Destroy Me Gently:Ex-Enemy Becomes My Lover!-Chapter 148: Do you still care?

**KIERAN MORRISON**

Somehow I ended up here.

The old community playground sat abandoned and quiet. After the fire that killed Ginny and those other kids, they’d shut this place down. Nobody came here anymore.

Not even me. Until tonight.

The past week felt like drowning in slow motion, I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff with nothing solid to grab onto and the ground crumbling under my feet bit by bit.

I couldn’t stay home. Not when Ollie wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

He’d thrown my heart back at me and walked out and I didn’t know how to function without him. He’d gone back to stay with his mother, who knew she’d probably stab me the next time she saw me.

I’d been crashing at Vince’s place for days now, maybe a week, time felt strange and slippery. Vince threw himself into his part-time job at the bar, coming home late, sometimes drunk and not talking much. It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who got their heart torn out and stomped on.

We made a pathetic pair. Two idiots who’d fucked up the best things in their lives.

These past days I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I woke up, stared at my phone and wondered if I should call him or give him some space to calm down.

Heath had told me that if it were him in Ollie’s shoes, he’d want to be alone, and I found it shocking myself that I was listening to his advice.

Yesterday, he’d visited with Claude, and it seemed the two were quite the pair once again. I knew it was petty to be jealous of them, but a cruel part of me had once thought about telling Heath about the tracker in the watch Claude had gifted him. This way, Claude would join Vince and I in our misery, but I didn’t. It wasn’t as though doing that shit would make Ollie forgive me faster.

My father’s secretary had called a few times, there was no improvement in his condition, he’d been on life support since slipping into a coma.

A small part of me felt relieved I’d answered my father’s call that day. Maybe he’d sensed something bad was coming that made him reach out one last time.

I didn’t want him to die but in a twisted way it felt like closure.

The night breeze brushed my face as I walked past the old swing set, and unwanted memories crept in.

The last good memory I had of my father was from when I was four or five. He’d taken me to a playground for my birthday. My mom had been there too, taking pictures. Back then their marriage had been in better condition, before everything fell apart.

They’d drifted away from each other long before they drifted away from me. My father focused on growing his company while she was stuck home with me during the peak of her career.

She always called him cold, heartless, and why she was the one who was asked to give up her career for a child. She had not wanted one, but had been obligated to give my father an heir according to whatever contract they signed.

Eventually, she went back to her career and made it big in the industry once more. Both of them rarely came home and each time she spoke of my father, I would always hear the spite in her voice.

But these past few months she’d been different, maybe facing his terminal disease had changed something in her.

It was just too late to save our family. Regrets and mistakes couldn’t be erased in a few months, not after years of damage.

I walked away from the swings toward the main building. The keep Out signs and Danger warnings plastered everywhere.

I ignored them and climbed.

The stairs to the roof were sketchy, but I made it up. The view from this spot showed the whole city spread out below and the breeze up here was cool and more refreshing.

I lit a cigarette and inhaled deep, held it, exhaled slowly watching the smoke drift away.

Even smoking didn’t help anymore. The knot in my chest stayed tight and painful no matter what I did. I still felt like I was standing on the edge of that cliff, and just one strong wind away from falling.

I took a step closer to the edge of the building. Yeah. This was exactly how I felt. Like the slightest push would send me over.

My phone was heavy in my pocket, I pulled it out and scrolled through the same pages I’d been checking obsessively for days.

Oliver never posted anything on social media. But William posted constantly and I’d become a fucking stalker, refreshing his page every few hours just hoping for a glimpse of Oliver in the background of a photo.

Pathetic.

I knew it was pathetic. Some nights I fell asleep with my phone open to William’s page, scrolling through pictures like a creep.

But I couldn’t stop.

There was a new post from three hours ago. My thumb hovered over it before tapping.

Oliver was in it. Smiling. The surroundings looked like a shopping mall of some sort.

He was doing fine without me.

It hurt like hell.

I took another drag of my cigarette, my hand shaking slightly.

Wasn’t it just a house?

Just stupid bricks and wood. Replaceable. Why was it such a big deal to him? Why couldn’t he forgive me over something that could be bought back?

I paused my scrolling and opened my bank app. Transferring the money for the repair took less than a minute, I just did a rough estimate of what it might cost.

I only wanted him with me. Forever. Was that so wrong? I did everything to keep him close because I loved him so much I couldn’t breathe right without him and in the end he left because apparently my love was too much.

I scrolled back to Blondie’s page and this time, my fingers froze.

Oliver again, but this time with a girl I didn’t recognize. She had blonde hair like William, similar features. His sister probably.

But she was standing way too close to Oliver, her arm was linked around his shoulders and both of them were smiling at the camera.

Something hot and ugly twisted in my gut.

Why was she touching him like that? Why was he smiling at her like that?

He was mine. Not anyone else’s. A break up didn’t mean he no longer belonged to me. To him, we were probably over, but for me, I was just giving him a break.

My hand clenched around my phone hard enough that the screen protested. I forced myself to breathe, to unclench my fingers before I cracked the screen.

This was the problem, wasn’t it? This thing inside me that wanted to own him completely.

But I couldn’t help it. Oliver was my life. The only good thing I had left.

I smoked the rest of my cigarettes, and sat down for fuck knows how long. The wind was getting stronger, I guessed it was time to return to that fucking apartment.

I stood up and looked at the park once more, that was when I heard it, urgent footsteps that had me stumbling towards the edge.

"Kieran, don’t!"

The voice came and my heart stopped.

Impossible. Great, was I hearing his voice now? It wouldn’t be the first time that I hallucinated his presence.

I spun around only for my breath to catch in my throat and then my heart crushed so tightly that it hurt physically.

Ollie.

He stood just a few distance away, breathing hard like he’d been running.

How was he here?

Not even Vince knew where I’d been going when I left his house. So, how did he know?

"Don’t!" He screamed again, I watched as he started to move toward me slowly like I was a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. "Please don’t!"

I frowned, confused. "Don’t what?"

My eyes just couldn’t get enough of him. His hair was slightly shorter than last time I’d seen him, I didn’t think he could get more beautiful but there he was proving me wrong with this new haircut.

His green eyes were wide and panicked, fixed on me with an intensity that made my chest ache.

"Kieran, get away from there!" His voice shook. "Please!"

Then it clicked.

The edge of the building behind me.

A laugh bubbled up in my chest. What was he thinking? That I was going to jump? Now, there was no way I was gonna die, who would I leave him for? In this life and beyond, he could only be mine.

"Oliver—" I started.

But he was already moving, lurching forward and grabbing me hard. His momentum carried us both backward and we went down hard on the rough pavement of the roof.

I twisted at the last second so I hit first, my back slamming into concrete while Oliver landed on top of me, the impact knocked the air from my lungs.

We lay there breathing heavily, my arms automatically wrapping around him to keep him steady.

"You!" His hand fisted in my shirt and he looked at me with tears streaming down his face.

And punched me in the stomach.

The air left my lungs for a second time, not from the force of the punch but from the shock of it.

"I haven’t forgiven you yet!" Oliver sobbed, hitting my chest now with both fists. "How could you even think about dying? How could you?"

He was crying.

For me?

Hope flared hot and desperate in my chest. My hands moved without thinking, grasping his waist and pulling him closer even as he tried to hit me again.

"Are you crying for me?" My thumb brushed the softness of his cheek and the wetness there, "Ollie, does this mean I still have a chance?"