Chapter 3

The next morning, I went to the care facility first.

My father was in his wheelchair, being pushed through the courtyard by an attendant, letting the morning sun fall on him.

He had aged past recognition. His hair had gone entirely white, and he looked like a tree hollowed out from the inside.

I held out the card.

"This card has five million on it. Enough for the best care facility, enough for a private nurse. I will not be coming back after today."

"Because she asked me to come to her clean."

His lips trembled. He looked as though he had a hundred things to ask.

I did not give him the chance.

Some memories I have no wish to touch again.

"But the moment I turned to leave, the past came flooding back anyway."

I remembered the year his business collapsed, the way he knelt in front of me and asked if I could forgive him.

I found it funny, in a hollow sort of way.

My mother had spent herself fighting to hold on to a man, and in the end, all she received from him was one cheap word of regret.

So I had promised myself I would never do what she did: beg, cling, and lose everything in the end.

I was about to tell him I did not forgive him when a flash of white crossed the edge of my vision, and a van with no control came straight for me.

The next second, something massive shoved me out of the way.

I hit the ground hard.

When I turned back, he was lying in a pool of blood, the front of the van buried into the left side of his body.

He had taken the impact meant for me. That was the only reason he had ended up in that facility.

The five million was not because he was my father.

It was because I owed him a life.