ECHOES OF FORBIDDEN LOVE | (ongoing and undergoing editing)

✤Chapter Twelve✤

❁Kayla❁

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The silence lingered like a heavy fog, wrapping itself around the room. My mind was racing, my heart pounding at a hundred beats per minute. I felt lost. I wanted to slam the door shut, but I couldn't find the strength to do so.

Christmas mornings without him, birthdays marked by the void at the table, the empty chair that had become a permanent fixture in our lives. The man standing before us now was a ghost from our past, and his presence felt like some cruel joke.

Henry finally moved, his eyes narrowing as he stepped back, increasing the distance between us and the man who claimed to want redemption. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut, and I could feel unspoken words building in my chest, threatening to burst out.

But I couldn't speak. Not yet. Not while the wounds were still so raw.

Our father took a tentative step forward, his gaze pleading. I flinched, the movement instinctive, as if I were warding off an attack. I wanted to tell him to leave, to turn around and walk out of our lives just as he had done years ago. But there was a small, treacherous part of me that wanted to believe him, to believe that people could change, that he could somehow be the father we had always needed.

The clock on the wall ticked on, each second reminding me that the world outside was still moving, still turning, while our own had come to a grinding halt.

Finally, Henry broke the silence, his voice low and filled with barely contained fury. "You think you can just walk back into our lives like nothing happened? After everything?"

His shoulders slumped, and for the first time, I saw the cracks in his resolve, the guilt that had finally caught up with him. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, but there was no trace of the man who had once been our hero...only a shadow of someone who had lost everything.

"I'm not asking for forgiveness," he said softly. "I'm just asking for a chance to make it right."

"You think that just because we're mourning Mom's death, it gives you the right to show up here, expecting us to jump into your arms after a few touching words? It's selfish of you to reappear when we're at our lowest. And why? So you can break our hearts all over again?" The words finally left my mouth. I was screaming, tears streaming down my face, pouring all my anger into every syllable.

My father's face crumpled as my words struck him like a physical blow. He looked down at his feet, his hands trembling. When he raised his eyes to meet mine, they were filled with a sorrow that seemed to swallow him whole.

"I know," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I know it's selfish. I know I don't deserve anything from you. But I'm here because I've spent every day of my life regretting what I did. And I can't bear the thought of leaving things like this... of never trying to make amends, even if I fail. I'm not asking you to forgive me, Kayla. I'm asking you to let me try to be the father I should have been. Even if it's too late."

His words hung in the air, heavy with regret and desperation. The silence that followed was thick with years of pain, and yet, for the first time, there was something else too...a faint glimmer of sincerity, of a man who had finally come to terms with the enormity of his mistakes.

"If you regretted your choices, then why didn't you come back sooner?" I waited for an answer, but he didn't provide one. The silence stretched on, suffocating me, so I did the first thing that came to mind, I slammed the door in Dad's face and stormed upstairs with tears running down my face and a heavy heart.

I had been crying since I got here, and just when I thought I'd found the perfect moment to calm down and get my shit together so I could focus on the other part of my life...my new job. he reappeared, disturbing everything. His presence occupied my mind, making it impossible to concentrate on anything but his unwanted visit.