“I can’t believe you,” dad spits at me as we drive down the road. “You and your mother.”
I shrink into the corner of the car, opting not to reply to him. Letting him rant and call me terrible things is better than talking back to him or apologizing. I refuse to fuel him up or let him win.
“You’re both such bitches,” he seethes. He’s only got one hand on the wheel, and he’s driving dangerously. “How could you both betray me like that?”
I don’t know how we ‘betrayed’ him but I’m not going to ask. I’m going to let him get everything out. He can yell at me all he wants. I don’t care.
“Both of you are such whores.”
I don’t care.
“Both of you are worthless pieces of shit.”
I don’t care.
“You don’t deserve to be a part of my family.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes. Moving my hand up, I wipe them away before they can fall freely. Could this day get any worse? Dakoda is leaving, and my dad comes back…
Everybody is against me, and I don’t even know what I did.
“You’re going to pay,” dad vows. “You’re going to pay for what you did. With that scumbag gone, nobody can come to your rescue. Nobody can save you. Your mother doesn’t care, and your brother is too catatonic to understand what’s going on.”
Your mother doesn’t care.
“I’m going to break you guys down so much. You’re going to be in living hell; I’ll make sure of it. You people ruined my life. You deserve to die painfully and slowly. You never loved me the way kids should love their father.”
Anger boils in my veins. How could he say that? All we’ve done is love and love and love him, and all he can do is hate and hate and hate us. What more does he want? Does he want slaves instead of children? We’ve put up with his bullshit for so long, and it was his decision to leave after he slapped me. We didn’t force him out of the house. And mom’s been begging him to come home all week, constantly leaving voicemails and constantly checking to see if he’s called back.
If anybody’s done any betraying, it’s him. He left us. Even though it was for the better, he left us. We never left him, never abandoned him.
“I don’t have a family anymore,” he mutters to himself. “They’re gone. They’re not real. They’re gone. They’re gone. They’re gone.”
I can’t decide if he’s going crazy, or if he honestly thinks that we left him, that we’ve never loved him. He can’t redeem himself in my eyes, but he can sure as hell try. But does he even want to? Probably not. He’d rather take the easy way out and blame everyone but himself.
“They died with Mary.”
Honestly, I sort of agree with him on that one. Although things weren’t the best before Mary died, everything basically got even worse once she was gone. I suppose she was the glue that held us together. Even though she wasn’t a part of the family, my parents considered her a daughter.
After Logan lost his mind over Mary’s death, mom began to mourn his broken child and went off the deep end herself. Sure, she wasn’t the most stable at first but at least she acted like she cared, if she even cared at all. I prefer acting over nothing.
YOU ARE READING
Dead Hearts
Teen Fiction"Even though his family is broken just like mine, he won’t understand what I did. If I tell him what I did, he’ll think I’m just like the rest of them – fake. But then again, maybe I am just like them." Presley Adams' doesn't know what to do with he...
