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Me?
I’m a fucking damsel in distress.
I almost want to laugh out loud. Talk about a sobering realization.
Is this really what I want to be?
No.
I stand up and look at Kelly.
“Can I borrow your car? There’s something I need to do.”
LAKE
I expected to be angry. I think in a way I was preparing myself for it from the moment I sat in the car. But then it didn’t come.
So I figured it’d hit when I parked. But no.
Then I was peering around for it while I was walking, like anger was some living, breathing entity, hiding behind a tree, ready to jump out the moment I wasn’t looking.
Everything is very quiet. A lone crow lets out an occasional caw somewhere in the distance, but that’s about all I can hear.
I’m so busy looking out for anger that I almost walk past the grave altogether, so I have to backtrack a few steps. And then I’m mostly confused because in my head this was going to be a momentous occasion of grand proportions where I’d have to try and remain civil while sorting through a decade of pain, heartbreak, and hatred.
Instead, it’s just sort of… empty. There’s a sprinkling of resentment. A bit of hurt. An inkling of regret for what could have been. But those are all leftovers. Remnants of something much more powerful, now pathetically twitching somewhere inside me, robbed of all potential.
That’s it.
To think I spent a good forty minutes in the car listing all the reasons why I shouldn’t kick down his headstone. That was clearly time well spent.
I had all these words I was preparing to say. Words of righteous, dignified anger. About how I was better off without him. How he can rot in hell. How much I still hate him.
Very dramatic. Embarrassingly, needlessly so.
I suddenly have nothing.
I just stand there, hands stuffed in the pockets of my jeans, in front of the grave of the man I once upon a time used to call my father.
And I’m empty.
If I don’t let this go, if I’m not willing to work on my issues, if I’m not willing to risk pain and heartbreak, if I will keep cowering behind the past. This is how I’ll always feel.
This is what Ryker meant. Yeah, no lows. But also no highs. And if there are no highs, the steady smooth sailing? It’ll steadily decline into a low. That hollow emptiness I’m feeling right now? It’s suddenly much more terrifying than heartbreak.
My gaze stays on the gravestone. The granite is pristine and shiny, not old enough to be weathered. I’ll never see it as anything other than it is right now. This is the first and last time I’ll visit.
So I might as well say what I have to say.
“Hi,” I say. To a dead person, currently six feet under. A great opening, truly.
I’m probably standing on top of his bones, which could technically be considered rude, I think.
I take a long step backward. Just in case.
“This is awkward,” I mutter before I clear my throat. “I thought I hated you,” I say. “The thing is, you’re taking up so much space in my life. For a person who abandoned me and tossed me aside like I meant nothing, I sure as hell have decided to give you permanent residence in my head. So now I’m thinking… why? What purpose does it serve to have you live in the back of my mind like some monster under my bed? There isn’t one.”
I take a deep breath.
