How to Fall Apart

Chapter Twenty-Two

I had heard the saying 'I saw red' before to describe anger but I had never actually experienced it myself until then.

    "You have got to be fucking kidding me!?" I screeched and threw off my seat belt and flung open my door, jumping from the already moving truck. He was probably only going about two miles per hour but it was still moving. Clark looked completely bewildered and I realized he probably couldn't see what I saw. I was so mad that I didn't even care right then. I cursed and ranted the whole way to the door. I'd never even sworn around an adult before but I let loose with every combination of curse words I could fathom, regardless of whether or not they made any sense. Mostly they didn't. Dad slammed the truck into park and Clark scrambled out of the backseat and ran after me.

    "Veda!?" He called, breathless. By the time he got to the door where I was struggling to fit the key into the lock, his face was pale and his big brown eyes were wide and scared. He looked blurry to me through the tears I was trying not to hold back and I gave up with the key and pulled him to me. "What's wrong?" He asked against my shirt.

    "I'm sorry," was all I managed as Dad jogged up to us.

    "What the hell do you think you're doing, Veda?" He tried to pull Clark to him but we were not letting go of each other.

    "How dare you ask me that question," I spit at him. "It is you who has some serious explaining to do."

    "I told you I had a surprise." He had the audacity to be angry with me. "That was really rude of you to just jump out of the truck like that."

    "Rude? You want to talk about rude, Scott?" I wished I had earmuffs for Clark so he wouldn't hear what I was about to say but it was like lava bubbling up inside of me and I couldn't keep it down. "Rude is changing your phone number and not even giving it to your kids. Rude is not being there for your kids. Rude is not paying child support to take care of your kids and then going out and buying a ridiculously expensive truck. Rude is showing up out of nowhere after almost a year with a very pregnant girlfriend and not even warning us!" I erupted. I was screaming. I was crying. Tears were streaming down my face and snot was dripping from my nose. Clark jerked away from me and looked at Dad and then back at the truck in disbelief.

    "She's not my girlfriend," Dad said indignantly. He sounded like a scolded child. "She's my wife." I didn't think I could have been more caught off guard than I already was but the shock of this revelation silenced me. I wiped at my face and just stared at him. No matter how many times I'd told myself that I didn't care about this man standing in front of me I realized then that I must be lying because people you don't care about can't break your heart. That was another figure of speech I'd never personally experienced until that day: heartbroken. It wasn't so much like it was breaking as much as it felt like it was being squeezed, smashed, flattened and set on fire. Either way the pain was so palpable I actually clutched my hand to my chest. A father was not supposed to be his daughter's first heartbreak. He was supposed to be the one there with a shoulder for her to cry on when some stupid boy in high school sends her home with her heart in pieces.

    "Wife?" I choked on the word and turned it over in head until it no longer even sounded like a real word anymore. "You got married?" I think at that point he finally realized the magnitude of his actions and how poorly he handled everything. He finally had the sense to look ashamed of himself. He ran his hand down his face and sighed loudly.

    "Yeah. When we found out Kristen was pregnant we got married. Because she didn't have insurance," he added as though that might excuse the fact that he had failed to even mention his marriage to his own children, let alone invite them to be there. "We didn't even have a wedding, just got married by the justice of the peace," he said nonchalantly. He wasn't making this any better. He'd have to have been married for several months now if they'd gotten married as soon as they found out. Kristen looked pretty close to the end of her pregnancy.