Page 94 of Never Have I Ever
I nod. “So, it was just a coincidence that I spent so much time with him. That he wanted to teach me about cars and hang out with me?”
She nods. “He loved you so much,” she says with a hint of a smile. “Maybe he suspected. But your father and I agreed to keep it between us.”
“You knew?” I ask Frank. I guess it’s redundant to call him my father. He never felt like a father, and now I know he isn’t even my father biologically.
“I walked in on them,” he says, avoiding my eyes and taking a sip of his drink.
“He’s my dad?” I ask my mother. It feels surreal. My father.
She nods.
“He was, and then you killed him.” Frank retorts.
I feel my fists clench at my sides. “I didn’t kill him.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “What else do you call standing there watching him while he dies?”
I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. “I was thirteen,” I say through clenched teeth. I was only a kid. I was a fucking kid.
“That doesn’t excuse your actions.”
“I came to you,” I yell across the room. “I asked for your help.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling my whole body burn with anger. “If you weren’t too busy fucking your assistant, you could have helped me!”
He stands from the table, slapping the table with force. My mother jumps in her seat. “You killed him. That’s on you. Don’t you forget it,” he yells back.
“Frank. Don’t talk to him like that,” my mother says from her seat.
“That screw-up was a cokehead anyway. No one misses him.”
My face heats, and I go blind with rage. I stalk towards him and grab his collar. “He was your brother,” I seethe.
“He was a fuck-up,” he spits out. “Just like you.”
I shake my head, hating those words that come out of his mouth. Sure, he had problems with drugs. But he was the best man that I ever knew. He was my father, and I didn’t even know it. And I lost him.
I feel someone tug my arm and turn my head, seeing my mother. Her eyes are filled with tears as I see her mouth ‘Grayson’ over and over at me. I can’t hear her, though. My ears are ringing with hate for the man in front of me.
My fist makes contact with his cheek, blood sputtering out of his mouth.
I push him against the wall. “Fuck you,” I breathe out.
I let him go and turn, heading out of this fucking house and leaving this life behind me.
My mother can keep living her fucked up married life with that psychopath and leave me alone.
My father is dead.
And I don’t have a reason to come back here anymore.
31
Sleepless nights
Grayson
I can’t sleep.
I can’t shut my brain off for five fucking minutes.
