The Secrets That Free Us

Chapter 8

I wake up and for the briefest of moments I try to delude myself that yesterday was all just a bad dream.

The entire day was all too emotionally draining and more than I thought I was capable of handling at the moment. Maybe that's my karma for being such a shitty person? For letting my family down and being such a burden to them, I have to live with the guilt of knowing I never gave my family a fair chance to show me how much I mean to them and I've devastated all of their lives. Not to mention re living the pain of seeing Hunter made my heart feel like it had been ripped from my chest and stamped on all over again.

I was at the lowest I thought I could ever feel when he left the first time around. My bestfriend and my worst enemy all rolled into one person. The person who I shared everything with. The person who, when I shared my deepest darkest secret with him, took off leaving a Hunter shaped hole in my heart.

After half an hour of staring at my ceiling I decide to get my ass out of bed before my Mom drags me downstairs herself. Mia must have already left to go to work because I know she came in late last night. I just pretend to be asleep because I didn't have the energy to discuss yesterday's turn of events.

I change into a pair of light blue jeans and a long sleeved cream sweatshirt. Everything has to be long sleeved now. I stare at my wrists for a moment before pulling my sleeves all the way down. My wounds have healed but the skin there is still shiny and red. An angry reminder of that at my weakest point I couldn't bring myself to fight anymore. That the demons I tried to hide for so long eventually got the best of me and won.

I throw my hair into a messy bun and don't bother to fix it when a few loose tendrils fall into my face. Fuck it, it'll do.

I make my way into the kitchen and my Mom and Dad are both sitting at the kitchen table, coffees in hand and judging by the way the conversation halted when I walked into the room I'm going to assume it was me they were discussing.

I ignore their prying eyes burning holes in the back of my head while I pour my cereal but eventually the silence is making me feel anxious.

"What?" I ask looking between them both.

My dad just screws his mouth together in a 'just minding my business' manor and looks back at his newspaper like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen, occasionally nodding his head just to emphasise the fact he's actually reading it, and not just keeping out of whatever this is.

My Mom however, "Nothing sweetie. Its just um. It's just.." I stare at her expectantly waiting for her to spit it out.

"I.spoke.to.Eva.last.night.I.know.that.Hunter's.back" she rushes out in one breath, like a child who can't contain their excitement for Christmas.

"Of course you did"

"So, how is he?" She asks with a smile on her face.

I shrug.

"Well, what did he say?"

"Nothing."  I try to avoid her eye contact and stare at my cereal like it's more interesting than my father's newspaper seems to be. I even throw and interested nod my bowls way since the ignorance is bliss method seems to be working so well for my Dad.

"How can he say nothing after sitting on our doorstep for over two hours?" She raises a challenging brow.

"Because I slammed the door in his face basically" I almost whisper and hear my Dad snigger before realising what she said, "wait, two hours?"

"Grace Anderson! You have been raised better than to slam the door in someones face, especially a nice boy like Hunter!" She chastises and places her hands on her hips just to emphasise her point. "Do you know that boy didn't even tell his own mother he was home yet, he just sat on our door step like some love sick puppy and you ignored him like it was nothing. You basically kicked a puppy Grace."

Me and my Dad both give her a look of confusion due to her metaphor but she waves us off. "Mom, I have no desire to see or speak to Hunter ever again. It's not my fault he just assumed I would want to." I tell her, my voice sulking towards the end as I push my now soggy cereal around in the bowl. I guess I do feel a little bad he waited for me for so long. It's not the warmest weather we could have and two hours is a long time.

"Gary, what do you think of this?" My Dad looks like a fish out of water as my Mom tries to drag him into this argument.

"Huh? Oh I don't know sweetheart I was doing the crossword" he tells her with a loving smile.

She shakes her head and walks out of the room knowing she isn't going to get anywhere with this one. When she leaves I try to hide my smile as I place my bowl down on the counter and walk over to my dad holding out my hand with a pen I just picked up.

He looks at me in confusion. "For your crossword, hard to do without a pen isn't it?" I ask and chew on my bottom lip at the look on his face that he had been called out on his ridiculous excuse.

I sit in front of him at the kitchen table and rest my head on my hand, "Do you think I was harsh, Dad?"

"Oh no, i'm not falling for that one" he tells me.

"Falling for what?"

"The trick question. Your Mom does it to me all the time. I give you my honest answer and I'm wrong. I tell you what you want to hear and I'm only trying to appease you. I'm not falling for it." He flicks his newspaper back up in-front of his face and begins reading it again signalling the conversation is over.

However after a few moment he sighs and puts it down in front of him and covers my hand resting on the table with his own large hand. "I think you should do whatever makes you happy sweetheart, lord knows you deserve some happiness. Hunter is a nice boy and I've always liked him, he's rough around the edges but it's always been painfully obvious that boy adored you. But he has also been gone for a long time and a lot has changed with you in that time. Pay no mind to your Mother though, her and Eva have been planning your wedding together since the first day we moved here." He adds with a chuckle. "I just don't want you to do anything that is going to hurt you getting in a better place with your mental health. That and for you to be happy is all I want for you in life. I do not want to lose you." He says the last sentence with such ferocity and so many unspoken words behind it that it makes tears well in both of our eyes.

"Thanks Dad" I tell him and give him a hug.

He returns my embrace before clearing his throat, "come on I'll take you to school."

Just as I pick my school bag off of the bench my dad opens the kitchen door, "For gods sake woman were you eavesdropping?!" I see my moms blonde hair and roll my eyes.

She has tears in her eyes herself as she gently swats him with the back of her hand, "I knew you weren't doing that flamin' crossword" she says while dabbing her eyes.

He shakes his head at her and turns to me, "see what I have to put up with?"
He leaves to go to the car and I follow closely behind him, at least I won't have to deal with Hunter problems at school, right?