Page 92 of Our Secrets and Scars

He looks pained, but he says nothing. I guess because there’s nothing he can say. He can’t deny the truth; it’s literally engraved in gold.

“Is my car still in the garage?” I ask.

“Why?”

“I think I’m just gonna go back to the dorm.”

“No.” He stands suddenly, taking me gently by the elbows as he looks into my eyes in panic. “Please don’t. Please stay. I beg you, Kinsley.Please.”

But I shake my head, stepping out of his hold. It kills me that I’m hurting him, but I can’t put myself through this anymore. I can’t keep fighting the ghost of my sister. It’s killing me, and it’s gone on too long now.

“I can’t, Papa. I’m sorry, but I can’t be here right now.”

He fixes me with a pleading stare for a few long moments before eventually releasing a sigh of resignation. “I’ll get you the keys.”

He disappears from the room, his head hanging sadly between his shoulder blades. It isn’t long before he reappears, the keys in one hand and a stack of unopened mail in the other. I recognize Holden’s handwriting immediately.

Papa hands me everything, and I stare down at the dusty envelopes with wide eyes.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” I lie.

How could I begin to explain that I fell in love with the man who killed his daughter and then went on to shatter me so completely?

“Go now,” Papa says gently. “I’ll deal with your mama.”

I look up at him with gratitude, and when he pulls me in to him, wrapping his arms around me in the kind of giant bear hug I used to love so much as a young girl, I let him. I even hold him back. When I pull away, a single tear has slipped free from the corner of his eye.

“I love you so much, Kinsley,” he says, and his bottom lip trembles. “I’m so sorry I’ve made you doubt that.”

I don’t tell him it’s okay because it isn’t.

“I love you too, Papa. And Mom, please don’t think I don’t. But I’ve been hurting for a long time and I guess now it’s finally gotten too much.”

“Will we be okay?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him truthfully. “There’s a lot we need to work through.”

He nods in acceptance, but I see how much it hurts him. “I feel like I’m losing a daughter all over again.”

“You haven’t lost me. I’m where I’ve always been, I’m just finally telling you the truth.”

And as I drive back to Salt Lake City, I feel lighter somehow. Despite the agony the situation with Holden is putting me through and how hurt I am by my mother’s mistake, I feel like the air is easier to breathe now I’ve finally released the pain I’ve been burying inside me for so many years.

Maybe things with my parents will change now they know how I feel. Maybe they won’t, I don’t know.

But I’ll be okay either way. Because finally, I’ve realized that my value isn’t determined by anyone other than myself, even those who raised me.

The only person who can decide my worth is me.

And as of this very moment, driving across state lines as I cry tears of relief on Christmas day, I decide that I’m worth so much more than I ever considered.

I am wortheverything.

Twenty-Six

Holden

---