Her Disabled Heir

Chapter 7: Lola

Embarrassment and a bucket full of sorrow weighed my heart down.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mr. Williams, I mean Chase. I should never have gone to the study. You gave me a few simple rules and look at me already breaking them. Please forgive me, I’m so sorry. Chase please, I-“

“Stop!” he cut me off.

His voice had been so loud, that all my thoughts froze in place. My heartbeats rang loudly in my ears and the few moments that followed consisted of me and Chase holding each other’s gaze with an intensity that words failed to accurately describe.

There I was with tear-streaked cheeks, consumed with my guilt and embarrassment, and there was Chase. He had stopped crying now but his eyes did not fail to show just how hurt he was by all of this. Just like me, the man had endured a lot, if not more. To think that he had a daughter, and she died right in front of his eyes ripped me from my insides. I had the sudden urge to do something to take a small fraction of his pain away.

In those few moments, it seemed that my brain had become disconnected from my body because that was the only logical explanation that could warrant what I did next.

My legs moved on their own accord and walked until I was right beside Chase. Then my hand moved next, it touched his hair, then his cheeks. What happened next shocked me even more. Chase leaned into my touch and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said once again, breaking the silence between us.

“Stop apologizing, Eleanor. I thought that I told you that already,” Chase replied with his eyes still closed. His voice remained cool and disconnected, leaving me little room to decipher what exactly was running through his head.

I released a sigh and Chase opened his eyes once more.

He stretched his hands out to wipe off my tears and that was when I realized that I was still crying.

“Thanks,” I told him.

He dropped his hands and pushed himself up on the bed, so we were closer to each other. “You shouldn’t be standing. Please, sit down.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, please. I wouldn’t like to see the woman who saved my life just standing around like that. You must be tired. It’s been a long day.”

I was this close to reminding him that I was the reason he had the accident in the first place, but I didn’t think that I had the energy to argue any further.

My eyes roamed around the room to look for a portable chair and that was when I saw that the doctor had left. It was just me and Chase in the room now. “W-where did the doctor go?”

“That’s not important. Just sit down. I don’t like seeing you stand like that.”

Nodding, I focused on the task at hand. When I found a chair, I moved it to where I had been standing and placed it there. Once I sat, I waited for Chase’s next words.

The room was still heavy with tension and there was clearly still a lot to be said between us.

“For this relationship to work, I need you to trust me,” Chase started.

I nodded in agreement although the word ‘trust’ triggered a lot of bad memories. Just look at me, I trusted my mother, and she ended up betraying me in the worst way possible. My trust was not just something I could easily lend to anybody, even if that person was someone that just happened to be my husband.

Chase eyed me carefully. “You don’t think you can trust me?” He questioned me like he could hear all my thoughts.

When I didn’t give him a response, he released a sigh. “What do I do with you, Eleanor? Even after all of this, you still find it difficult to trust me.”

“No, no. It’s not that… it’s just-“

Chase shook his head. His eyes still held a few specks of the sadness I saw earlier and suddenly, I started to feel guilty again. “It’s okay. I promise I will win your trust. I’m guessing you want to know more about Lola and her mother. How everything happened, right?”

Another wave of guilt washed over me. He was reliving old traumatic memories all because of me. “No, you don’t have to. I think it would be better if you just got some rest like the doctor suggested. You’ve gone through enough as it is.”

It seemed as though my words fell on deaf ears because Chase didn’t utter a single word. His eyes kept roaming all over me as if he was searching for answers that my words failed to deliver. Deep down, I was scared that he would eventually find those answers.

Chase offered a tentative smile and then and there, I just knew that the man could see right through me. “You don’t have to pretend to care about me, you know? We aren’t a real couple.”

The moment Chase fell flashed before my eyes and the entire scene began to replay in front of me. “I’m not pretending.”

