With You┃Dylan O'Brien ⓵

Chapter Thirty-Six : Never

Anita's POV

There are three people in the office in my house, two of whom I of course recognize easily; my mother and my father. The third person, however, takes me several moments to identify.

Hank Roscoe. The man who owns the building where my mother's studio is located. I met him on one of my first days here in California.

The only thing stranger and more alarming than the three people in this room is the situation and ordeal that I find them in. Hank Roscoe is laying on the ground face up, his face red, lip split, and nose bloody. My father is crouched over him with his hands to his neck, and looking far angrier, and therefore scarier, than I've ever seen him in my life.

My mother is standing about two feet away with a hand to her chest looking down at the two men, infinite tears continuously falling from her eyes and whimpers escaping her.

None of them seem to really notice my presence, and honestly I'm not sure that I want them to. I stand just outside the doorway, my mouth agape in shock and my mind and heart racing a mile a minute.

"Get your sorry ass the fuck out of my house," my father seethes at Hank Roscoe, pure loathe and hatred gleaming in his eyes. He removes his hands from him and stands, his victim quickly standing to his feet with a bit of a struggle.

He pulls a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket and brings it to his nose while hurrying out. As he passes me, he bares me a single, worried and frightened glance before I watch him flee out of our front door.

Just wait...

Things are happening too suddenly and too quickly for my mind to comprehend...

This absolutely cannot be real right now...

My mind obviously begins to put two and two together because, really, how obvious can it be? I feel the sadly familiar sensation of my heart being stabbed with pain and hurt. My hands start to shake and my head begins to hurt deeply.

My mother has been having an affair with Hank Roscoe.

No, this cannot be true. This isn't really happening right now. I'm asleep in Adrian's car, having a horrible nightmare.

I am suddenly and unfortunately pulled back to what is apparently reality, when my father speaks again.

"Is there anything you would like to say?", he asks my mother, the anger and hurt seeming to exude off of him.

She stands there, crying even harder, blubbering like an idiot. She shakes her head, saying, "I can't."

I don't know if that was one sentence or if she trailed off, but either way my father begins to storm out of the room, right past me.

"Wait, Scott!", my mother yells frantically, also running right by me. "Where are you going?!"

He takes the steps two at a time as he replies dully, "Away."

"Where?!", she cries pathetically.

"Away from here."

He's disappeared upstairs by now, and my mother falls into a crying heap of disgust in the hallway. I run right past her and up the stairs, tears forming in my own eyes. I dash to my parents' bedroom where I see my father with a suitcase on the floor, shoving and throwing random clothes in there.

"Dad, stop," I cry once I reach him. He doesn't. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know, a damn hotel."

A few tears slip then, "Dad, please, what happened?"

He angrily throws more clothes into the suitcase, "Nine months already, nine goddamn months. They've been seeing each other since before we even moved here. They met when your mother came down here on her own in May to check out the property?" He chuckles bitterly. "How could I have been so stupid, s-so obtuse?"