Beautiful Mess (Book II)

Chapter six

"You can push your pain all the way down in your soul and pretend it does not exist but somehow someway it's going to push its way to the surface and demand that you face it."

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•Kyle•

Once the shock registers in my mind, it leaves me... emotionless. He's dead. My father is dead. The words keep repeating in my head like a broken record.

So what? He's been dead to me for a while now anyway.

"Kyle," Rae says softly and I realize that we're still standing in front of the park.

"Let's go home." My voice comes out monotonous as I grab her hand and lead her down the street. Noticing that she's struggling to keep up with me, I slow my pace and loosen my grip on her wrist.

She slips her hands down and intertwines our fingers, but she doesn't say a word to me. She always prefers to stay quiet when she's shocked or confused. But her mind must be on overdrive.

We get to our apartment and I just stand there, so she pulls out the keys from my pocket and unlockes the door.

I slowly walk to the couch and Rae follows. And then we quietly sit next to each other for a few minutes.

"Kyle..." she starts quietly. "What happened?"

I look at her and shrug carelessly. "Shawn said he died in prison. That's all he said."

"Prison?" She widens her eyes in surprise. "I didn't know--"

"Me neither," I say in a blank tone. "He was a heavy drinker so maybe he got into a fight or something."

She remains quiet for a moment and then reaches for my hand. Her long fingers caress my own as I feel her gaze on me.

"How are you feeling?"

I shrug, avoiding eye contact with her. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"No, you're not," she whispers.

"I'm okay. Really."

I glance at her. I hate the look on her face. Why is she sad about this as if it's a big deal? That man is a stranger to me.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I'm okay, I'm telling you."

"This is not the way to deal with this, okay? You can't hide from this," she tells me, shaking her head.

"Hide from what? I'm okay."

I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm fucking okay.

Rae gives my hand a squeeze as if trying to knock some sense into me. "Kyle, stop telling me you're okay."

I look at her and raise my eyebrows. "What do you mean? Did you expect me to mourn for him?"

"No matter what he's done, he's still your dad."

"He is not my dad!" It comes out harsher than I expected, but she doesn't even flinch.

"He's not. He has never been." I add quietly.

I can't remember a single day that he acted like a real father to us. Because of him Jess went through hell at that age. Because of him my mother suffered for all those years. No, scratch that. She's worse than him anyway.

"Sometimes," Rae says quietly, "you have to forgive people not because they deserve it, but because you deserve to move on. The saddest thing about being angry at someone is that you're the victim. You're the one who gets hurt by your own bitterness."

I shake my head. There's no way I'm forgiving him.

"Kyle," Rae reaches for the back of my head with her other hand and starts caressing my hair. "I know you're telling yourself that you don't care. That you shouldn't care. But I know you, and I know you're hurting right now."

He wasn't a man, he was a monster. All he ever did was hurt us.

"Don't you remember what Shelley used to say to us?" Rae lets go of my hair and holds my cheek with her palm, making me face her. "Your pain won't go away just because you pretend it's not there. You can't hide from grief like this. Trust me, I know."

I see all the memories of that man play out inside my head. All the times he hit my mother in front of us knowing damn well Jess was too young to see it. Him throwing a punch at me after he got a call from my principal informing him I got into a fight. Him slapping Jess for coming home late. And another. And then another. The memories keep invading my mind one by one.

"It's okay," she continues. "It's okay to feel sad and it's okay to cry if you want to."

No, it's not okay. It's not okay to waste a single drop of my tears for a monster who ruined my life.

"Listen to me, you can't--"

"You don't even know anything!" I suddenly yell at her, and she slowly drops her hands from my face. "You don't know what it's like to have bad parents! You were daddy's little princess. They spoiled you rotten and gave you the love every child deserves while my so-called parents did the exact opposite. So stop telling me to mourn for that man. Just stop!"

I'm breathing heavily by the time I finish talking and I feel as if a crushing weight is pushing down on my heart. Fuck, what did I just say to her?

"I'm so-- shit, I'm sorry." I hold her hands desperately. "Rae, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. I was just--"

"Kyle, I know. I know." She cups my face with her palms. "I'm not mad at you. Don't apologize. Just think about what I said okay? Don't hide from it, let go."

At this moment I realize that I can't pretend anymore. All those words I kept telling myself ever since that phone call drown and get replaced with her words. 'Don't hide from it, let go.'

The good memories that I buried deep inside me seem to flood back to the surface of my mind. The rare moments that he acted like a real dad to us. The moments that he smiled. The way he patted my head proudly when I got good results back in elementary. The broken look on his face when I first tried to kill myself and woke up in a hospital bed with him sitting next to me. And then I feel tears sting my eyes.

My hand flies to my mouth as I accept how much it hurts. Him dying like this, it fucking hurts. I realize that I'm crying as my tears drop on to my hand and pass to my lips.

Rae doesn't waste any time to lean forward and hug me. I quickly wrap my hands around her and rest my face in the crook of her neck. Her hand caresses my hair as the other one holds my neck tightly. She doesn't make a sound, but I know she's crying too as I feel her tears drop onto the back of my neck.

For the first time in years, I openly cry for him, our family and everything we've been through. I cry for all those years of suffering and heartache, for all those years that we had to live under the same roof while feeling like strangers. I cry for the time when Jess was twelve and asked me why our family wasn't like the ones she sees when she goes to her friends houses. And I cried for the time that she ran away from home. And for the time that I saw her in a bar after all those months of missing her, and the look on her face when she pretended not to know me. And I cried for the time that I saw her struggling against the leader of the gang I was in and walked away like a stranger.

I cry for all those moments of my life, and it feels like my tears are finally reliving me of a life long burden.

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A/N Uneventful chapter, I know. It's sort of a filler. I hope all this emotional stuff isn't boring... bear with me guys.