All For You

𝟑𝟎.

𝐋𝐞𝐨

"Fuck, just breathe." 

I muttered words to reassure myself as I rushed through the hallways. I could hear the quick stomping of my footsteps as everything in my mind spiralled around like a frenzied mess, messing up every word I tried to form through my thoughts. I can't breathe and all that my mind is telling me is that I'm going mental. My lungs feel short of air like something is draining all the oxygen out of this place. 

Fucking hell, I should have never agreed to come here. 

I thought everything was going to be fine in New York. I thought that maybe I would be able to do this without getting burned by the reminders of my past. 

I looked down to see my hands slightly shaking as my heart kicked and pushed violently against my chest. My stomach was starting to churn around, making me feel as nauseous as ever. I can't tell whether I'm spiralling or not. 

From the moment I stepped into New York, I've been feeling guilt-ridden and anxious. It's only good that Iza or Aran haven't noticed that yet.

Everything I look at just reminds me of him, it's like they have his name plastered onto every crevice of this city as a reminder of what a monster I am. I can't get Rhys out of my head, and it's only killing me more that he hasn't answered any more of my voicemails begging to not hurt Iza. 

Honestly, I've never been the one to be expected to become something as bad as the monster my father was but what can I say? I've always been said to look most alike to my father. 

Although I've never achieved that goal of becoming the best son. Rhys had it in him to always do better than me, it's one of the things my father liked about him and caused him to also hate him so much. 

I was incredible at almost everything I did, I remember him envying me so much for it as a child because I always made him look like a bad child, yet where was it my fault? I tried to be the messiest kid I could be, and the only thing that I ended up with, was that I became fucked up in the head. 

My father viewed me as an outcast in my family and made me want to feel like that, he thought I was different. Better. I was both the best and worst version of him, yet he ignored the worst and plunged me into the best, not thinking through the consequences of it all. 

Although it didn't seem bad, within the first four months of my sixteenth birthday I lost count of how many calls I'd missed from my mom, how many tutors had touched and groped me, how many girls had forced themselves on me and how many times I'd taken a mental slap to the face when my father told me it was life and that I should get used to it all. 

Somewhere between all the unwanted groping and missed calls, I shattered. Fragile like glass as a hand grabbed my brittle heart and crashed it against the ground. Imploding me back to reality, fragmenting my mirrored eyes to look back at a set of hazel-green eyes.

I was nothing but a stark machine of my father's unachieved dreams until I found her at that hospital. 

I remember when we had first met, it was a small conversation with Aran and I was at his house, seven-year-old me watching a six-year-old Iza walk around. I wanted to play with her but I seemed too scared she would smack me with her Barbie doll. 

So I watched her, although she never noticed me all those years until that hospital visit. I've always stayed observing her, catching what made her laugh and what made her cry. So two years ago, when I caught myself finding I was in love with her it felt like I was finally doing something right in my life.