Page 152 of Sinister Legacy
I have never felt more conflicted in my life. I couldn’t have reached out sooner—I was too hurt, too traumatized from witnessing the FBI kick down my door and haul my father out of there—but I also know I’ll always regret pushing him away. I’ll carry that regret deep in my heart until the day I inhale my last breath. Especially now that I can sympathize with him in the most twisted, sickening way. Now that his struggles are my struggles. Now that I need his wisdom the most to stop me from following in his footsteps.
The fight between good and evil.
The angel and devil on my shoulder.
I’m ushered inside and led down a narrow, white-painted hallway toward a room next to the one housing the victims’ families. The soft hum of their muted conversations drifts through the paper-thin wall as the door clicks shut behind me.
There’s only me here.
I’m the only person who showed up for my father tonight.
I pause mid-step and slide my gaze over the countless metal chairs that should be filled with family members. Chairs that echo loudly.
My bottom lip trembles, and I quickly wipe at my cheeks with my sleeve, inhaling a steadying, much-needed breath before walking up to the center chair at the front. I sit down and lift my gaze. The ugly, green curtains behind the large window are drawn. My reflection reveals the haunted eyes of a scared little girl behind the brave mask.
That’s what I am.
Fucking scared.
Suddenly, I’m that seven-year-old girl again who watched her father get dragged out of the house by force as the room swarmed with barking dogs and tall men dressed in black. My thoughts swirl back to the shouting. Deep, scary voices yelling at my dad while I stood cowering by the sofa with my hands pressed over my ears. I peed myself then, dressed in my little pink nightgown. My mom stumbled out of the kitchen, pale as a ghost.
No one noticed me standing in a puddle of my own piss that was slowly turning cold.
And then my father was gone.
And it was so fucking silent.
My breath trembles. I shake myself out of the memory, digging my nails into my palms.
“I can do this,” I whisper. “I can do this.”
The curtains slide open, and I inhale a sharp, ragged gasp when I see my father staring straight at me. Strapped to the gurney, the veins in his arms bulging, he looks so helpless. Nothing like the indestructible man I remember from my childhood. Nothing like my hero and the country’s most infamous monster.
My tears fall. I can’t hold them back. Neither can I hold back the sob that follows. I bite down hard on my violently trembling lip and slowly rise to my feet, but I’m too weak.
Too shaky.
I slump back down and allow myself to break. If only for a second. I truly hope the hurting families on the other side of the wall get some sense of closure from this moment.
For me, it’s a void opening up. An endless nightmare from which I will never awaken. All I’ve ever known is loss. Maybe my illness isn’t a result of the man in front of me. Maybe the world created what I am. And now it wants to plaster a title on me to categorize me, when the truth is that I was taught from childhood that it’s too dangerous to love. Too dangerous to feel.
Everyone hurts you.
Disappoints you.
Your own fucking parents.
Your own hero.
Society.
My father never once looks away from me as though I’m his only anchor in this moment. I wish desperately that King was here. I was wrong to ask him to stay outside. I need his hand in mine. I need his steady presence. I need someone to run to that little girl and scoop her up. Tell her everything will be okay, even if it’s a lie.
“Do you have any final words?” The warden’s voice cuts through my emotional upheaval. I want to choke some fucking sense into him.
That’s my broken, monstrous father you’re stealing from me.
But I keep my lips shut. Somewhere deep inside me, no matter how much I’m hurting or how resentful I feel about our broken society that lets people like me down, I know my father caused so much hurt and destruction. I know the families on the other side of that wall will never kiss their loved ones again. I know they were never offered the chance to say goodbye.
