Page 104 of October
My heart was hammering in my chest, beating so hard I could feel it in my throat, behind my eyes, in the corners of my clenched jaw but I didn't move. I didn't give him the satisfaction of blinking. Not yet.
Then came the chuckle. A soft, brittle sound, sharp as broken glass and just as cutting.
"I thought, naively I admit, you might have actually come here to help me," he said, with a bitter shake of his head, likeIhad disappointedhim."Stupid, I know but you surprised me, and not in the good way, son."
He saidsonlike it was a joke. Like it tasted bad in his mouth.
"You always were the soft one," he continued. "The weak one. Always crying. Always needing. You were born needy. Christ, you were barely a month old and already exhausting. Clinging to your mother like a tick. You were in the way before you could walk."
I sat there, cold sinking into my bones. Every word hit like a slap, but I didn't look away. And then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the metal table, his voice lowering into something almost intimate, something you'd expect to come with a smile or a gift but instead, he looked me dead in the eyes and said,
"She should've had that abortion when I told her to. Useless being."
Silence fell like a gunshot.
The breath left my lungs. The world tilted. My body didn't move, but inside, something ruptured. It wasn't shock, not really. He'd said cruel things before. He'd weaponized love and bent it into fear since I was old enough to recognize the way he looked at me.
But this? This was annihilation. This was a hand reaching back into the past, scraping away even the idea that I was ever wanted. My breath stopped. The air turned electric with fury. My hands slammed the table and I was on my feet before I could stop myself.
"Youvile, godless piece of shit!" I roared, my voice bouncing off the concrete. He looked smug. Smug. I leaned closer, shaking with rage, "I will never speak your name to my children! I will erase you! You will die alone, rotting in jail, while I go home to the people who love me despite the wreckage left behind."
His eyes flared, just a flicker, but I didn't wait. I turned and walked out, my vision blurred and chest heaving and there, just outside, leaning against the sun-bleached wall, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat—stood Joseph. He looked like he'd been waiting a while. His face was calm, but his eyes carried that sharp, quiet worry only someone who's known you long enough to read between silences can wear.
My footsteps faltered. I hadn't expected him. I hadn't asked him to come but of course he was there. October must've called him. Or Beth. Someone must've known I wouldn't walk out of that building quite whole. Not after what I'd gone in there to face. Joseph pushed off the wall without a word. No dramatic gestures, no drawn-out sympathy. Just met me halfway across the pavement.
I didn't speak either. I couldn't. The moment I reached him, something in me gave out. My fingers twisted into the fabric of his coat and I leaned in, folded, really, against his shoulder. And then I broke, all of it hitting me at once: shame, grief, fury, the endless ache of trying for so long to be okay. My chest convulsed. I couldn't stop shaking.
I broke for the boy who used to sit at the top of the stairs, listening to his parents fight and praying, just once, his dad might come upstairs and hold him.
I broke for the teenager who walked home in silence after football matches, no matter how well he played, because there was never anyone waiting to say "I'm proud of you."
I broke for the man who tried so hard to wear the mask, perfect employee, good son, decent husband, but lived in fear that everyone would see through it and realize he wasn't enough.
Joseph didn't flinch. He just wrapped his arms around me, grounding me like he always had.
His hand moved once, slow across my back. I could hear his heart beating, steady and real. I clung to that sound like a rope pulling me out of a pit I hadn't even realized I was still in. My knees buckled slightly, and he held me tighter. I let it all fall out of me, years of swallowing words, of never being allowed to cry, of mistaking pain for purpose and silence for strength.
Tears soaked into the shoulder of his coat. My breath came in shallow, broken gulps. Because the truth is, my father never broke me. He chipped away at me, day by day, year by year.
But he didn't win. Not really. He left cracks. Deep ones but those cracks didn't ruin me. They made space for light. For people who would stand by the door of a prison and wait. For the kind of love that didn't demand perfection, just honesty. Finally, after a lifetime of pretending I was fine, I was letting someone see the whole damn mess.
I was finally free.
******************
I went back to my appartment and sat alone. That thick, echoing silence that follows confrontation like an unwanted guest. I'd been sitting on the couch in the dark, one leg tucked beneath me, staring at the same spot on the wall as if answers might eventually surface from paint and plaster. My mind felt wrung out, my chest hollow. After seeing both of them, first my mother, then him, something inside me felt scraped raw.
My phone buzzed. Just one message.
October
I know you saw him. Meet me here? Let's change the air.
She sent me a location, and even though I was running on fumes, emotionally wrung out from the week, I decided to go because it was October. My October. No matter how tired I was, no matter how heavy everything felt, when she asks, I'd show up. Every time.
The place was unassuming. A little corner café tucked between a laundromat and a florist, the kind of spot you'd walk past without noticing, but tonight, the windows glowed golden, fogged at the edges, and warm light spilled onto the sidewalk like it was trying to pull me in.
Inside, it smelled like cinnamon and toasted almonds, and the air was humming with soft piano notes that didn't demand anything of you. October was already there, curled into a corner booth, two mugs in front of her.
