I Blame Wattpad for My High Expectations of Men

Chapter 32 - How do you feel about being exclusive?

*Author's Note: Just warning you peeps that this is one hell of a long chapter. I'm so sorry for making it this long, but it wouldn't have worked had I split it up even further than I already have. So, I hope you all can bare with me here! Stay blessed! :)*

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~Flashback Continued~

You okay there, Slayer?

After talking to Mom and Luca? Always.

I'm proud of you.

Thanks, Buffy. I'm proud of me, too.

I imagine Buffy giving me one of her award-winning smiles before my mind goes silent again. I appreciate that silence now more than ever.

There's only so many tears one can cry before the head throbbing that comes along with it reaches a point that's no longer bearable. My limit was reached exactly two hours and thirty-eight minutes ago. My new and last world record.

New because I've never consecutively cried about him for that long, and last because I'll never cry about him for that long ever again. I'd say I'll never cry about him again period, but I'm only human. A tear every now and then is bound to be shed down the road, which is something that I unfortunately cannot physically control.

But what I will absolutely never let him do from this day forward is haunt me and my heart, because eighteen years has already been enough. It will be hard, and I will be knocked down more times than I can count, but I refuse to let him have the upper hand any longer. He may have 'helped' bring me into this world but I'll be damned if I ever let him take advantage of that fact ever again. If he knows what's good for him, he'll leave me and my family alone 'til the day he's sent to rot in hell, telling the devil that I'm not that far behind him.

If he had the nerve to write me a letter after everything he's done, and after all this time, I have an even bigger nerve of writing one of my own:

Dear "Dad,"

I made it without you. Your sperm may have produced a fragile little girl, but Mamma didn't raise no pussy. On the contrary, she raised a fighter, a fighter whose brother taught her how to throw one hell of a mean punch.

Now that'd be a letter worth reading, not whatever bullshit he decided to write in his.

I've been calm for a while now, about half an hour or so. If I hadn't talked to both of my idols a few minutes ago, however, it would've taken at least another half-hour.

Turns out, Luca got the same shit. A letter he too didn't bother to finish after seeing that the first line read, Dear Passerotto Mio. Luca also thought it was pretty ironic given the fact that he'd used to tell him that he'd never amount to anything in life because he couldn't take a simple punch to the face. Except, multiply those 'simple punches' by twenty, and throw in a few kicks to the ribs as well...yeah, 'simple,' my ass.

It fucking disgusts me. It disgusts me to know that his blood runs in my veins, that I most likely share some of the similar physical features as him, that he was the reason I never gave actual relationships a chance, but what disgusts me the most is that I let him be that reason. A reason he doesn't even deserve to be.

No more.

~An Hour Later~

Shared genes don't mean a free pass to be an asshole and blood isn't always thicker than water. But what surprises you the most sometimes, is that a complete stranger can grow to be someone you're more familiar with than your own family. And just like that, I somehow just knew that the sudden presence I felt behind me that night was no one other than Ace Rivers.