Opaque

53 | The End...(For Now)

"Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending." ― C. JoyBell C.

Chapter Fifty-Three

"D-dad?"

I couldn't believe my eyes. I wasn't sure whether I should've been relieved that my father, who I thought was long dead, was alive, in the flesh, and standing in front of me or enraged at the pitiful sight of his wounds. Perhaps, I was a bit of both. It certainly was a bitter sweet moment.

He had walked down the stairs with his head hanging low, resembling a defeated warrior. His closed eyes and painfully distraught expression was like that of a person trying to prepare himself for pain. Not at all did he resemble the man I knew ten years ago.

No longer brave, no longer strong, it seemed like he had trouble standing, much less fighting.

But the second my astounded voice reached his ears, he looked up immediately and then flinched. He raised his hands to his neck, probably to rub the pain away, but when the handcuffs on his wrists gleamed in the artificial light, he lowered them immediately and tried to cover it from my eyes. He was embarrassed, that much I could tell.

Nonetheless, regardless of the pain his eyes carried, there was one emotion I couldn't ignore. Hope shined bright like the sun, his eyes glazing over with tears.

And when he spoke, it was like hearing a newborn baby's voice. "A-ang-ie!"

He tried to run towards me, but Chad, with his ever present smirk, held him back by his shirt.

"What a touching reunion," Zach said, his eyes on fire with mirth.

Touching was not a word I would use.

I had dreamed of turning back the clock, of finding my family well and alive again, but when such a dream did come true, a distance still remained. I didn't imagine myself standing across the room, both of us bounded, unable to touch or even bask in happiness we deserved after so long.

It wasn't a touching scene by far. It was tragic, plain and simple.

"Too bad you both won't get a chance to catch up on the years lost. I simply can't afford giving David here even a morsel of happiness, you know, because who knows? He might just begin to get the wrong idea about me and think I'm gentle-hearted. Ha! As if."

I had never seen a more vile person in my life.

My father quickly averted his eyes, as if the mere sight of me was poisonous. He was afraid of Zach and that realization broke my heart.

Zach must've done the utmost worst and had hurt him in a sensitive place one too many times to turn him into a cowering shell of his former self. Ideas and images of the torture my father most likely had endured while I was busy driving myself insane with guilt made me nauseous.

I didn't want my father like this. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

I looked at Zach, a coldness like I'd never known present in my unwavering voice. "Gentle hearted? And you? You're right. As if!"

I spat on the ground, his face, presence, everything disgusting me to the core.

"You're not nice," I said, my voice like invisible daggers, "Nice would entail generosity on your part. Nice would mean you had a functional heart beating in your chest, but that I'm afraid, you simply don't have.

And you say that you're doing all of this to take revenge for your dead brother? You claim you're doing this because you loved him? Well, I call bullshit! You never loved him! You are not capable of love!"