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Chapter 52: Letting Go of Guilt Pt. 1

Malachi\'s heart dropped down to his shoes.

He wasn\'t fazed by the beauty of the woman in front of him, instead he was horrified by her identity.

It didn\'t take a genius to figure out that this was Melanie\'s mother.

"Young man? Are you alright?" She asked in concern.

This handsome young man had entered her room without saying a word and was looking at her like he\'d seen a ghost.

It was a good thing they were already in a hospital because she was certain he was going to faint at any moment.

"Y-yea, I\'m fine.." He lied.

"Okay then.. can you tell me who you are?"

Malachi considered for a moment what to say before he spoke.

"I\'m a friend of Melanie. My name is Malachi." He said with great difficulty.

The woman felt her eyes widen at the mention of this young man\'s name.

Earlier today when she woke up, after ensuring that she was relatively healthy, a nurse informed her that her daughter had been admitted to the hospital as well and that all of the fees for their treatments had been paid in full.

Naturally, like the good mother she was, she had many questions and the nurse did her best to sate her curiosity.

She could only tell her that her daughter was in a comma after sustaining blunt force trauma to the head. She was brought in by someone named Malachi who was supposedly very famous and he offered to pay medical expenses for the both of them.

At the end of the story, Melanie\'s mother Celeste didn\'t know what to say.

Someone was actually kind enough to not only bring her daughter to the hospital, but he\'d paid all of their bills as well.

Simply saying she was grateful would be an understatement.

However, she\'d been alive long enough to know that people very rarely do things simply out of the kindness of their hearts.

"The nurses told me.. you\'ve done a lot for my daughter and I." Celeste said gratefully.

"But.. I don\'t understand why someone who\'s supposedly just a \'friend\' would be willing to pay such an enormous amount of money for us."

Malachi felt his heart clench even further and he wondered how much he should tell the woman in front of him.

Celeste seemed to notice his hesitation but she did not relent. "No matter how hard you think the truth may be, I deserve to hear it."

Her words hit like a ton of bricks and Malachi found himself unable to refuse.

He pulled up a chair to sit down before he began to tell Celeste the story of how he met her daughter.

"Melanie and I got partnered together to work on a project for our sociology class. Our professor thought it was funny that our names sounded sort of similar so he stuck us together." Malachi smirked.

"Your daughter is quite popular at school, you can always find her surrounded by people who are desperate to get to know her.

I thought that she\'d just be a friend and nothing more but as time progressed I started to develop feelings for her."

Malachi suddenly realized how embarrassing it was to tell his first girlfriend\'s mother how he fell in love with her but he didn\'t stop.

"Eventually, I worked up the courage to confess to her and to my surprise, she actually said yes. To this day, I don\'t understand why she accepted someone like me."

"What do you mean someone like you?" Celeste suddenly asked. "Even I can see that you\'re extremely attractive and obviously wealthy."

Malachi suddenly remembered his divine makeover and pulled out his phone.

He quickly found a picture of he and his sister before his change and showed it to Celeste. "I got blessed after we broke up. She agreed to be with me when I looked like this."

Celeste felt her eyes widen in surprise.

The difference between the boy on screen and the man in front of her was like night and day.

"Anyways, I didn\'t have much due to my family situation but I tried to be good to her. When I wasn\'t working, we were together. We went on dates to the park or anywhere we could find that didn\'t cost too much."

"I don\'t understand."

"Hm?"

"You sound like the perfect little couple so why do you seem so sad?" Celeste asked.

"Well that\'s.. because she cheated on me and left me for my boss." Malachi said with great difficulty.

"What?.." the mature woman asked in surprise.

That didn\'t sound like her daughter at all!

But looking at the face of the young man in front of her, he seemed to be absolutely sure.

"That\'s.. I\'m sorry."

Malachi waived away her apology. "You might want to wait until the end of the story to decide if I\'m still the kind of person who deserves your sympathy."

He took a deep breath before he told her about the events that happened after the breakup.

From the time where she showed up at his doorstep apologizing, to the day in class when he saw her bruises yet ignored them.

He even told her about his special \'vision\' that allowed him to check on her but it was already too late.

"I… didn\'t want anything to do with her. Truthfully, I was bitter because she broke my heart and I wanted her out of my life completely.

The fact that she was being abused didn\'t matter. I was neglectful and as a result, your daughter is in a coma and it\'s not certain when she\'ll wake up."

Malachi lowered his head and his long dreads covered up his face that was twisted by guilt.

"It\'s not you that should be apologizing to me, I am the one who needs to apologize to you." He said solemnly.

Malachi heard the sound of rustling sheets and closed his eyes in preparation of what he was sure was coming.

Celeste would certainly strike him and why would she not?

Would that not be the very least of what he deserved?

Surprisingly, Mal did feel hands on his face but they weren\'t hitting him.

Celeste took his face in her hands and lifted his head up so that they were looking eye to eye.

The two stared at eachother, both letting their tears of grief fall to the floor without a word passing between them.

They simply watched each other in their most vulnerable state as they agonized over a young girl who was dear to both of them.

"I-I don\'t blame you." Celeste finally broke the silence between them as she spoke with a shaky voice.

"B-but I-"

"I know how much you loved my daughter. And despite how much hurt she caused you, in the end you were still the one to save her."

Those words made Malachi\'s tears flow harder because he felt as though they were untrue.

He didn\'t save her, she\'d still been hurt. Once again in his life he was unable to protect someone he cared about.

The only difference now was that he\'d actually had the power to do it.

"I-I know you feel like you didn\'t do enough, but if you didn\'t get my daughter to the hospital in time she would\'ve died on that horrible man\'s floor."

In a moment that would be ingrained in Malachi\'s mind forever, Celeste smiled beautifully despite the tears running down her face.

"So I should be thanking you instead. Thank you, Malachi. For saving my baby girl despite all the hurt she caused you."

Those words left him stuck and unable to respond but luckily Celeste seemed to be expecting that.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and tried her best to cleanse herself of tears.

"I haven\'t been out of my room since I woke up and frankly it\'s a little bit stuffy in here."

Malachi looked at her in confusion as he waited to see where she was going with this.

"It just so happens that I haven\'t been to see my daughter yet, so why don\'t we go together?"