Misery Business // z.m.

Chapter 33

"I killed my father."

Watching him cry made me uncomfortable. I wasn't used to him expressing his emotions. How I wanted to make it stop. Not even for his sake, but for mine. I had done so much crying in front of him and I wondered how he could stand it. I could barely deal with this.

Despite how uncomfortable I was, I found it in me to put my arms around him. I held on to him gently but he held me so closely, so tightly that I almost felt guilty for not pushing him to speak to me before. He buried his face in my neck. I let him hide his tears. This moment of weakness he was having wasn't at all easy for him. It blew my mind how he could just keep it all in.

I wasn't shocked, even though I probably should have been. I knew that he'd done unspeakable things. I just couldn't believe he had told me the truth.

In a way I was glad he told me, relieved almost. Knowing gave me the ability to understand.

I should have been scared. If he could kill his own father, he shouldn't have a problem killing me. I think the information went passed me. I was dealing with so much mentally, that I think I just let the severity of his actions ceased to matter. I should have been disgusted and horrified, but all I found myself wanting to do was comfort him. I was a whole new level of fucked up.

"It's okay." I whispered to him as I ran my fingers through his hair. When I was very young my mother would play with my hair to try and calm me. Perhaps It would help him.

"Why?" I didn't want to push him into telling me anything but if he didn't get it out of him then I was afraid he never would.

When he calmed, I pulled away from him so I could look him in the eyes.

"Why?" I asked again in a voice just above a whisper.

"He abused me, hit me, broke a few bones here and there. For a while I didn't care that it was just me. I figured that it was better me than anyone else, but then I found out that it wasn't just me. He was hurting my sister. And when my mum found out she was going to leave him. But he wouldn't let her and abused the hell out of her in every sense of the word. And for so long I just watched. I couldn't do anything. I was too naïve." He spoke monotonously, as if remembering it all was just too much for him. "For a while I watched and finally I couldn't take it anymore. He wouldn't stop. He would never stop. I didn't want to, but I had to, so I stole his gun and I shot him." He took a long sigh before continuing, almost to preface that he hadn't said the worst.

"I was fifteen." His tone was filled with regret. "I ran away. I sent money home when I could, but I cut them all off." I looked at him and my heart swelled with this feeling of sorrow.

"My mom was pregnant with my youngest sister. And I ran like a bitch. Because I couldn't deal with the fact that I killed him. But I tried to make sure they were safe. They didn't know it was me. And I knew even though he hurt them, they would never forgive me for murdering him."

I placed my hand on his cheek. "You were trying to protect yourself." I assumed he had been told this several times before. I don't know what I would have done in his place, but I can imagine feeling as though that was my only option.

"It get's worse." He almost laughed. How could it possibly get worse?

"He owed a lot of people money. And death doesn't erase debts." He pushed a strand of hair out of my face so he could see me. I was close to tears myself.

"They found me and they gave me a choice to live or to die. I wanted to pick die. How could I possibly live with what I had done? But dying didn't keep my family safe. Dying didn't pay the debt." His tears ceased but mine only started falling.