ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

37. 𝙃𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙇𝙊𝘾𝙆

037, 𝙃𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙇𝙊𝘾𝙆

𝘵𝘸: lots of fighting and blood!!

note: this chapter is a hot mess but idgaf anymore so here ig

also thank u for 140k reads!! literally insane asf 😭

.⋆𐙚 🍒

IN THE OFF CHANCE I EVER CROSSED PATHS WITH MY SORRY EXCUSE FOR A FATHER AGAIN, I THINK I'D FORGIVE HIM.

And it makes me sick to admit it.

After everything he did—everything he ruined—the part of me that still aches for connection would fold instantly. An instinct. A weakness you can't beat out of yourself no matter how hard you try.

I don't think I'd even get a choice in the matter.

All because of the three months leading up to the night he finally left.

Five months earlier, he showed up at the Christmas fundraising banquet my mother was hosting. It was for the pediatrics Department at the biggest hospital in New York—the one she practically ruled over—and the money raised went toward surgeries for underprivileged sick kids.

Kids like Falco Grice.

Falco had been born sick. A heart defect. In and out of hospitals since the moment he was born, more than twenty surgeries by the time he was eight. For reasons I still don't understand, my mother adored him and his family—Colt and Mrs. Grice. She was his surgeon from day one, and she never stopped trying to fix his broken hear.

So of course, Colt was there with me.

I was dressed in this dark red dress that itched a little too much; he wore a suit with a matching tie. We sat together in a corner, hidden behind a large Christmas tree eating enough ice cream to hospitalize a grown man.

And then my father stumbled in—two hours late, uninvited, dead drunk, already yelling.

It was the usual: yelling, throwing things, slurring insults and anyone in his fit of rage.

My mother had to publicly apologize to the important donors while security escorted him out, and by the next morning he was checked into an eight-week rehab program.

The new year was quiet without him. No screaming matches in the middle of the night. No heavy footsteps or the sound of things being thrown. Mom still walked around sharp-edges and cold, but it's almost as if she breathed easier without him around.

Then at school some idiot opened his mouth.

Said his parents worked at the hospital and heard about the "brilliant surgeon's deadbeat alcoholic husband" and the scene at the banquet. Said alcoholism was genetic. Said I'd end up just like him.

So I jumped him. I swung the worst punches imaginable—the pathetic kind that hurt my own knuckles more than his cheek.

They pulled us apart and sent me to the principal's office where I got questioned for almost half an hour. When they finally told me I was being picked up, I assumed it'd be someone who worked for my mom. If I was unlucky, maybe even her.

Instead, I walked out of the office holding a bag of ice against my busted, bleeding lip to find my father standing at the front desk signing some papers. He looked over at me and for the first time in my entire life—he smiled.

He smiled at me.

My dad smiled at me.

That single smile was enough to wash away all the fear and guilt and hatred and disgust I felt for him. I remember how his arms wrapped around me and how I froze, then melted. How he kissed my forehead. How for the first time in thirteen year, he felt warm.