Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
The headlights from my truck cut across the dark yard as I pull into Dad’s driveway and park next to his truck. I’m not sure why I came here instead of going home, but even just seeing his truck is bringing me a sense of calm I think I need right now.
Even though I’m surprised at how well tonight actually went. I sat in my truck for way too long before I made myself go into the pub and meet Levi. And even then, I felt like I was going to lose control of my body, and I’d turn and leave before I even got to the table.
But… It was ok.
I knew we were going to end up talking about everything that happened between us.
It was going to come up at some point, and I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever.
I just had no idea how I was going to do it, and how I was going to get the words out.
But Levi did what he always did when we were younger…
he helped me. And somehow, I managed to give him pieces of what’s been sitting inside me. Which actually felt… good.
But some pieces are still locked away, refusing to budge. And I don’t even know what they are. There’s still so much I don’t understand, and it’s holding me back from moving forward to meet him.
But I want to get there. Why the fuck can’t I get there?
The rest of the night was ok, and it wasn’t completely awkward.
There were a lot of silent moments, and he seemed to be careful with his words when talking about his time away.
But I also asked about it. As much as it hurts to think about him loving a life that had nothing to do with me, I still felt a strange need to know more about it. And I don’t understand that either.
I get out of my truck and head inside the back door of the house, hearing the TV on in the living room as I close the door behind me. So I kick off my shoes and walk down the hall towards the sound.
Dad looks up from his seat on the couch when I enter the living room and smiles. “Hey, bud. I didn’t think you were coming down tonight.”
“Yeah.” I drop onto the other end of the couch, my eyes landing on whatever’s playing on the TV. “I was just on my way home.”
I feel Dad’s eyes on me, so I look over at him as he takes in my clean clothes with an eyebrow raised.
“What did you get up to?” he asks.
I bring my attention back to the TV and shift against the cushions. “Went out for a beer… with Levi.”
There’s a beat of silence before Dad lets out a soft, “Ah.”
But he doesn’t say anything else.
I keep my gaze on the TV, not even paying attention to it as thoughts swirl in my head, and I try to make sense of the confusion I’ve been feeling all night.
And the confusion I’ve been feeling my whole life.
The questions I always ask myself, but can never find the courage to ask anyone else.
Why am I like this? And why is it so hard to change?
“Why did you adopt me?”
The words are out of my mouth before I even realize what I said.
My heart thumps wildly as that question hangs in the air between us, but I just turn my head towards Dad and don’t even try to take it back.
Dad assesses me for a moment with a slight crease in his brow. “You know why.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. Mom couldn’t…” I trail off, shifting my gaze out the dark window behind him as I try to force the next question back down and lock it away again. But I can’t. It just continues to fight its way out, so I give in. “But why me? Why did you choose me?”
Dad reaches forward, grabbing the remote from the coffee table to turn the TV off. Then he leans back against the couch, turning to face me. “You’ve never asked this before.”
“I know,” I say, forcing myself to keep looking at him, and not look away. To show him I can handle this.
“You’ve made it pretty clear you didn’t want to know much about your adoption,” he adds carefully.
I swallow and nod. “I do now.”
Dad hesitates as he tilts his head and studies me for a moment. “Silas, where is this coming from?”
I turn my head to look out the window on the far side of the room, where I can see the faint glow from the windows of Levi’s house down the road.
“I want to know why someone would want me.”
I keep my gaze out the window, and I feel Dad shift on the couch as he stays silent a bit longer.
“I knew from the moment I saw your picture that you were my son,” he says eventually.
I bite the inside of my cheek and fight the emotion building inside me as I look back at him. He just watches me with a soft smile, and the easy look he always wears to show me he’s telling the truth.
“How?” I ask quietly.
He pulls a breath in and pauses, his blue eyes looking into mine like he’s trying to see how much of this I can handle.
But I need to hear it.
“You experienced a lot of trauma in your first couple years,” he says, and I see the pain in his eyes.
“We were told your story, and…” He looks away from me for a moment, slowly blowing out a breath before looking back at me with a slight shake of his head like he can’t go there.
“But after we heard all about you, and everything you’d been through, they showed us your picture.
And I saw the most beautiful boy staring back at me, with big hazel eyes and bright blond curls, and you were smiling.
Despite everything you’d been through, you wore this big, beautiful smile.
” His lips tilt into a soft smile of his own.
“I knew right then you were strong, and you were a force to be reckoned with in this world. And I felt a need to protect that, and to help you with the weight of everything you were forced to carry.”
My vision blurs as tears gather in my eyes, and I lower my gaze to my hands as I try to blink them away.
“And when we finally got to meet you…” He huffs a small laugh.
“That sealed it for us. We met at a park, and you were so scared. You just watched us from a distance, until you saw the toy tractor I brought. You didn’t have much language yet, but once you had that tractor in your hands, it was nonstop gibberish.
It was like you were trying to tell me everything about it.
You pulled me down into the sand and showed me how it moved and how it worked.
