Rip - Becoming Whole

Fighting Ghosts

Please vote and comment if you like what you are reading. It help me to keep going. Writing can be lonely task. I'd love to hear what you think. 

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"Rip, I am sorry about today. We weren't planning on ever telling you. Right or wrong, you should have heard it from me," Mr Dutton told him when they got out of the water. 

"I don't want to talk about it, Papa," the boy said, and he meant it. He feared he would start fighting with his uncle all over again. He still felt he had no right to go digging, and wished he hadn't found out, but there was no point in arguing over it. You can't turn back the clock. In the end he also had to admit that neither Robert nor his uncle set out to do anything to hurt him and probably did mean well.

"Fair enough, but do you accept my apology?" his uncle asked. The boy looked up into his uncle's face and smiled. "Yeah, but I like that in writing please!" a comment that earned him a slap, on the back of his head that was meant to be gentle.

"What are you doing?" Rip asked Jacob, who was folding up clothes belonging to Monica that he had taken out of the wardrobe before putting them into a bag. "Did you guys break up?" Rip asked. 

"Mind your own darn business, Rip," Jacob replied sharply, so Rip scurried through to the bathroom to get his uncle and himself a towel each. When he came back out Jacob stood in his way and wouldn't let him pass. "He's gone soft on you!" he growled holding a pointed finger under Rip's nose in a threatening way.

Up until the night he spend with Chrissy in front of the cottage, he always assumed Jacob would be the one quickest to forgive as he had come to his defence a few times, and he never ever actually had fallen out with Jacob over anything before. Robert was much easier irritated and more impatient, flew off the handle quicker but come to think of it, was just as quick to calm down.

"I am sorry Jacob," he offered and bowed his head. "I shouldn't have lashed out at you earlier. There is no excuse." He would have to apologise to Robert as well. If Jacob was that mad at him, what was he to expect of Robert. He had told him he hated him. The thought of having to look into Robert's eyes after today and apologise to him, made him feel sick. He started to wonder if keeping his distance from Robert from now on wasn't altogether the better option.

"You think I am mad at you because you took a swing at me? Hell, I grew up with four older brothers. I couldn't give a damn about that. I am mad at you because of the way you used that horse out there to manipulate them," Jacob scolded. "Father would have shot that horse without a second's thought and Robert would kill it with his bare hands, if he needed, to protect you. Now get the fuck out of here, before I do what my old man should be doing to you right now. You nearly gave him a fucking heart attack, and almost got a horse killed in the process and all he does is make you go for a swim. I wouldn't have been able to sit for a month if that had been me at your age," he marched Rip to the front door and pushed the dumbfounded boy back outside, then closed the door to the cottage behind him.

"Can I follow you Papa?" he asked his uncle. They were already halfway up the path to the house. "I need to go back. I need to talk to Jacob. I'll be right back!" he promised. Mr Dutton had gathered they had words inside the cottage from the mood that the boy was in when he had returned but Rip as usual was not forthcoming about what had happened, so he gave him permission to go back.

Rip waited until his uncle was out of sight before he stepped back into the cottage where he approached Jacob with a burning sensation in his gut. "Jacob, I am sorry. I know I shouldn't have done that. I wasn't thinking straight. I wasn't thinking of the horse," he lied, he had been thinking about the horse a lot. They just weren't kind thoughts and he had no compassion for it. He had been selfish and didn't care about the horse, which made him feel sick now. He did not want to be like this, when it comes to horses he wanted to be like Jacob, who he admired in every way. He was ashamed for having been so selfish and uncaring.