Chapter 17
NICK
“I love you, call me later yeah?”
I whisper into her hair as I hug her to me tightly, inhaling every drop of her fruity smell. That smell has quickly become the thing I rely on, the thing that tells me I'm home.
She nods, her face buried in my neck and her breath tickling me when she says, “I love you too.”
She collects her bag from the ground and pulls my bedroom door open just a crack, peaking out to see if the coast is clear. But before she can take off down the corridor I grab her elbow, stopping her.
“Wait,”
I scoop her into me by the waist and press a tight kiss to her lips. Another bedroom door creaks open down the hallway and I break the kiss fast.
“Shit, someone’s coming.”
I smack a palm against her ass and close my bedroom door, leaving her in the corridor.
“Motherfucker,”
I hear her mutter and a grin splits my face in half.
Then, I hear the heavy footsteps and Lois rambling, “Oh, hey Ky, yeah good thanks, I mean, how are you?”
I slap a hand to my forehead as I listen to her. She’s not very good at this acting normal thing, she's drawing more suspicion than a nun in a brothel.
Kyle’s footsteps stop outside my door.
“You ok Lois? You seem a bit, you know…weird.”
“Nope, all good,”
she says, totally unconvincingly.
“Anyway I better go, nice seeing you Ky.”
her footsteps hit the stairs and the sound gradually gets quieter before I hear the front door slam shut.
The second that happens is the same second my bedroom door almost flies off it’s hinges. Kyle stands in the open doorway with a narrow eyed, fed up expression on his face.
“You fucking idiot,”
he sighs, “why? Why her? Of all the girls on the entire campus, why her?”
He points a warning finger at me, eyes sharp.
“Sean’s going to kill you and I'm not going to stand in his way.”
His eyes land on my exposed package and he holds out a palm to shield it from his vision.
“Put your junk away.”
I grin back at him.
“You barged into my room,”
I waft a casual hand through the air, apathetic about his concerns.
“Anyway, Sean won’t find out.”
“Don’t take advantage of her, she’s younger than us and she’s had a massive crush on you for ages.”
I grin wider now.
“You know, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
Kyle grabs a cushion from the ground and throws it at my head.
“I mean it.”
“Look Ky, this thing has gone way past a crush now, so feel free to mind your own business.”
I stand up, my dick moving with me and Kyle grimaces, covering his eyes.
“Don’t break her heart please, for all of our sakes.”
“I wouldn’t,”
I stop in the doorway to my bathroom and Kyle uncovers his eyes at my serious tone.
“I love her.”
Kyle titters a laugh, shaking his head.
“Yeah, sure you do, you fucking simp.”
He leaves my bedroom, still shaking his head with a laugh and closing my door softly behind him.
I whip my phone off it’s charging cord and close the bathroom door.
Nick:
‘Kyle knows.’
Lois:
‘What? How?’
Nick:
‘I have no idea how he worked it out, what with your excellent acting skills out there.’
Lois:
‘Ha. Ha. So that’s Molly and Kyle that know now, we need to be more careful.’
Nick:
‘We will, don’t stress about it today, you need to focus on your routines.’
Lois:
‘I’ll try not to but it’s hard Nick, if Sean finds out we’re dead and buried. What time will you be free tonight? You wanna come over to mine where we don’t have to sneak around as much?’
My face lights up, she wants to see me again already and she only left about five minutes ago. If I’d have known this is how good love is I’d have tried even harder to find her, my girl.
Nick:
‘I’ll come over tonight, be there about 7.’
I consider telling her about my plans today, but I decide it’s too risky. I know there’s a chance I’ll get all the way there, see those towering grey walls, the barbed wire, the metal detectors and that I’ll chicken out.
I’ve decided to go and visit my dad.
I have no fucking idea how it’s going to be seeing him after all these years but I have to try, for my sake and for my mum’s.
I know it would mean the world to her if we could reconcile and maybe, just maybe, if he gifts me a heartfelt, meaningful apology for what he did, then I can start to heal from it.
But that’s me hoping for a miracle.
If the man is anything like he always has been, he’ll just gaslight me the second he opens his mouth.
But I have to try, for my sanity, so I can say I did everything I could.
The smell is something you could never forget.
The heavy stench of authority hangs in the air the moment the automatic doors slide open.
The man in a blue uniform waves me forward towards the large metal detector, signalling for me to walk through it.
He doesn’t say a word to me, only nods once I'm cleared and through without a signal that I have anything prohibited on me.
This isn’t new to me, we used to visit dad's brother in prison pretty often when I was younger.
But this time it feels different, the throbbing dread that nestles into the pit of my stomach is making me queazy when I sit down in the waiting area.
My fingers are twiddling nervously, leg bobbing constantly and for a split second I feel the bile rise up in the back of my throat.
