"I hate you."
The words were uttered with a sting in his tongue and a pain in his heart. But it wasn't a false claim. Zein did hate his father. He didn't see the need to lie to his heart, and to the man he saw from the first and the last time.
Rather, it made him want to be the most truthful than any other time.
"For the longest time, I had hated you," Zein gripped the cold frame of the stretcher, remembering all the hatred he kept, the curses he hurled, every time he thought about the man he was supposed to call his father.
The man he never knew, the man he never saw. A faceless villain he based his hatred of a relationship on.
At least, until he could put a face on that villain.
