’t look at anything in there. You can’t watch it.”
He frowned, his voice confused: “What? Why?”
I urgently interrupted him: “Don’t ask! Just promise me. If you still love me, don’t check those pictures. Never.”
He hesitated for a moment, then raised his right hand in a promising gesture: “Alright, I promise you. I swear I
won’t look at them.”
I pressed further, my voice so low it was like bargaining with fate: “Swear you’ll never stop loving me?”
He looked at me, his eyes flashing with unprecedented determination.
‘Daphne, I love you. From the moment you were born, I’ve been your father. That will never change.”
In that moment, I believed him. I really believed him.
I even started imagining what my free life would look like.
He also promised to help me arrange a small apartment–a place only we would know about, far from my mother, ar from that family prison.
nodded, feeling weak hope for the first time, like that sliver of sunlight seen from the bottom of a deep well.
thought I was finally going to escape.
But I never expected that my father–the man who held me in that hospital room and swore to always stand by my ide-
Would completely betray me in less than 24 hours.
ust like everyone else.
02:40
