My Parents Wanted Me to Suffer, They Regretted It When I Did

You're a man, who did this to you?! My parents screamed, their voices frantic.

I looked at them and a laugh unexpectedly escaped my lips. The kidnappers.

My parents and Cassie froze, their faces draining of color.

I continued softly, Don't you remember? The kidnappers demanded a ransom. You only offered to save your other precious son, saying I needed to learn a lesson.

My mother collapsed onto the sofa. "That's impossible We just wanted you to learn a lesson, to tell you to stop bullying Leo. I never We never thought"

I walked over to my mother, bending down to look at her. "You never thought the kidnappers would humiliate me like that, did you?"

Without waiting for her reply, I rolled up the sleeve of my left arm.

A winding scar, like a centipede, coiled across my skin, stretching all the way to my elbow.

"Knife wounds, burns, fractures." I pointed at each mark. "They broke two of my ribs and burned seven cigarette marks onto my back. I had all these when I came home. Why did none of you ever ask me about them?"

My mother opened her mouth, but I cut her off. "You didn't come to rescue me. You just took Leo."

"You didn't come for a day, then two days, then a whole month"

"Do you really think the kidnappers would still believe they could get a ransom?"

Well, it's too late now. I'm going to die.

The next day, I was heading to the hospital for surgery when I coincidentally ran into Mr. and Mrs. Hayes and Cassie. Leo's stomach issues had flared up again, and the whole family was rushing to be with him.

I went to the doctor's office and confirmed my surgery time. As I walked out, Cassie spotted me and grabbed my arm. Behind her, Leo's eyes were sharp and accusatory.

"What are you doing at the hospital? Leo's stomach is acting up because you haven't been eating or drinking. What else are you trying to do?" Cassie demanded, her carefully applied makeup unable to hide the harshness in her brow.

I waved her off. "I don't have time for this." To me, the Hayes family was as distant as strangers passing on the street.

Once I decided I was no longer a Hayes, I would sever all emotional ties with them, just like my own parents did to me.

Perhaps, deep down, I did have the same cold blood as the Hayes.

I shook Cassie off and turned to leave. I used to always watch the backs of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes and Cassie. Now, finally, I didn't have to.

The biopsy results came back: Stage 4 brain tumor. Surgery was no longer an option. The old injury on my left arm, however, required another debridement surgery C the infection left by the kidnappers had turned cancerous.

There was no way I was keeping that arm.

When I came off the operating table, I felt like I'd lost half my life. I slept for two days, but it felt like just a shallow nap. If death was like this, perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to accept.

The doctor said the debridement surgery was successful, but the cancer cells had already spread. I knew my time was even shorter.

A month later, I was discharged. The doctor urged me to continue chemotherapy.

That's when I got a call from Leo. He said if I was leaving the Hayes family, I should do it cleanly. He asked me to meet him at a coffee shop to return my belongings.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the coffee shop. Leo was already impatiently waiting. I was surprised to see Cassie there too. She scrutinized me from head to toe.

I'd lost so much weight in the past month that my hospital gown hung loosely on my skeletal frame. My eyes were deeply bruised from the constant pain.

"Alex, look at you. How can you even compare to Leo? You've completely disgraced the Hayes family," Cassie said.

I didn't reply, just picked up my bag, preparing to leave. Cassie called out, a look of disbelief on her face. It was probably because of my blatant disregard. For four years, I had constantly tried to please her. When had she ever been treated with such indifference by me?

Seeing her silent, I reached for the glass door of the coffee shop to open it. Cassie tried to grab me, but accidentally tugged on my hair. My short, dark brown wig came off.

Cassie and Leo stared, stunned. "Why did you shave your head?!"

"Are you insane? You're throwing away your image completely?" Cassie continued, glancing at the equally shocked faces of the other customers in the coffee shop. Leo, too, asked with a sneer,

"Alex, what's this stunt now? Other people make grand sacrifices, and you're doing this? Are you shaving your head to make some profound statement?" Leo's words cut like knives.

