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He looks up quickly, his eyes piercing now, and he lowers his voice so that Joel doesn’t overhear us. “I don’t believe you have the nerve to show up at my house to demand an apology from me. I’m a different man now, Kael. I’m a different father. Rehashing all this shit isn’t going to be beneficial to either one of us, let alone to my new family. I’ve been clean for years. I go to meetings. I figured all my shit out.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” My voice lifts in volume, and I can feel my chest growing tighter. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Watch your mouth,” he reprimands me, tossing a quick glance over his shoulder. “You can’t be speaking like that in front of the boy!”
My chest heaves, and although I’m trying my hardest to keep my temper at bay, I can feel the heat of my anger thundering through my veins.
Fingers clenching, mouth contorted, I lunge at him, making him flinch, and then I stop dead in my tracks, and fuck it if that’s not the sweetest revenge of all. Coward. “Iwas your family, too, Dad. I wasyourfamily.” I lift my chin, and the sight of his dark features brings the cold rushing back in. “I will never forgive you for what you put us through.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness, Kael.”
His eyes dart back toward Joel, who is playing contently in the driveway not the least bit bothered by our confrontation. “I’ve already got my forgiveness in the form of that boy over there. He’s my second chance. He’s the forgiveness. I’d knock over buildings for that kid.”
I stand there in stunned silence. His words are like a punch straight to my gut.
“You deserve to be punished for what you did to us,” I say quietly, struggling to breathe through the pain in my chest. “But here’s the thing, Dad… I don’t know why or how, but I can overlook the broken ribs and the bruises. I really can. What I can’t overlook is the fact that you walked away from us and never once came back and checked on me. You weren’t there when I graduated high school. You missed teaching me how to drive. You didn’t share a beer with me on my twenty-first birthday, and you sure as hell didn’t call to say congratulations when our first album went platinum.”
He rubs one hand down his face, exasperated, but he doesn’t defend himself, because he knows I’m right. “Well, your mother didn’t do a very good job either, did she? I read about you in the newspaper. You’re an even bigger mess than I was at your age. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I can sense him closing up. The hardness in his eyes is like watching a concrete wall being built right in front of me.
“But I got a second chance at life, Kael, so I took it, and I can’t risk them knowing who you are. I don’t want you tainting my new life.”
“You can’t just replace me with another kid and think everything can be erased. Please tell me you don’t honestly think that’s how it works.”
My words are biting, but I want him to answer me truthfully before I walk out of his life forever. Because once I’m done here, I know I will never be back.
He nudges his head toward the street. “I think you should leave now, Kael.”
He looks past me toward the car. His eyes widen slightly, prompting me to turn to see what he’s looking at. He’s looking straight at Sienna, and he’s got a weird expression on his face. His brows furrow, and he’s concentrating on her face, his head tilted oddly to one side, and as much as I want to know what’s going through his mind right now, the thought of his eyes on Sienna makes my blood run cold through my veins.
“Don’t look at her,” I tell him, unease prickling my scalp. “Don’t you dare fucking look at her.”
His eyes snap back to mine again, and he grumbles something under his breath, and then he turns and walks away from me, disappearing inside the house without another word.
The door slams shut behind him, and the sudden noise of the door slamming makes Joel stop bouncing his basketball on the driveway. The ball falls limply to his side. He stares back at me with a puzzled expression on his face.
As much as I’m instantly filled with rage and hatred for the man who I will affectionately refer to from here on out as‘the sperm donor,’and as much as I’m barely standing on two feet for fear I’m about to completely lose my shit right here on the grass, none of this is the kid’s fault.
So, I smile at him. I smile at my brother. I smile at the brother I’ll never know, the brother who will never know me.
He smiles back at me. We have the same smile. My brother, and I have the same smile. But that is all we’ll ever have. There will never be more than justa smileshared between the two of us.
And I’m just going to have to live with that fact.
I cross the street and climb into the car, and I must be all kinds of fucked up because I don’t even care that Sienna’s behind the wheel, and I’m riding shotgun.
She shifts the gears into drive and then pulls away from the curb, and we’re not even all the way out onto the main road before I completely fall apart.
Sienna
It’s been a couple of hours now, and Kael isn’t saying much. A guttural sob broke free from his chest when we first left his father’s house, he buried his face in his hands, and I’m glad I couldn’t see his face anymore because the shadows in his eyes were a terrible thing to see.
And the sound was absolutely gut-wrenching.
His shoulders shook uncontrollably, and my heart broke.A million pieces.His demeanor was one of complete defeat. He’s so solid, he fills the entire front seat with his wide shoulders and tall frame, and yet I’ve never seen anyone look so small before.
Trying to hold grief inside you is like trying to hold onto a balloon once all the air has escaped. It’s impossible. I know a little bit about being wounded with words. The scars remain for a long, long time, lingering around the edges, living inside you.
