Don't Forgive Me

Chapter 50 (updated with artwork)

"I may have gone a bit too far this time", Stanley muttered to himself as he lazily put his house slippers on. He sighed trying to think of an excellent way to approach the topic. Words swam around in his thoughts but he was never really good at voicing what he truly meant.

He was a man who could sell anything to anyone that was the one good quiality he knew he had. Yet, he had a bad habit of always spitting whatever came to the forefront of his mind the same way without regard for consequence. He had a natural air of stoicism around him that made him unapproachable when it came to discussing feelings. This time, it ate at him.

He brewed a hot cup of black coffee, he found it particularly bitter this morning. He ventured to the back door. The old man was aware of what was coming. He took a deep breath and pushed open the squeaky door and let himself out into the crisp early sun-covered porch.

There was a worn wooden bench to his left, where he would normally be enjoying his beverage by now. There had even been a place where the paint had been scratched away from years of sitting in the same spot.

Past his thick-rimmed glasses, he squinted out into the lawn. There on a cut-down tree stump sat the blonde boy. A nagging feeling of guilt crawled under his skin like bugs. Even though his eyesight wasn't what it used to be he could tell that his nephew's shoulders were shaking.

He pursed his lips and forced himself to go to him. He wasn't one much for comfort, which was always lacking in his life. Thus, it was a foreign thought to begin to try it for himself.

Stanley stood next to the stump, the boy stopped sniffling for a moment. His watery eyes looked at the old man with a puzzled expression. "Why are you so hard on me?... I don't get it.", Bill whimpered.

"Can I sit?", the older man asked defeatedly. The boy nodded and made a space for him to take up on the stump. Stanley grumbled as he did so, feeling the ache of the cold in his bones. He didn't even know how to begin with this boy. But, he felt an obligation to say something.

"Look kid, about before...I'm sorry", the older man paused. He could tell the boy was hurt, and angry. "Why, I'm so hard on you Bill is because, well, frankly you remind me a lot of myself when I was young". This caught the blonde's attention.

"Really?" Bill used the cuff of his hoodie sleeve to wipe away the wetness of his nose and tears.

"I was impulsive, hot-headed, easily upset. I didn't like a lot of things and I was picked on quite a bit...My old man said I needed to toughen up. And, that's the way it was. I guess, the past comes back to bite you."

Bill could have sworn he's heard that saying somewhere before. The boy looks down, he's small in comparison to the person next to him. The blonde leans his head on his great uncle's shoulder.

There is warmness in the hard man's gruff words that seem to speak to him in a way. He knew he wasn't ill-intentioned, just rough around the edges, imperfect.

"I just...don't feel like I belong here," Bill says quietly. He let his guard down a bit, he felt like he could relate to his uncle. He knew himself to be the same.

It's not like he wanted to have a bad relationship with his Grunkle, maybe they got off on the wrong foot. That is what happens when you don't listen to one another after all.

"You know Kid, a lot of us feel that way. And, maybe if you get out and do things you'll feel like you fit in a little better. Heck, enjoy being a kid while you can. Summer's gonna end sometime. .". Stanley said as he put an arm around his nephew. "It's not easy being young, or old....for that matter."