I was stopped at the company entrance. One by one, my calls stopped going through. The money we had pooled together vanished from my account without a trace.
Philip eventually walked out, surrounded by bodyguards.
He looked at me the way one might look at a joke.
“Nathan,” he said lightly, “after all these years, how are you still this naive?”
I was driven away like a stray dog.
That night, I went to a bar.
Glass after glass, I drank, trying to drown everything.
When I woke up, my head felt like it was splitting. Beside me lay a heavily made-up woman I did not recognize.
Before I could even piece things together, the door was slammed open.
Celeste and Philip stood in the doorway, my parents and sister behind them.
A swarm of reporters surged forward, cameras raised.
Flashbulbs exploded, nearly blinding me.
I rolled out of bed, humiliation burning through every nerve.
My father struck my back with his cane.
“Get him tested immediately,” he snapped. “I won’t have him bringing some disease back with him.”
When the test results came out, the hospital ward fell into dead silence.
That woman had HIV.
And on my report, the same three letters stared back at me.
“Self-degradation,” my mother spat before turning away, never looking back.
My sister dumped an entire basin of cold water over my head.
“You’re disgusting,” Trisha screamed. “Don’t ever say you’re my brother again!”
Celeste picked up a towel, her hand hovering in midair.
After a moment, she lowered it, her expression empty.
Overnight, I lost everything.
They sent me to an infectious disease hospital on the outskirts of the city.
On New Year’s Eve, my fever refused to break. I begged the doctor for medicine.
He glanced at me coldly.
“The chairman gave instructions not to pamper you,” he said. “A fever might do you some good.”
I escaped the hospital and ran all the way to the Golding family’s gates, collapsing to my knees in the snow.
Celeste never appeared.
Philip came out instead. He looked down at me, shook his head lightly, and turned back inside without a word.
Moments later, a servant emerged carrying a trash bin and dumped its foul-smelling contents over me, from head to toe.
“Where did this filthy thing come from? Get lost!”
My fever had climbed to nearly 104°F.
In the dead of night, the riverbank lay pitch-black, the water below surging violently.
From somewhere behind me came frantic shouts from the hospital.