Craving Forgiveness

39

You paced around your hotel room aimlessly and absentmindedly for hours.

Nothing crossed your mind but everything crossed your mind.

Erik. Your dad. Your mom. How screwed up your parents and your life were.

You were furious, sad, confused, tired, scared, hurt, and lonely.

Erik was liar. As far as you were concerned he didn't love you and you wanted nothing to do with that man.

You had a real relationship and almost a real marriage with a real man who really loved you and you threw it away for what? For Erik and his many lies?

You were hurt down to your very core.

You could no longer be mad at him, you were mad at yourself for trusting him and forgiving him just to let him hurt you again.

You laid down in the bed and stared at the ceiling until you fell asleep.

"Don't patronize me."
"Oh please Erik, this is your fault! No one told you to lie!"
"You would've done the same thing Alex."
"Whatever. If I hear anything suspicious of if you push her too much or hurt her I'm coming in and you won't like it."

You heard footsteps and a door close and you shut your eyes and pretended to sleep.

The room stayed silent.

He sighed," Are you done pretending to sleep now?"

You mentally rolled your eyes and sat up to see Erik standing there.

"What are you doing here?" You said through your teeth. "I distinctly remember telling you to stay away from me or do I need to call the cops?" You began to reach for the phone

Erik stretched out his hand and prevented yours from moving closer to the phone.

Stupid watch you thought.

"You have 2 minutes." You flatly stated and dropped your hand back at your side.

He took a step towards you and you stretched out your hand to stop him, "stay where you are Erik."

He sighed, " Atarah I deeply regret how things went. I was wrong, I was so wrong I thought I was protecting you by lying. I knew your dad was alive. I also knew that he killed your mother. It was after they kidnapped you. He killed her on the way to the prison so she wouldn't talk. He worked out a deal and was released months later. I'm sorry. It's a hard pill to swallow. I didn't want you to know that,"

You opened your mouth to speak but he held up a finger to shush you.

"I know you'll say you didn't care about them but I saw the sadness in your eyes when I told you they died. If there was no sign of that I would've then told you the truth but I know it would've hurt more. I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought I was protecting your from them. Telling you that they died spared you from the horrific truth. They were terrible people. But you already knew that."

"Why couldn't you just tell me the truth?!? I'm an adult Erik I can handle it!"

"Atarah you know why."

"No Erik I don't, this doesn't make any sense!"

"What am I supposed to say?! That the man I was sent here to kill is your father?!?" He abruptly stopped as if he didn't mean to say those words.

"What are you talking about Erik?"

He sighed and frustratedly ran his fingers through his hair," The man, the mutant that Charles sent me here to take care of is your father."

The room fell silent as a million thoughts ran through your head

"That's why I didn't want you to come. I didn't want you to find out. I knew it would hurt you, I didn't want you here. Charles insisted. He doesn't know the man is your father. He would never allow it if he knew but this is important, it needs to be done. I'm so sorry Atarah. If there was any other way I would take it but there just isn't."

You stared aimlessly at the floor for a while.

"Please say something my love."

You stayed silent and turned away and crawled into your bed, pulled the covers over you and tried not to think.

There was no sounds of movement and the room was unnaturally silent.

You laid there for hours just thinking.

Thinking of Erik, was he he telling the truth? Should you forgive him? You still loved him so much and you wanted nothing more than to be in his arms with him consoling you and giving you a million kisses like he usually does to make you feel better.

Then you thought of your father. A murderer. An extremely evil man with plans of killing so many more people. He wanted to watch the world burn. He needs to be stopped.

You need to give Erik permission. Erik would avoid killing him if that meant he could have you back but that man needs to die.

You sat up and looked to see Erik in the chair on the far side of the room.

He noticed you and he stood up and walked over.

You gave him a single nod," do it. Do whatever it takes to stop him."