The Broken Pieces (#1)

Life Intervenes

I am stunned.

My father grabs my arm, his grip tight on my burning skin and I feel something I rarely feel with him. Fear.

Fear of what was about to happen. Fear of what he would do to me behind closed doors, after Tyler is taken away from me. Should I even be having these thoughts? If what my dad is saying is true, then should I be worrying about this?

I don't know what to think. What do I do? How do I defend myself if my dad starts pulling me away? If he starts to pull, the best option I have is to twist and gut punch,right? I'm pulled out of my pondering when I hear Tyler's voice, cracked with emotion, but still deep with anger.

"No."

It's suddenly so silent. Nature became still within those few seconds. No birds, no trees, no cars, unless I blocked it all out. It seems like an eternity before anybody speaks again and it's the last person I want to hear from.

"Excuse me?" My father turns around, his back to me. I could feel the tension. The tension I had at my house when he would grab my mother and throw her in a wall. The tension that made you think you aren't getting out alive. The tension I wasn't prepared for.

"You can't just barge into my life and tell me some bullshit lie like that."

I look up at Tyler, who finally turns and glares daggers into my father's face. "You don't get to disappear after nineteen years and come back like this. You're really going to take her away and not explain your actions? Tell me how fair that is." He takes a step closer and I realize how pent up his anger must have been over the years. His voice is quiet. It's barely above a whisper. A growl.

"Tyler-" My father looks remorseful. His grip on my arm weakens, looking as though he wishes to step forward and comfort his son. I'm kind of glad to see the emotion. Positive ones aren't apparent in the man that I knew.

"Don't." Tyler steps back.

"Tyler-" My dad's grip hardens again and I whimper, unable to keep myself from doing so. It was painful and I could see the white in his knuckles.

"We don't even look alike!" Tyler is screaming now. His face is beet red and his eyes are glistening. "You came and tracked me down just to tell me that I'm related to her? To tell me that everything I thought was a lie?" He stops and swallows hard, the lump in his throat difficult to talk over. "To show me that you only came here for her?"

My dad takes a step forward, letting my arm go. I knew there would be bruises the next morning. Considering if I lived until then. "You selfish little-"

"Oh, I'm the selfish one?" Tyler continues. "Do you know what you put my mother through?" And as I thought he couldn't get any angrier, I watched as his face contorted with disgust. Bewilderment was dripping from his voice. There are tears running down his cheeks now. "You left her like the lazy shit you are to fend off for herself as a single mother. You left her without a word to some other woman and had a kid?"

"Three." My dad corrected him, his voice low and quiet, as if it was necessary at a time like this.

My anger started to bubble up inside of me. I felt my limbs go numb as I clenched my fists.

"Three!" Tyler threw his arms into the air, exasperated. "You think adding that makes you look any better? You're not even here for me! You're here for her, who you apparently pissed off so much that she ran away from you!"

"Grow the fuck up, Tyler."

I couldn't keep myself from doing it.

I swung.

So hard. I hooked him in his right cheek. My hand stung and my knuckles were bleeding from the impact. My adrenaline was rushing through my veins like a fucking freight train and then I realized something.

I wasn't scared.

" who gives you any right to talk to him like that? I left you for a reason. Haven't you ruined my life enough? Haven't you ruined Tyler's life enough? You ruined everyone's, well trying. Then you keep going. Over and over, waiting for your next victim."

My dad looked enraged. His hand went to his face where I struck him, stepping back to avoid getting hooked again.

He looked back at Tyler, then me. "Neither of you are worth it."

He rushed out without a word and I was left with a weeping Tyler. His eyes were bloodshot as he pulled out a stack of bills from his pocket. He stepped forward and gave them to me, not looking me in the eye. He didn't say anything as he closed my hands over the money, for obvious reasons.

I made out with my brother.

My brother.

I felt sick.

I turned around and quickly packed my things. My mind was numb. All Tyler did was sit down on the chair that sat in the lonely corner of the room, diagonal from the foot of the bed. He pulled his knees up, taking his glasses off and putting them on the small end table that stood next to where he sat.

I pulled my suitcase around to the other side of the bed, stopping to look at Tyler one last time.

"Thank you, Tyler." I whispered before rushing out the door. Into my new life.

The cold, biting air of the outside feels all too familiar. I begin walking to the train station, to begin a new life.

But this time, I wasn't so eager to do so.