He shook his head unconvinced. Releasing a sigh, he began, “Lola was born when I was just about to leave for university. She wasn’t exactly planned, but now that I think of it, she couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. She was perfect, everything a father could ever ask for, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her. She didn’t deserve an incompetent father like me.”

I shook my head. “You’re not incompetent.”

“Yet, I couldn’t save her because of this cursed disability. I just watched her die. Sounds like what the perfect father would do, right?” he replied, sarcasm dripping off of his words. He shook his head and let out a little laugh and as much as he tried to keep his emotions in check, he failed terribly at it.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words fell from it.

His words were heavy with emotion. A sad mix of admiration, regret, and longing. Longing for something that had been lost a long time ago. It was hard not to feel sympathy for him. The all-powerful Chase Williams didn’t look as intimidating as he did earlier today. Now, he looked more human, just like the rest of us. Only a bit more broken.

“A competent father would have done better.”

Ache bloomed in my chest and all forms and acts of self-righteousness I tried to dish out earlier all flew out the window. I found myself being immersed in Chase’s story. I wanted to know about Lola. I wanted to know what happened, but I also wanted him to stop referring to himself as an incompetent father. So, I tried my best to steer our conversation to something a bit lighter.

“What about her mother? What happened to her?”

Chase let out a laugh. One void of joy or anything close to its borders. It was loud, sick, and mocking. “The b***h didn’t even want her own daughter. Apparently, she was scared of how her parents would react, and she was scared that my disability was somewhat hereditary. She thought that it would affect our child too, you know. Go figure! If you ask me, it was all some dumb excuse. Lola was a healthy child in all aspects! At nine months old, she was already taking her first steps.

Donna or whatever the f**k her name was, just ran because she was scared of the responsibility that comes along with raising a child. She was just some stupid one-night stand, in the end, and the only good thing that came out of it was Lola. My Lola. Although Donna is her biological mother, I would never refer to her as Lola’s real mother. Ever.”

Though Chase’s words were heavy, his face remained blank. All of his pent-up anger seeped into his eyes again, making them glisten ever so slightly. His fists clenched by his sides, and although he put up a calm front, I could tell that he could easily explode soon.

“She never called once,” he uttered in a low voice like the realization itself still shook him.

A sad smile decorated that pretty face of his, and I felt a tug in my heart. “Lola asked for her, you know. She asked for her mother many times. I mean, we tried our best to raise her the best we could. Me, my mother and my father, we did our best. Although my parents spent more time with her because I had to go to school and all, I did the best I could. I tried to do the best I could.

All the days when I wasn’t in school or had some free time, I spent time with her and I tried to show her just how much I loved her. I really did, but she never stopped asking for her mother. Not once,” his voice cracked at the end as more sadness slipped into his voice.

My hand found his in an instant and gently rubbed it. I was never the best at comforting people, but I could not just allow myself to sit down and watch him in so much pain.

Chase’s memories seemed to get the better of him because his face no longer remained blank, rather it contorted pain and a tear slipped.

“She never called once. Not even when she died. Not even when I tried to reach out to her. She never called once. How could someone be so cruel?” He said once again through harsh breaths.

Chase was breaking right in front of me and I found myself hurting as well. Hurting because the world we lived in was terribly cruel. Hurting because neither Chase nor Lola deserved any of what they had been through.

The room descended into a cold silence, leaving both Chase and I to deal with the aftermath of his confession.

Soon enough, I found myself crying as well.

It was crazy to think that I had just met this man, yet I felt this strange and pulsing urge to comfort him. Standing up from my chair, I moved closer to Chase. His eyes met mine and, in a single, intimate, and vulnerable moment, we both let our guard down.

I was no longer the daughter of a thief, and he was no longer an intimidating, powerful business tycoon. We were both just humans that had been broken in one way or the other.

My arms wrapped around him and his around me, both pulling each other close like we needed each other to live. To exist.

So, in that brief moment, in that hospital room, we co-existed. Together.