Chapter 104: Nothing

NOAH

The blue light of the phone screen was the only thing illuminating the dark suite, a cold, digital glow that made my skin look as sickly as I felt.

My thumb had frozen mid-scroll, the world around me narrowing until all that existed was the woman on the screen and the name that had just been spat out like a curse.

Nicholas Bennett.

My hands began to shake so violently that the phone rattled against my palms. I swiped back up, my heart pounding a frantic, uneven rhythm against my ribs… a drumbeat of impending doom.

The reporter was standing outside a gleaming hospital entrance, her professional smile bright and sharp under the camera lights. “—Dr. Nicholas Bennett, an intensive care surgeon at Presbyterian Medical Center, has been hailed as a hero tonight,” she said, her voice filled with that practiced, newsroom awe.

My stomach didn’t just drop; it felt like someone had reached inside and kicked it out of my body. The nausea I’d been fighting since the conference room returned with a vengeance, thick and acidic in the back of my throat.

The footage cut away from the reporter to the chaotic scene of an emergency bay. Flashing lights, sirens that seemed to wail right out of the speakers, and a team of medics rushing a gurney through double doors. “—after successfully performing an emergency surgery that saved the life of the Governor’s wife, who was rushed to the hospital following a severe cardiac episode,” the reporter continued. “Doctors say her condition was critical. The surgery required was highly complex, with very few surgeons in the country qualified to perform it.”

I couldn’t breathe. The air in the suite, which had felt empty just moments ago, now felt thick and heavy, like I was trying to inhale mercury.

“Dr. Bennett, despite the high-risk nature of the procedure, volunteered to take the case. After a grueling eight-hour surgery, the Governor’s wife is now in stable condition—”

Then came the photos.

The video transitioned into a slideshow of professional shots and press captures. There was Nicholas. My twin. The other half of a whole that I had spent twenty-four years failing to complete.

He was standing there in his white coat, looking composed, confident, and utterly perfect. He was shaking hands with the Governor, both of them smiling while cameras flashed like a thousand tiny suns.

Another photo showed him with the hospital director, being presented with a commendation.

Then a shot of him surrounded by microphones, that humble, self-effacing smile on his face… the one our parents always loved because it made his brilliance seem so effortless.

“Dr. Bennett’s quick thinking and exceptional skill have earned him praise from medical professionals across the country,” the reporter’s voice droned on.

Nicholas. Nicholas. Nicholas. Always him.

I couldn’t look away, even though every word felt like a serrated blade sawing through my chest. My thoughts were a bitter, jagged mess. Of course it’s him. Of course, he’s saving lives and shaking hands with the Governor. Of course, he’s the hero of the hour.

And me? I was the disappointment. The twin who was disowned. The assistant who just got fired after being treated like a modern day slave. I was sitting alone in a suite I didn’t own, in a city I didn’t belong in, feeling sorry for myself while my brother was being canonized on national television.

The comparison hit me like a freight train, crushing what was left of my spirit into the dirt. Nicholas was a savior; I was a distraction. Nicholas was a hero; I was pathetic. Nicholas was celebrated; I was invisible.

It was my entire childhood distilled into a sixty-second news clip. Every parent-teacher conference where the teachers’ eyes lit up for Nick and dimmed for me.

Every award ceremony where my parents cheered until their throats were raw for him, only to realize they’d forgotten to bring a camera for my turn. Every dinner table conversation that acted as a highlight reel of his medical school triumphs while I sat there, a ghost in my own home, trying to find a way to tell them I’d gotten a promotion they wouldn’t care about.

I remembered the last time I saw my father. The coldness in his eyes. The way he looked at me with such profound disgust, as if my very existence were a stain on the Bennett name. My mother hadn’t even looked at me; she’d just stood by, barely offering a whimper of protest as they cut me out of their lives like a tumor.

And now, the whole country got to see why. They got to see the “good” son. They got to see the son who was enough.

My chest felt like it was caving in. I felt small. I felt worthless. I felt like the nothingness I had always feared I was.

With a choked, guttural sound, I threw the phone. It sailed across the room, hitting the far wall with a sharp crack before sliding to the floor. But the reporter’s voice didn’t stop immediately. It was tinny and distant, still rambling on about Nicholas’s “exceptional skill.”

I pressed my palms against my eyes, pushing until the pressure hurt, until stars exploded across my vision. My throat was so tight I couldn’t swallow the lump of shame that had lodged there. My entire body was trembling, a violent, bone-deep shaking that I couldn’t control.

This was rock bottom. It was lower than the day Lila left me for someone more “stable.” It was lower than the moment Cassian threw the contract in my face. It was lower than the disowning. Because this was the final proof. This news report was the cosmic “I told you so.”

I was the family disappointment. The ex-boyfriend who wasn’t worth the effort. The employee who got fired. The son who didn’t exist. I was the person nobody wanted, nobody needed, and nobody saw.

Nicholas was everything I was not. He was the sun, and I was just the shadow that vanished when the lights got too bright.

I curled into a ball on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them as if I could hold my soul together. But I could feel the cracks spreading. I could feel the walls I’d built—the “professional” mask, the “tough” assistant persona—all of it crumbling into dust.

The reporter’s voice finally stopped. The video had ended, or the phone had finally died. The suite returned to that deafening, heavy silence, broken only by the ragged, hitched sound of my breathing.

I stared at the dark wall, feeling nothing but a crushing, suffocating emptiness. My phone was across the room, the screen likely shattered, still showing Nicholas’s triumphant face to the floorboards. I didn’t go get it. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know anything anymore.

I just sat there in the dark.

Pathetic.

Worthless.

Invisible.

Exactly where I had always been. Exactly where I would always be. Because that was the truth of it, the truth Cassian saw, the truth my parents knew, and the truth Nicholas proved every time he saved a life.

I was nothing.

I buried my face in my knees and waited for the world to finish breaking me.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep