.htaccess RewriteCond to use cached pages if they exist is not working

Question

I have a laravel application installed on a shared hosting package and I'm using https://github.com/JosephSilber/page-cache to cache pages.

The cached pages are stored in the following server folder /home/username/public_html/app_name/public/page-cache/article

The following code is in the .htaccess found in public folder

    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews -Indexes
    </IfModule>

    RewriteEngine On


    # Handle Authorization Header
    RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

    # Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
    RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]

    # Serve Cached Page If Available...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/?$
    RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/public/page-cache/pc__index__pc.html -f
    RewriteRule .? public/page-cache/pc__index__pc.html [L]
    RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/public/page-cache%{REQUEST_URI}.html -f
    RewriteRule . public/page-cache%{REQUEST_URI}.html [L]
    RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/public/page-cache%{REQUEST_URI}.json -f
    RewriteRule . public/page-cache%{REQUEST_URI}.json [L]
    
    

    # Send Requests To Front Controller...
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
    
    
    
</IfModule>

I have tried to debug the values of DOCUMENT_ROOT AND REQUEST_URI and I'm getting the following: %{DOCUMENT_ROOT} = /home/username/public_html/app_name and %{REQUEST_URI} = /article/race-policing-and-the-universal-yearning-for-safety

With the above code in .htaccess i'm not managing to direct it to the cache pages but its going directly to the application even though the file exists.

e.g. /home/username/public_html/app_name/public/page-cache/article/race-policing-and-the-universal-yearning-for-safety.html

There is also the following .htaccess file in the app_name folder.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]


   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (\.\w+$) [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1

#disable directory browsing
Options -Indexes

#PROTECT ENV FILE
<Files .env>
order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

#PROTECT ENV FILE
<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

I would appreciate if someone can help me identify the reason why the .htaccess is not loading the cache page when it exists. Stay safe guys :).