I laughed. "Don't you know what 'starting over' means?"

I extended my hand to Cassie. "Give me back my wig."

Cassie clutched my wig, speechless, just staring at me. It was Leo who snatched it from her and tossed it into my lap.

I calmly put on the wig. After all, a skeletal man with a shaved head isn't exactly a sight for sore eyes on the street.

"Leo, you really don't have to be so scared. I'm not coming back to the Hayes family," I said with a smile. "Not in this lifetime, and certainly not in the next."

"I'm not scared! Mom, Dad, and Cassie only love me!" Leo cried out, furious, his usually handsome face twisted with rage.

Before my chemotherapy appointment, I went to pick out my burial plot, right next to my foster parents. In my next life, I wanted to be their biological son.

This life had been too painful. In my next life, I only wanted to live the way I did before I was 17.

To my surprise, the sales manager at the cemetery was Chloe, the neighbor from my foster parents' old house. She didn't ask too many questions, nor did she offer forced comfort. She'd probably seen enough of life and death. Her initial shock was probably just because it was her first time meeting the user of a burial plot in person.

Chloe seriously explained all the arrangements, even helping me choose a good, affordable urn.

Chloe walked with me towards my parents' graves.

"Dad, Mom" I missed them so much.

I quickened my pace up the steps, all 108 of them. Standing before their familiar tombstone, I was pierced by the sight before my eyes, and my vision blurred!

There, on the tombstone, crude letters written in foul-smelling dog's blood screamed. I rushed forward, charging towards the grave

[ALEX IS A BASTARD, AND THE PARENTS WHO RAISED HIM ARE ANIMALS!]

I dropped to my knees, frantically scrubbing with my sleeve. As I wiped, I apologized, "Dad, Mom, I'm so sorry Your son is unfilial, I've dragged you down even in heaven, you can't even rest in peace"

"I'm useless, how could this happen"

"I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry!"

My hands were raw and chafed from scrubbing. My light-colored clothes were stained red and dirty.

Chloe returned from the office with a bucket of water and a rag, helping me clean.

The rain grew heavier. I was soaked to the bone. Chloe struggled to drag and support me down the mountain.

I was the biological son the Hayes family had searched for.

But when I returned at 17, there was already an adopted son, Leo, the same age as me.

Leo, who had soaked up all the Hayes' love.

In the four years since my return, no one seemed to remember to change my surname back to Hayes.

I continued to use the name my foster parents gave me, Alex Miller.

My foster parents had been wonderful to me. Unable to have children, they felt finding me was a blessing from heaven, vowing to cherish me as their treasure.

But when my DNA was uploaded online after a school blood drive, my biological parents, separated from me for 13 years, found me.

My foster parents still let me go. They believed I could get better educational resources with the Hayes, at least no longer needing to work part-time to help support myself.

But now, I was dying. Brain tumor, late stage.

To see my foster parents, who loved me so deeply, insulted like this I felt like my insides were being brutally squeezed and twisted.

They don't love me, and I don't want to love them anymore.

I just want to live for myself at the end of my life.

Tomorrow is my chemotherapy, but why did I have to see my beloved foster parents suffer such an insult?

My foster mother passed away when I was 12, and my foster father died in an accident last year.

Can't even the dead leave in peace?

My childhood memories of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were hazy.

I only remembered Cassie, five years older than me, taking me to an amusement park. She told me to wait while she went to buy me ice cream. I waited from morning until night, but Cassie never came back.

In the end, it was a cleaning lady at the amusement park, my foster mother, who found me and took me home.

On my first day back at the Hayes mansion, Leo cried to me, "I don't want anything. I know I've taken your place all these years, but now I just want to be with Mom, Dad, and Cassie. Please, Alex, don't make me leave."

What did Cassie, who had lost me that day, do? She pushed me away fiercely.

