Letting go (REVISED)

Chapter nine

The bar is a little quiet tonight and I am grateful that there are still enough people here to keep me busy, if I stop moving it starts talking and when it talks I want to kill it.
Jace is doing his best to keep us at a distance for which I am grateful.
Earlier tonight I made up a package for him including a pay rise and shares in this bar.
He doesn't know it yet but tonight I'm not this boss, I'm his partner. He loves this bar almost as much as me, I know he will look after it for me.

My hands shake as I pour another beer, I just can't take anymore of this.

I hand over the frothy beer free of charge and head for my office, I need a bit more time.
For once my shift is not dragging out and soon it will be closing time.

I sit at my desk, my vision is blurry with unshed tears and I hang my head in my hands. I try to find something in my life to hang onto but I can't.

I was orphaned a long time ago although I don't really know if my father is dead or not, maybe I'm more like him than I thought.

Maybe I didn't know that side of my mother that drove him to hit her, to break bones and render her unconscious. I would do worse to Angela right now and not think twice.
The child she is carrying isn't enough to make me stay, like I was not enough to make him stay.

My whole life I hated my father, I worked myself to the bone so I could be stronger than him if we ever met. So I would be strong enough to protect the ones I love, but I couldn't save my mother and I didn't save Isabel.

I feel so angry with myself, with that bitch sitting at my bar and with this whole fucked up world, don't I deserve just a small amount of happiness?

I laugh at myself.

"Dude you had it, two days with Izzy is all you deserve" I tell myself and wonder if I reply does that make me crazy?

I feel like maybe I have gone crazy.
Those two days with my girl were the best of my life, the first day I saw her face when we were just eight years old I knew she was my girl.

I wanted to ask her to marry me right there on the playground.
She was brave, fierce and strong.... everything I wanted to be.
She made me want to be better than I was. Even with sunburned skin and pigtails in her hair she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and I didn't even like girls yet.

Every year I watched her grow, becoming a woman was easy for her, she was never awkward or hormonal and every year she got impossibly more beautiful. I started to notice the changes in her body, her hips got wider, her legs longer and her chest fuller. Her voice took on a husky edge and her lips plumped up.

At thirteen years old I noticed her changes had made some changes in my body too, it took a while before I could do things like go swimming with her and our boxing lessons had to stop for a while til I could control my reaction to our bodies touching like that.

That's the year my mother died and Izzy's parents took me in. I liked her dad and was devastated when cancer took him two years later. I remember when he passed Izzy spent weeks sleeping in my bed holding onto me with all she had, and at fifteen years old I had to learn fast how to control my needs for her, I became her comforter, her rock and I loved how trusting she was of me.

It made me feel like the King of the world when she ran to my arms for support, to see her smile when she felt so low was better than any kiss or short lived teenage passion.
She was my girl and I would wait forever for her to see me for who I really was.

"Did I wait too long?" I ask myself now
"If you're talking about leaving me out front all by myself? Yeah dude, you have!" The sound of Jace's voice makes me jump.
"I'll be right out" I tell him without looking up, men can't watch other men cry. It's like a law or something.