Page 135 of Encounter

The doctor blinked and lowered her brows. “Galen asked about that, too. Unfortunately, we really can’t know right now, but I’d say there is a high probability he will retain most—if not all—of his ability and function.”

I nodded with a hum, increasingly unable to keep my attention on her. The sharp lights made my headache even worse, and their low buzzing started to make me anxious.

How will I explain this to Mother and Father? The thought of it is nauseating.“What else?”

“Yes, erm... Understandably, we will keep him for the involuntary seventy-two-hour observation. He's been very cooperative and didn't protest against staying for an evaluation period. Ideally, we would recommend finding a specialized facility for him to stay at for a week or two after, but we’ll focus on stabilizing him right now, and make further decisions as we go along.”

The more she talked about him, the more that image kept assaulting my mind. Galen’s panicked eyes, filled with tears, arms bleeding crimson.His pleas echoed in my mind like a nightmare.

“I spoke to him, and... from what he said, it truly seems it was more of an... intense eruption of emotion—momentarily overwhelming him—rather than a planned attempt to truly take his own life. Even considering his history with self-harm, I’m pretty confident that right now, he’s no longer at risk of attempting that again, but...”

I felt a sharp tug when she said it—a history of self harm. How did I not see that? How could I be blind to that?

“Please, rest assured, he’s in good hands.”

He might have not wanted to succeed in the first place, but he took the razor and cut open his arms. He failed, but he still did it. The damage was done. No undoing it, no going back.

My chest keeps tightening.He wasonestep away. Or perhaps one step too far... I was the one to push him over that boundary, surely. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a coincidence. I was the denominator. The culprit.

No matter how much I wanted my brain to focus on the absurd, outdated pattern on the floor again, I was overcome by images of Cheok. I turned my head, but no matter where I looked, she was there. Her eyes, empty and striking. The terrified screams of Galen’s nanny echoed and intensified, followed by his confused cries. He might have been too little to understand, but he knew something was terribly wrong.

The burning of the rope against my fingers came back to me. The exact same sensation as that day.

“Sir?”

The same pain Cheok must have felt cut into my neck, tightening as the image of Galen in the bathroom assaulted my senses. Gasping, I was unable to delay the inevitable.

“C-can’t breathe...” Black streaks clouded my vision, contrasting with the blinding white lights. “Can’t—” I whispered, falling until my back hit the wall.

He said I wanted him dead. Dead like Cheok.He truly believes that.

I flexed every muscle in my body, but I could not calm down. The air in my lungs wasn't enough. The images attacked me with terrifying ferocity, equivalent to a punch in the stomach.

There was nothing I wouldn't do to make it stop, but I was powerless.

She said Galen was okay. He was going to get through it. So why did I feel such an intense sense of impending doom, like I was too late?

I told myself Cheok was going to get through this. Time and time again, when she cried in my arms, or lost all interest in living, even playing, for weeks... Afterward, we always told each other we were going to get through it.

But we didn’t.

Reaching for anything I could use to hold myself up, I felt the doctor grab my jittery hand, but it didn’t help the dizziness. “I-I can’t.” I was sure the woman was saying something, urging me to listen, but a thick membrane wrapped around my head, muffling all the sounds.

Galen was safe now, but was he really not going to end up the same way she did? Was I going to drive him to leave, too? It must have been me. What else? Who else?

That was going to be my legacy—failure. Solitude. My mark on this world, despite the endless struggle I put into everything, day after day, it was still going to be failure.

Unable to keep your wife clinging to life. Unable to save your son. Incapable of fulfilling anyone.

A different sensation finally managed to pierce through the chaos. The doctor’s warm hand squeezed mine, and her voice began to slowly clear out. “...attack. Your son is in the next room, and he’s perfectly stable. Keep focusing on your breathing. Everything is going to be alright, Mr. De Clare.”

Letting out a muffled groan, I dry-heaved and shifted my weight against the wall.

Hospital. I’m in the hospital.

“You seem to be coming back. Can you hear me?”

I nodded, clenching her hand.

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