Just a Kid • Book 1

• Chapter 5 •

Third Person's POV

Later that day, Rory was at the Queen residence. She was hanging out with her aunt, but since her dad had been back home for a little while, she decided to go see if he wanted to hang out with her.

Oliver's door was open when she got there, so she just walked right in. But what she saw made her freeze in her spot as tears immediately welled in her eyes.

"Oh, my God." She breathed out, very frightened and horrified at what she was seeing. Oliver wasn't wearing a shirt and she could see large scars on his back. He looked like he had been tortured.

Oliver was just putting his shirt on when he heard his daughter and looked over at her. The frightened and horrified look on her face spoke volumes.

If it had been anyone else, Oliver would've gotten mad that they just walked right in and saw what he was trying to hide from everyone, but he couldn't get angry at his daughter. Especially when she looked so scared.

He now had a shirt on, so Rory couldn't see his back anymore, but the shirt wasn't buttoned so she could still see the scars on his chest and stomach.

"Aurora, hey. Hey, kiddo. I'm fine. Honestly, I am." Oliver started to reassure her as he rushed over to her. "Your – your back a-and chest. There's so many scars." A couple tears fell from Rory's eyes as she was still frozen in place in horror.

"These? These are nothing, kiddo, I promise. I'm okay. I'm okay." Oliver crouched down and pulled Rory into his arms, letting her cry as he just repeated his last statement, trying to reassure her.

After a couple minutes, Rory managed to calm down a bit and she finally pulled back from her dad. Her eyes were red and tears were still falling down her cheeks, but she wiped them away.

"Dad, I don't know what happened to you during these past five years and I don't expect you to talk to me about them, but I just want you to know that I'm here if you need me." Rory told him and Oliver felt his heart melt at her words. "Thank you, Aurora." He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead before pulling back again.

"The same goes to you. I don't really know what happened in these last five years for you, but I'm always here if you want or need to talk about it." Oliver spoke and Rory hesitated for a moment before speaking again.

"Do you have a few minutes?" Rory asked him and he nodded. "Of course." Oliver answered. "Then, there's something I want to show you."

Rory led Oliver out of the house and into the backyard. She led him further back to where the tombstones for him and his father were.

"During the five years, I often felt like I didn't really have anyone to talk to about you. Mom wouldn't even mention your name and Granddad seemed so infuriated with you that I didn't dare try and talk to him about it. And I don't know what happened between you and them, but I know that something did, so I never pushed them to talk about you." Rory paused for a moment before continuing.

"A month after the funeral, Grandma stopped going out. Soon after, she stopped talking altogether. Not to me, not to Aunt Thea, not to anyone. There were only two people in my life that I could ever talk to if I wanted to talk about you and they were Aunt Thea and Uncle Tommy."

"They were willing to tell me stories about you and were willing to let me talk to them about how much I missed you. So I became very close with both of them. But soon after, Aunt Thea got involved with some drug problems, as I know you already know. I didn't know at the time, all I knew was that she wasn't around as much anymore. When she was, she was still willing to talk about you, but it happened much less often."