"Leo, no one will make you leave, and no one dares to. You are my brother, my only brother," Cassie said, hugging Leo tightly and glaring at me.

It was as if I were some unforgivable villain, trying to break up their family.

My biological mother, her eyes red-rimmed, looked at Leo and choked out to me, "Alex, when you went missing back then, Mom went crazy. So your father brought Leo home. Leo was the one who stayed with Mom through all the days and nights without you."

The moment I turned to look at Leo, he gave me a defiant smirk. "Mom, let's not talk about all that for now. Let Alex stay in my room tonight. The guest room isn't ready yet."

Leo emphasized the words "guest room."

"Oh, no, that won't do, Leo. You're particular about your bed. Changing rooms will make you sleep badly," my mother quickly said, then immediately remembered I was still there and abruptly stopped herself.

For the next four years, I lived in the guest room next to the maid's quarters on the first floor and never moved.

No more thinking about it. I can't think about it anymore.

The first round of chemotherapy was so painful that cold sweat plastered itself to my face, dripping down. I was in agonizing pain. The doctor asked if I had any family with me, but I said nothing.

But when I saw Chloe waiting outside the operating room, I felt a flicker of relief. I wasn't alone. I was too lonely. I needed someone to be with me, at least for this final journey. I needed someone to bury me.

Because of the chemotherapy, I couldn't eat anything and dry-heaved every day. Even the rich and bland meals Chloe brought me were impossible to stomach.

"Eat a little more, otherwise, when you're cremated, there'll be so little left, it won't even cover the bottom of the urn. What a waste," Chloe said.

After every meal, Chloe would push me to the hospital garden for a walk. Silverwood had already entered winter, with heavy snow blanketing everything, and the sun couldn't ward off the cold.

"Let's go back to the room. It's too cold."

I gazed at the grey sky and asked Chloe, "Why couldn't I reach you when I came back to the Hayes family?"

Chloe's eyes reddened. She didn't speak.

I sighed deeply. Had I said the wrong thing? Chloe turned her face away, her shoulders trembling slightly.

Back in the hospital room, I lay in bed reading when Leo called me.

"Alex, where are you?" Leo's voice was agitated and urgent. "Can you come home? Cassie is being beaten to death by Mom and Dad."

Leo didn't wait for me to speak, then started crying again. "It's all your fault! Mom and Dad are blaming Cassie for saying you needed to learn a lesson. Cassie's being hit all because of you."

I was speechless. "Why should I go?"

"Why won't you come back? It's all because of you! Don't you love Cassie most of all? Can you bear to see her beaten?"

"Mr. Leo, I've already left the Hayes family. Haven't you always wanted to be the only son of the Hayes? Why are you asking me to come back now?" I couldn't believe Leo had the nerve to call me.

I hung up and then blocked and deleted everyone from the Hayes family.

But I didn't expect Cassie to show up at the hospital. I was in the hospital lobby, basking in the sun by the floor-to-ceiling windows, enjoying a rare good day.

Cassie stood in the shadows, asking, "Why didn't you tell the family you were sick?"

"Ms. Hayes, your family is truly ridiculous. Why do you always forget that I've cut ties with you? My name is Miller, yours is Hayes. What is there for us to talk about?"

The sunlight made me squint.

Hearing me say my name was Miller, Cassie's face paled slightly, but she patiently asked, "What illness do you have?"

I pointed to the sign on the wall. "Oncology. What else could it be, stomach problems?"

"Alex, are you planning to fake your death this time to gain Mom and Dad's sympathy?"

"Get out!" I roared at Cassie. I had run out of patience for the Hayes family. My only wish while still alive was never to see any of them again. Was that really so difficult?

Chloe pushed me back to my room, blocking Cassie.

"How dare you stop me? I'm his sister! I told you back then, you weren't good enough for Alex. Why are you still showing up?" Cassie shoved Chloe.