Revenge In Bloom

Fractured Bonds

Wham.

The slap cracked through the hospital room like a gunshot.

“You’ve humiliated me for the last time,” the woman spat. “I already make excuses for your weight, your grades, and now this? A baby? With no father?”

The girl on the bed winced but said nothing. Tears streaked down her face, catching in the tape of her IV.

“I tolerated the stupidity. Even the size. But this?” The woman’s voice climbed to a near shriek. “Unforgivable.”

She turned sharply, pacing. Her heels clacked across the tile in angry rhythm.

“If you insist this child is fatherless, then I insist you’re homeless.”

“Victoria, stop,” the man at the bedside murmured, kneeling beside the girl. He smoothed a trembling strand of hair from her cheek and kissed her forehead. “You know how your mother is,” he whispered. “If you don’t remember… just make something up. I’ll help.”

He rose slowly and turned. “Vicky, please. She just woke up two days ago. The head injury, ”

“Oh, now the head injury matters?” Victoria snapped. “Maybe we should thank the damn accident. If not for that, we’d be too late to stop this.”

She leaned over the bed like a vulture.

“If you can’t name the father, then you don’t need the child. Get. Rid. Of. It.”

“Mom!” The boy’s voice came from the doorway as he rushed to the girl’s side. “How could you say that? She’s eighteen, she’s not alone. We can help her.”

“You’re sixteen and stupid,” Victoria shot back. “This child will be a stain worse than her on the Blackwood name.”

The girl’s hand drifted to her belly.

“Then I’ll keep my little stain,” she said quietly.

Three gasps echoed in unison.

“Listen, Rose,” one sister said gently, “we haven’t always been the nicest, but we’re still your sisters. You’re throwing away everything.”

“Yeah,” another added. “You can lose weight. You can study more. But a baby? That’s forever.”

“Your chances of marrying well? Gone,” said the third.

“Dahlia’s twenty-four and just engaged!” Victoria snapped. “You’ll show up pregnant and single at her wedding? Absolutely not.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Rose said simply.

Victoria’s face froze. “Let’s go.” She turned and walked toward the door. Her daughters followed without hesitation.

Marcus lingered. He took Rose’s hand again and kissed it.

“If you need money, anything, come to me. No matter what your mother says.”

Victoria yanked on his arm, and with a quick squeeze, he let go and followed.

“You too, Alexander!” she barked from the hall.

The boy hesitated. “Rose, I…”

She stopped him with a soft squeeze to his wrist.

“I know,” she whispered. “Go. I lost my phone in the… assault. But I remember your number.”

She recited it, voice trembling but steady.

“It won’t be long. I promise.”

He hesitated again, then ran.

You better keep your promise, he thought as the door swung shut behind him.

Rose sat alone, wrapped in thin hospital sheets and her own thoughts. The quiet clung to her like a second skin, cold and tight. She blinked at the sterile wall across from her, trying to remember something, anything, beyond the first few months of the year.

But her mind was a foggy void.

Her little brother’s phone number? That was still lodged firmly in her memory, some things, thankfully, didn’t fade. But anything recent? Gone. Faces blurred. Moments slipped away like water through cupped hands.

The doctors had explained the basics: she was attacked at a lavish banquet held on her family’s estate. A guest tried to assault her. In the struggle, she must’ve tried to call someone, her phone had been found shattered, and she’d been unconscious when they got to her. It was Alexander who saved her in the end. Her little brother.

Naturally, she’d pressed him for details. Alexander confirmed what the doctors said and added something else, something that had kept her up ever since.

“You were with a boy named Dalton Smith for most of the night,” he’d said carefully. “He stayed close to you the whole evening. I saw it myself. But right before everything went bad… I don’t know. I lost track of him. Then I you were also suddenly gone, and when I found you, your phone was cracked, and he was already lying there bleeding out.”

Alexander had looked disturbed when he told her that last part.

“There was a lot of blood, Rose. Like… a lot. I tried to find out where they took him when they carried him away on the stretcher. I figured you’d want to know when you woke up.”

She had wanted to know.

But there was nothing. No records. No hospital logs. No digital footprint at all.

“Money gets you information easily,” Alexander had told her, frustrated. “But I couldn’t find him, no matter how much I spent.”

