“I-I’m here to help,” he stutters, nervously. I look at his face, which looks older than I last remember. He’s tired and stressed, but I really don’t give a shit.
“Wait, you don’t think you’ve done enough?” I chuckle sarcastically. He looks down defeated. He’s so different from the man I thought he was. The man I used to look up to, whom I respected, admired and wanted to be like. Now he’s nothing. He’s dirt.
“Help?” I laugh, feeling my jaw clench. “How could you help? This is all your fault. You’re a liar!” I yell at him. His face turns beet red, and his jaw clenches.
“I made a mistake.”
“Mistake?” All the muscles in my body tighten.
“You think screwing my best friend was a mistake? Cheating on my mother was a mistake? It wasn’t a mistake, Dad! A mistake is setting the time wrong on an alarm, incorrectly balancing your checkbook. That’s a mistake. What you did was not a mistake or an accident. You ruined our family! You destroyed my friendship, you broke my mother’s heart and you hid it all, regardless of what it did to me,” I walk closer to him, and I can see the water building in his eyes as I ignore the water in my own.
“I will never, ever forgive you for what you did. You are nothing to me.” I step away from him, giving him one last glance to know how serious I am, how disgusted he makes me. I look back at Lauren who has tears in her own eyes. I wonder if she’s crying for me, for him, or for herself who has been dragged into this dysfunctional soap opera.
“You can show him the door if he can’t find it himself,” I tell her before leaving the room. I wipe away the one tear that escaped my eye. It’ll be the last one that ever sheds for him. He might as well be dead to me.
He is.
I’m an orphan again.
Chapter 21
Lauren
Is this our world now? Are fights, angriness, bitterness and hatred the only things to look forward to? The anger and devastation between Chris and Mr. Scott felt tangible, suffocating us all. I am not a big fan of Mr. Scott. I detest what he did, how he treated me, and he deserves to feel contrite for his act—but seeing how broken he was after Chris verbally eviscerated him—I can’t help but feel sorry for him, and more so than that, I’m afraid.
I’m terrified because Chris has never been so hard and cold before.
Chris is supposed to be the reasonable one, the one who forgives. He’s the one whose heart isn’t hardened, whose spirit isn’t broken. This isn’t who he is. But who is Chris now with everything out in the open? I don’t know who he or Cal is anymore. Has the dynamics changed? Are the men I know still in there? It seems like everything I know has switched. When Cal was here, he was disoriented, broken, and unwillingly vulnerable. Chris is… I don’t even know how to describe him now, but he is not the man I met just a few months ago. Not the man that I just saw. I don’t know who that person was, and watching him act like that was painful. I can’t imagine the pain he’s in, or how bad he’s hurting. I’ve realized that for Chris this is still as fresh as the day he found out. He hasn’t had time to process any of this because right after he found out Collin took over, and then Cal, and now he’s back in the same space that caused him to leave.
My head hurts. It’s pounding so hard because I don’t know what to do, or how to fix this. Before I thought that if they integrated everything would be fine. I thought if we found out the truth things would be better but, the truth hasn’t fixed anything and if anything has made it worse. I’m dealing with a fractured man, all the pieces broken and I’m not sure how to put the pieces back together. I have no clue what to do.
How do I bring Caylen into this? Even with his state of mind now I know he’d never hurt her but is this even healthy for a child? What if we can’t recover from this?
“I’m going to head out.” I look up and see Mr. Scott, looking almost as broken as his son. I forgot that he was still here. It’s been an hour and a half since Chris confronted him, and to be honest, a part of me is sad that he’s leaving because I’m afraid that I can’t handle this alone. I nod at him, his blue eyes are dull and heavy, and he looks as defeated as I feel.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks quietly, shifting the bag on his shoulder. I let out a sigh and plaster on a smile.
“I always am,” I tell him in the most upbeat tone I can and wrap my arms around my legs. He looks toward the stairs as if making sure Chris isn’t going to pounce and attack.
He sits next to me and lets out his own deep sigh.
“I really screwed things up.” He covers his face with his hands. I don’t say anything because he knows how bad this is.
“I know that I said I was sorry for how I treated you before but─”
“I know.” I can imagine how sorry he is for everything, but the words won’t make things any better at this point.
“We have so much more to focus on now. We have to look forward, it makes no sense to keep looking back on the past,” I tell him quietly. I see him nod out of the corner of my eye.
“I’m going to stay at a hotel a few blocks from here if you need me. I’ll text you once I check in to let you know where I am,” he says as he stands.
“Thank you.” My voice sounds tired and weak, but I hope he knows how grateful I am for him being nearby. I walk him to the door, and we stand awkwardly for a moment. We aren’t close enough to hug, and it would feel awkward and weird if we forced it. If Chris came out and saw us hug—with him being so angry—it wouldn’t be a good situation for either of us, though we both could use a good hug right about now. So instead I pat him on the shoulder, and he nods. He opens the door, and I watch him waiting for the elevator before shutting the door when he’s finally on his way down.
“You look like you were sad to see him go?” I turn and see Chris sitting at the bottom of the staircase. His expression is somewhere between crossed and bemused.
“You’re not?” I ask him keeping my voice steady and even.
He rolls his eyes. “I thought I made that pretty clear to you both earlier.”
I stare at him trying to read him, thinking of where we are in this moment. How hard I wished, hoped and prayed for him to be back here with me. How many nights I imagined us being here, and we’re here, just not exactly how I pictured it. I have to remind myself that us being here together is what’s important. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it. He could be God knows where but he’s here with me right now, and it’s what I remind myself of before answering him.
“I wish it was under different circumstances,” I tell him truthfully as I walk over to him.
“You’re right. I wish my dad hadn’t fucked up my life,” he chuckles, running his hand through is hair. It’s longer and thicker than I’ve seen it—in need of a trim—but still beautifully wild. I want to rest my head on his shoulder. I want him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay, but the state that he’s in I know he can’t do that for me right now. Unfortunately we can’t sit still and be stagnant because we have a daughter and we have to fix this, or at least start somewhere.