And when I told you about the tractors at home, and about the fields…
” He releases a breath, but I keep my eyes down as I hear it catch in his chest. “I felt so much excitement in you. Like you couldn’t believe a world like that existed.
And it felt like we were always meant to be together.
” He pauses for a moment. “I knew from that moment that I loved you, Silas.”
A tear slips free and falls onto my jeans, and I reach up to wipe my eyes.
I wish I could remember that part.
“You were, are, and always will be someone worth choosing,” Dad says. “You’re strong, stubborn in the best way, and a fighter. That’s why I, and so many people, want you.”
I pull in a hitched breath and shake my head. “Not everyone.”
Dad’s quiet for a moment, and the weight of Mom’s absence sits heavily between us.
“Not everyone knows how to stay when things get hard,” he says after a moment.
“And if they leave, it doesn’t mean you weren’t worth loving.
It means they couldn’t love you in the way you needed.
Your mom…” He releases a sigh. “She didn’t have the tools to be the parent you needed and deserved. And that’s on her. Not you.”
I nod, picking at the seam of the pillow beside me as I try not to think of her any more than I have to.
“And you have people in your life who really see you,” he continues. “Me, Papa, Mama, Rob, Peter, everyone on the crew… Levi.”
My eyes lift to land on him, and he tilts his head as he watches me.
“Is that why you’re asking?” he asks.
I nod, shifting my gaze back out the window towards his house down the street. “I’m scared.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I get that.”
A heavy sigh escapes me, and I bring my attention back to him. “I don’t.”
Dad just watches me for a long moment, then drops his gaze as he seems to think about something.
“What?” I ask. It looks like there's something he wants to say, but maybe doesn’t know how. And I need to know what it is.
He sighs, meeting my gaze again. “You know your system is hard-wired to expect people to leave.”
I nod, having heard that from my therapist over and over.
“Do you want to know why?”
My body freezes, but my mind swirls like a fucking tornado.
He has the answers. He knows why I’m like this…
He’s always known, and I’ve never wanted to know.
I know it has something to do with my biological mother, but I never wanted to know why she gave me up and never wanted me, and what she did to me.
But that’s because I always had something to keep me safe from it all.
I always had Dad. And I always had Levi.
But now, whatever it is… it’s keeping me from him.
So I need to know.
“Yes,” I say, looking right into Dad’s eyes and trying my hardest to keep my heart from beating right out of my chest.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and I can feel his hesitation as he chews his lip.
But eventually, he nods and releases a heavy breath.
“I’m not going to give you all the details, but… your biological mother neglected you,” he says carefully. “For your entire two years with her. She left you in your crib for hours at a time, sometimes for an entire day. When we got you, you didn’t even know how to be held.”
Ice slides through my veins as I stare back at him, and every muscle in my body tightens.
“No one responded to you when you needed them,” he continues, carefully observing me. “So your brain and your body learned to stay on and ready, at all times, just to survive. You… you never got the chance to experience safety when it’s the only thing you should have felt.”
My heart is beating so hard, it’s the only thing I can feel in my entire body. But I stay focused on Dad and try not to disappear. I need to hear this… I need to know this.
“When you came to us,” he says, “all of that didn’t just disappear because you were now in a safe home.
Your anger, your fear, your hesitation… it all transferred to your mom.
Because you had to protect yourself from being hurt again.
To you, she represented abandonment. And when she left, it just confirmed the fear you already had, that you weren’t worth staying for.
But Silas,” Dad shifts on the couch, moving a little closer to me, “I need you to understand that your mom leaving was not because of you. I know that belief has lived in you for a long time. But it was formed when you were just a baby trying to survive, and you learned to protect yourself before you ever knew what safety felt like. And that little boy is still in there… always afraid that he’ll be left in the dark again. ”
Hot tears blur my vision again, and I drop my gaze to my hands in my lap.
It hurts. It hurts so fucking much to hear this. Even though I knew I had trauma from my biological mom, and I knew I was taken away. I knew all my issues were because of this. And I knew it was going to be bad.
She didn’t want me and didn’t care about me. For two years I cried and no one came. And then the mom who chose me walked away too.
“I think when Levi moved,” Dad says gently, “a part of you saw that as a choice to stop loving you. Even if you never actually thought that, and you know that’s not true.
That part of you only heard that he was leaving and thought it was happening all over again.
Except this time… it was someone who never left you in the dark. ”
Something inside me suddenly snaps, and a sob breaks free from my chest.
Dad immediately shifts closer and pulls me into him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders to hold me tight as I cry. Heavy breaths catch in my chest and tears stream down my face as it feels like years and years of heartache were just uncovered, and I can’t keep up.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.”
Eventually, my tears slow enough for me to pull in a shuddering breath, and I try to pull myself back together enough to sit with all of this and really understand it.
Somehow, everything feels clearer and more confusing at the same time.
“Safe people will keep choosing you, no matter what,” Dad says. “And when they turn the light on, you don’t have to stay in the dark. You can choose them too.” He leans back just enough to look at me. “Is that something you want to do?”
I wipe the tears from my face and glance out the window, towards the faint glow of lights down the road.
“Yeah. I do.”