Chapter 32: I Didn’t Push Her

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: I Didn’t Push Her

I only learned later why he’d abandoned me, half-dead, at the hotel that night. It was because Erin Whittaker’s father had gotten sick. He’d had a cerebral hemorrhage while binge-drinking, and his hospitalization and subsequent recovery cost an enormous amount of money.

And Julian Fletcher, ever the perfectionist, insisted on the best of everything: a private room, the finest caregivers, a top-tier medical team, and state-of-the-art rehabilitation.

He would spend tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions on Erin without batting an eye.

But with me, and only me, he was cruel to the extreme.

Erin took his generosity for granted, while I was left shouldering heavy shackles.

I was in his debt. I owed him my life, my parents’ intact bodies, and a financial and emotional debt I might never be able to repay in this lifetime.

For a long time, I confused gratitude, guilt, and love. I couldn’t tell them apart, couldn’t separate them.

Sometimes I wonder, ’Did I ever love Julian Fletcher? What did I even love about him?’

The moment he saved me? The way he rushed recklessly into the car to carry out my parents’ bodies?

The look of worry in his eyes, the fear of losing me, just as the car exploded?

It seems I was just deluding myself.

Back then, I thought Julian Fletcher cared deeply for me.

I thought he had loved me once, too.

But it was all just an illusion.

Even the idea that I once loved him now feels like a distant delusion.

"Cecilia Caldwell, how can you have the nerve to keep leeching off the Fletcher family? You were already an adult when you came here. Have you no shame? You’re only staying so you can get your hooks into Julian, aren’t you?"

The day Erin Whittaker fell down the stairs at the Fletcher residence, I had just been discharged from the hospital.

Julian’s mother had gone to Porchester. Julian’s father was in poor health and spent most of the year there recovering, so she was going to stay with him for about six months.

Every time she left, I would be terrified. Because when she was gone, there was no one left to protect me.

Julian’s cruelty toward me in this house would become even more unrestrained.

I had thought about running away, too. I pictured hiding in my dorm, or even renting a place and living in a basement—I wouldn’t have cared.

But every single time, Julian would manage to track me down and drag me back, coldly demanding to know how long I planned to keep up my act.

"Cecilia Caldwell, if you play the victim too often, it stops working." Erin stood at the top of the stairs, looking at me with a sneer. "Do you know what people are saying about you? They say you’re a jinx. You jinxed your parents to death, and after coming to the Fletcher family, you jinxed Julian’s father into being sick all year round. What’s the point of someone like you even being alive?"

"Shut up." I was losing control, completely provoked by Erin’s words.

Because that day was the anniversary of my parents’ death.

For the first two years after I came to the Fletcher family, Julian used to remember the anniversary. Then he forgot.

"If I were you, I’d just hurry up and die," Erin’s cousin sneered from downstairs. All of Julian’s sycophantic friends were laughing at me.

They didn’t even see me as a human being.

"Julian isn’t back yet."

"Cecilia, I hear you’re desperate for a man, huh? Come on down. Since Julian’s not here, let your big brothers take good care of you."

Their disgusting words were like a curse, making my whole body tremble.

"Come on, get down there with me." Erin grabbed my wrist, trying to drag me down the stairs with all her strength.

I backed away in fear. As I struggled, I watched her deliberately let go of my wrist, give me a cold smirk, and then tumble down the stairs.

Everyone was stunned, jumping to their feet.

I stared in terror at Erin lying in a pool of blood at the bottom, then looked at Julian, who had just walked in and was standing at the door. I shook my head in panic.

’It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.’

But no one would believe me.

Even if everyone besides Julian saw clearly that it wasn’t me, they wouldn’t speak up for me.

"Cecilia! How could you be so vicious!" Erin’s sister rushed up, slapped me, and started punching and kicking me.

I curled up in a corner, clutching my head, not daring to move a muscle.

"It wasn’t me..."

’It really wasn’t me.’