Dalton Smith. A name that meant nothing now. She tried saying it aloud once, just to see if it would trigger anything. But it felt hollow on her tongue, like trying to summon the shape of a dream you knew you'd had but couldn’t explain.

What did he even look like? she wondered.

They were close, apparently. Close enough that her little brother noticed. Close enough that her last memories were wrapped up in this boy, and yet, he was a complete stranger now.

Rose reached for the silver pendant resting against her collarbone. She didn’t remember putting it on. She didn’t even remember owning it. But the nurses told her she’d been wearing it when she arrived. She thumbed it absentmindedly, like maybe it would speak if she held it long enough.

She hadn't been unconscious long enough to miss graduation. There was still a week left. But her father had told her they pushed through paperwork to let her graduate early. The diploma was already mailed to the house.

Rose shivered.

The memory came uninvited, not from the night of the banquet, but from a different kind of horror: school.

She was glad she didn’t have to return to that hellhole. The teasing had been relentless. At home, sure, she was the fat one, the stupid one, the disappointment. But at least that was familiar. At school, she was all that and not rich enough. Somehow, that mattered, even at a school supposedly built for the “mundane elite.”

No powers. No legacy. No glamour. Just the awkward Blackwood daughter, clinging to what little status her name still held.

And even that had cracks.

Not having powers wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. Not at that school. Powers were for the kids who went to Miralith Academy or Ascendria. Not Blackwell Hall.

But then there was Theo.

Bright-blond, magical, golden-boy Theo.

He could have gone anywhere, but for some reason, he chose to slum it among the regular rich. Maybe he liked the contrast. Maybe he liked having secrets. Maybe…

The door burst open.

“Rose!”

There he was. Hair tousled, eyes wild with relief. He rushed to her bedside, slightly out of breath.

“How dare you wake up on the one day I was called away for urgent business?” he scolded gently, leaning in. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to wake up?”

He raked a hand through his golden hair as if the wait had aged him.

Rose smiled, pointing to the bouquet of lilies across the room.

“I know,” she said with a small chuckle. “The nurses were giddy to tell me how often you showed up. And honestly? Very thankful.”

“Ahh,” he breathed, exaggerated and dramatic. “Well, if you know… then I think you owe me.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“You must accompany me on a shopping trip and sit through a movie of my choice.” He nodded, solemn, like a judge issuing a particularly cruel sentence.

Rose threw up her hands with a playful groan.

“Truly, a crime was committed. And for that, I’ll accept my punishment.”

“Good.”

He pulled a chair closer and sat beside her, taking her hand with a gentleness that surprised her. His thumb rubbed soft circles over her palm.

“Seriously, Rosie… how are you feeling?”

She opened her mouth to say “fine.” That’s what she always said. To everyone. Especially him.

But something cracked.

Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the pregnancy. Maybe it was that she hadn’t said it out loud to anyone who actually listened.

So she told him.

She told him about the baby. About the memory loss. About her family’s fury. She told him how no one could find Dalton, how she wanted to thank the boy who stayed with her, protected her, and then vanished.

And then she cried. Really cried. The kind of tears that come from somewhere deep and ancient and wounded.

Theo’s expression changed. His hand froze in hers. His whole body seemed to still.

“...Theo?” she whispered.

He didn’t respond right away. Something faraway crept into his eyes, like he’d been caught between memories and regret. It took a few seconds before she gently tugged his sleeve, snapping him out of it.

His face twisted with something she didn’t recognize, pain, maybe. Or grief.

“So you really don’t remember?” he asked, voice low.

Rose blinked at him. “No. Why are you acting weird all of a sudden?”

Theo stood abruptly, his back to her now. He let out a long, tired sigh.

“You lost all of senior year? You don’t have any of the… good memories?”

Rose sat up straighter, slow and cautious.

“No…”

He turned back toward her and stepped closer, taking her hand again. His expression was wounded now. Almost fragile.

“That’s when our relationship… changed,” he whispered, eyes searching hers.

Rose flushed, glancing away as heat bloomed in her ears. “Theo…” she coughed out, uncertain.

He leaned down, brushing his lips against the soft spot just below her earlobe. She froze.

“I pursued you very hard during the time you can’t remember,” he murmured.

Then he paused, his breath still close enough to stir her hair.

His hand hovered over her stomach. He touched it, light, reverent, dangerous.

“I would also love to think…” he said slowly, “that this baby is mine.”