Withered.

2

I can feel the blood running fast through my veins, my cheeks flush, turning red, intensifying with every moment that passed. I feel desperate. I feel the urge to scream so loud that even the party would stop, and everyone would come here and see everything that is going on. Making them feel so ashamed, that they would never want to face anyone on earth for as long as they live. But what was really going on? Even I didn't know!

I just want all of this to be a bad dream... a nightmare from which I will soon wake up and be relief that it wasn't reality.

Yet here I am, with my closed fists, my nails beginning to stick into my palm, making me feel the pain and realizing this was all real. Everything is actually really happening. It is like the whole sky is falling down on me, tearing me apart. I can't even find my words.

''Oh my God! Is she really cheating on me? She's cheating on me, right? Look at her? Is she kissing that guy?" he tells me, when he sees them.

I feel the anger in his voice, however I can't make a sound. I feel like if I open my mouth, I will explode and he will have to pick me up piece by piece.

"I can't believe how worried I was for her only to find out she has been doing this! And with an old guy? Seriously? He looks like 50 years old, that's disgusting! I can't believe that! That man could be her father!"

 Except he isn't her father.

He is really agitated, walking around from side to side. He is like fireworks, spreading around all his anger in little things spoken by him. I only stand there, like a statue.  Not knowing what to do. Looking straight ahead. Straight to them. I even feel my gaze so disturbing that I am amazed that they didn't turn around to me. I want them to see me. To look me in the eyes. To know that I know their secret. I feel betrayed in the worst possible way.

"He must have money."he starts again, after a moment of pause, gesticulating even more than he did previously. "That's it. This is why she is with him. I can not find another explanation for why she is cheating on me with such an old guy. I mean seriously, look at him! He obviously took advantage of her! Maybe he told her that he is going to pay her studies! She always worries about her studies! I'm going to tear this guy into pieces! He is not going to...''

"He's my father, you dumb idiot!" I tell him, a little bit more rude than I was expecting to sound. All I receive from him is a shocked expression.

He stands still, glancing at me like I am a bomb that is about to explode if he makes the wrong move. And maybe he is right. I feel so frustrated, broken and vulnerable right now that I feel the urge to break something.

His big blue eyes look at me with a scared expression that turns soon into a pity one and it irritates me even more.

I don't want his pity. I don't want anyone's pity, but I can't say anything right now. If I did, I would fall into a breakdown that would not end up in a good way.

My chest hurts.
Saying it out loud makes it worse for me. It is like I admitted that thing. And I certainly do not agree with such thing. I feel like I am running out of air, like the oxygen is not enough for me and I am drowning deep and slowly, without any way to come back. No one can save me. Not even myself.

I feel weak and disgusted. Good for nothing. I could go there and make a scene, yes, but why? I would only manage to embarrass myself. More than I already am.

'The pretty mean girls who gets her karma back for all those bad things she has done. She deserves it.'

I feel my heart. It is not doing anything else than pumping faster and faster. 'Inhale, exhale; inhale, exhale;' I need to remind myself that.

"Aaliyah! Are you hearing me?!" he yells, grasping me, trying to bring me back to earth.

I finally take my eyes of their way and meet his. I remember that I am not alone out there.

He is hurt too, I know that. But the pain I feel in this very moment isn't the same as his. I feel worse than he does. At least she is just his girlfriend. Cheating happens. Almost everyone had been through that at least one time. But my father with my best friend? I am broken twice as much. Even more. How could they do that? How could I not notice this?

How could I ever watch them in their eyes again? How could I live in the same house with him, knowing what he had done? How could I talk to Alison the way I talked to her before?

I feel so ashamed! This is the last thing that I expected to happen. I feel desperate. Desperate for an escape.

"Do you want me to drive you home?"he says quietly, after a moment of silence. I nodd.

I can't say a thing. If I do, I won't be able to stop my tears from coming out. I already feel my eyes a little wet. I don't want him or anyone else to see me that vulnerable.

He take of his jacket and puts it on me. I would have denied it, but I can't seem to find my words. I'm not cold at all, I'm just numb. In another circumstance, I may have felt protected and I would have considered it a really sweet thing to do. But in this moment I don't feel protection. I feel exactly otherwise. And I don't consider it a sweet thing, only an act of kindness out of mercy.

***

The way home was quiet. He didn't know what needs to be said, I didn't want to speak at all. And the truth is that there was nothing to be said. Anything that would have been said, would have just made it worse and my breakdown had already been painful enough.
Now we are sitting in the car in front if my house, still in silence. I don't want to go in there, but I know I need to. Only thinking that this is only the beginning is driving me crazy.

What is going to happen after this? If she is gonna be my stepmother, I'm going to kill myself. I can't handle it. I just... I can't! I'm thinking too far. This can't happen.

A million thoughts are running through my mind. It is like an anchor is keeping me down, in the depth of my mind, not letting me come up and breath, and my thoughts are sharks that are eating me alive. My mind is a chaos.

"Thank you for driving me!" I say, opening the door of the car, after I realize that I can't sit in here forever.

"I'm sorry." he says to me, after I get off. I look up at him and he shakes his head and finishes his sentence."...for what happened... That it turned out that way." I glance at him.

Maybe for him this is the right thing to say in that moment, but the truth is there was no right thing to say. And all that he manage to do is to make me even angrier than I already was. I get off of the car and slam the door, unintentionally.

I didn't mean to be so dramatic, but I just couldn't help myself.
I turn around in order to go to my house, but then I remember something and turn back to him. "Just... Please don't tell my brother..."

 He glance at me for a moment, like I did a horrible thing, but then he nodds and drives away.

Maybe hiding the truth from Alec isn't the right thing to do. It is not the smartest decision I made in my life, but how can I tell him that my best friend and our father were lovers. It sounds so stupid just thinking it.

I just need time to process everything. Maybe even fix it. He doesn't deserve something like that to happen to him.

It felt so wrong... the way I ignored Alec when I got home. It wasn't like me, and he knew that. The way I screamed at him to leave me alone as I was running upstairs to my room. The way I yelled at him to go away after he came up to my room and tried to come in, but couldn't because the door was locked. I knew that he didn't leave awhile, even after he stopped knocking.  I was standing right there, at the bottom of the other side of the door, crying my heart out, as he was trying to help me. He knew that I mainly came to him when I was feeling blue, and I knew that what I was doing only made him realize that something was going on. Little did he knew that he didn't really want to know what really happened. That it would break him too into million of pieces, and I have no idea what he would do, if he found out. I only could hope he won't.