But before I can litter my breakfast all over the squeaky lino floor, someone calls my name.
I get to my feet and wipe both sweaty palms on my jean clad thighs, following the officer to a private room off the side of the reception area.
There’s a small, school like table in the centre of the painfully vast and empty room, two chairs sit on either side.
I sit down, the cold plastic making my skin tingle.
I inhale deeply, watching the door on the other side of the room with bated breath, not exhaling until it opens tentatively.
The man who enters is handcuffed, one arm gripped tightly by a prison guard who’s face is scrunched with discontentment.
He roughly pushes the bearded, scruffy, barely recognisable man into the room with me and closes the door.
“You have ten minutes,”
he says gruffly through the glass and turns to lean against the wall, sporting a tired frown.
I stare up at the man who stands before me, his eyes are heavy with grey bags and his hair is thicker, more auburn coloured than before.
His face is a little shrivelled, the beard that sits on his chin looks prickly and itchy.
But the thing I notice the most is the unfamiliar look of regret in his brown eyes, eyes that match mine almost exactly.
He sits down after a moment of shared silence between us, resting his handcuffed arms on the table in front of him.
I instinctively lean back, wanting to create space between us.
He clears his throat after a moment.
“Nick I’m…”
is he going to apologise already? Wow, maybe he really has changed.
“I’m so glad you came.”
Maybe not.
“Yeah, well,”
I sit up straighter, trying to make my voice stronger.
“I didn’t want to come, but Mum practically begged me so…here I am.”
My dad nods a few times, eyes hovering over the table.
“Well, either way I'm glad you’re here. I hope we can sort things out between us before I get out, you know, so we can be a family again.”
His words spark a flame of hate inside me and I narrow my eyes at him.
“A family? Dad, we were never a family. Families don’t beat each other.”
His eyes glint with a trampled down anger that lives inside him, but I watch him flatten it pretty quickly and it’s replaced with mock hurt.
“How can you say that? I loved you kids, all of you and I did my best.”
I scoff now, folding my arms across my chest.
“That was your best was it? Hitting your children and bullying your wife? You’re a joke of a father and a husband.”
“Don’t say that to me,”
his jaw tightens and I see the hairs on his neck stand to attention, the fight response in him alive and well.
“I’m a good husband, a good dad, I just made mistakes and I'm paying for them.”
“Why did you do it?”
I blurt and he startles at the question, eyes looking anywhere but at me.
After a beat he shrugs.
“I don’t know.”
Then his gaze snaps to mine, fiery frustration building between us.
“You can’t just be happy for me can you? I’m getting out of this hellhole and all you come here to say is that I'm a shit husband, a shit dad. You always were a pessimistic little shit, never seeing the good in anyone.”
I sit forward now, bringing my face closer to his and hissing, “Maybe there’s just no fucking good to see in you.”
He flexes his jaw, “Huh,”
he muses, then his eyes gleam with hate.
“You know, you’ll be lucky to ever find a woman who loves you like your mum loves me. You were always difficult to love, even as a child.”
His words slash my throat open like a blade, the blood draining from my body in seconds and I feel like I might pass out.
The air in the room is hot, sweaty and I can’t breathe.
The moisture is swimming in my eyes and my hand comes up to clasp my throat.
I’m trying to rip it out and let some oxygen in, before I die right here in this dingy room with the person I hate most in the world.
I knew this was a mistake, coming here to try and fix things with him when I wasn’t the one who broke anything in the first place.
I barrel out of there like my life depends on it, not even glancing back in his direction for fear of what I might see.
I can feel it anyway, burning a hole in my back as I flee, his evil, satisfied smirk.
The man has always thrived on breaking people down, making anyone around him feel worthless, especially his children.
The second the cool air hits me I feel my lungs start to open again, the world allowing me to live another day.
My hand fishes inside my pocket for my phone and I yank it out, pressing the call button through murky vision.
“Lo, can I come over now? I need you.”
I croak into the speaker when she picks up, a few tears roll down my cheeks and I swat them away.
She pauses.
“Of course. Are you ok though? What happened?”
I sniff hard and climb into my car, twisting the key in the ignition.
“Yeah, I just need to see you, right now.”
“Ok, drive carefully Nick.”
I don't even remember the drive, it was a blur, the words that my dad spat at me are spinning around in my mind like a scratched record.
Lois’ dorm door swings open and she stands there, still in her workout clothes, hair damp and bundled up into a bun.
The moment my eyes land on her the fire sizzles out and I practically collapse into her arms.
She holds me tight, fingers running through my hair soothingly as I let the silent tears fall onto her shoulder.
Lois is my peace, my silence, like when you drive under a bridge during a thunderstorm.