Page 7 of Tore Up

He sounded as if he’d walked into their bedroom. I cringed. I’d never seen Nick angry. Not really. The look of disgust and disinterest I was accustomed to, but when Iris made him mad, he usually just walked out the door and didn’t return for days. Several minutes passed, and I didn’t hear anything.

Reaching over, I grabbed my discarded shorts and tank to slip back on. I couldn’t stay in here forever, and he had to know I was here. He’d have heard the shower running when he came inside.

I hung the towel back up to dry and took a deep breath before opening the door. Stepping out into the living room, I looked over at the room he had shared with Iris.

I never spoke to him first. He’d taught me long ago that he didn’t like the sound of my voice. Being left here with just him was strange. We’d never lived together alone—at least that I could remember. The few months after my mother’s death, I had been an infant, and I wasn’t sure what he’d done with me during that time. Again, things he hadn’t told me. We had no relationship.

His tall form filled the doorway. There was a duffel bag in his right hand. He looked at me with the same color green eyes as Carina’s.

“You’ll need to be gone by the first,” he told me.

This was what I’d been worried about the most at night while I lay awake.

“Where are you going?” I asked him. My voice cracked, and I hated showing this man any emotion at all. Especially aweakness. I’d spent so many of my earlier years trying to find ways to please him, only to have him ignore me and my attempts.

“Away,” he replied, then started walking toward the door.

Panic at the reality of the situation hit me. This was happening. He was leaving me alone.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I told him.

He stopped and glanced back at me. “You’re a grown woman now. Not my problem anymore. Iris did her job. Got you raised. Now, use that fucking face of your mother’s and find a man to take care of you if you can’t do it yourself.”

My mother’s face? He’d never once mentioned her or that I looked like her. That wasn’t the focus here though. He was walking away. I was about to be homeless.

“I can’t use my face to get a man to take care of me! What does that even mean? I need time to save for this. I have been helping Iris pay the bills. I don’t have money put away to just go get a place to live.” I sounded like I was on the verge of tears, but I couldn’t help it.

He was my father. Somewhere deep inside, he had to care about me a little.

He sighed heavily. “You’re nineteen years old, and you’re not that fucking naive. You know what I mean, and you know what the fuck you look like. Learn to use it. I’ve got other responsibilities.”

Not once in my life had this man ever insinuated that I was even pretty. He’d never complimented me. I was the invisible family member where he was concerned. Now, he was standing here, telling me that he believed my looks could hook some man to take care of me.

I shook my head in disbelief. “What is it?!” I shouted. All the pain in my chest that I had kept down all these years from his neglect seemed to burst out from me at once. “What did I do toyou? Why do you hate me? Why can’t you even manage to care about me at all? If this were Carina, you’d be busting your ass to take care of her. But me? You tell me to go what, become a prostitute?” Hot tears rolled down my face.

If he was going to just walk away, then I wanted to have those answers at least. I’d never pushed him to acknowledge me, but right now, he was going to.

“You are hers.” He said the three words with the same calm response he did everything. But this time, there was something laced in his tone. It wasn’t anger. It was … pain.

“My mother’s? So, because of my mother, you hate me?”

He stood there silently, staring at me. The flicker of sadness in his eyes surprised me. I hadn’t known the man could feel anything unless it concerned Carina.

“I don’t hate you,” he said. “But you are a reminder of her. Every year of your life, you looked more and more like her. Until you turned into a fucking replica. Looking at you is hard. I don’t want to remember. I can’t and survive.”

I blinked as another tear broke free, and I reached up to wipe at my face. His voice had sounded as if it was agony to just talk about my mother.

Had he loved her? Was that it? Her death had been too much for him?

“You loved her?” I asked.

In my head, all the reasons for his disinterest in me was because of the way he’d felt about her. I’d never once considered he had loved her.

He turned his head to look at the door instead of me. I could see his jaw work as he clenched his teeth. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to respond, but just walk out. Never to be seen again—at least by me.

“She was my fucking world, and because of you, I lost her.”

Me? I had been an infant.

---