Chapter 28
Dash
I raise my phone, displaying Mila on the camera in her art room.I ’ ve been well acquainted with self-hate for many years now. The feeling is stronger, but it also seems diminished.
How can that be?
How can I hate myself but feel so content at the same time?
This is the new normal.
I ’ ll never let her go now. Not after that…whatever that was. It wasn ’ t fucking, nor was it a show of my love for her.
It was…us: crude, filthy, painful, yet healing.
I ’ m surprised Mila went to class. But like any seasoned fox, she knew winter was coming, braced for the cold harshness of the wild that would burn her fur; she knew how to survive till spring kissed the air and warmed her skin. She picked herself up, painted on a face that wasn ’ t happy nor broken, and joined the party.
She ’ s talking less with the other students. That fucker Blaze has tried to make her laugh a few times, and she does, but it ’ s fake.
I know where her mind is because I own her thoughts.
Lowering the phone, I find my fingers pressing a contact they never freely call. “ Son?” My dad replies. I ’ m shocked he calls me son and not the spawn of Satan instead.
I hold the phone to my ear, unsure why I called him. He almost sounds happy that I made a move this time.
“ Do you still think about her?” I let it slip, slumping into the desk in the empty classroom. After Mila left, I went straight back to the sculpture class. I took a picture of her nail marks on the wall, then used a chisel to etch them off.
Her weakness is mine alone to see, harbor, and keep safe.
I sat at this desk, staring at the wall, at the ghostly memory of us, while I watched her on the camera in the classroom next door.
Dad clears his throat as if forming the letters on his tongue is utter agony he has to prepare himself to endure. “ Your mom?”
“ Yes, my mother, or are you fucking someone else?” I snap, unearthing so much buried anger between us.
“ I married your mother and will die with her being my one and only.”
Wow, it seems Dad and I are more alike than I can verbally admit.
“ What ’ s the matter?”
Glancing at the wall, I see the chipped marks where her fingers once were. “ Why did you pick Mila?”
“ She was a good fit.” His replies come too fast.
“ Was it you or the person Greg mentioned who made that suggestion?”
Hesitation, “ Don ’ t go there, son.”
“ Why?” I sit up and lean my elbows on the desk.
“ Because you ’ re not ready yet. I…” What are you so scared of? You never hesitate! “ I know you won ’ t agree, but everything I have done was in order to keep you safe.”
“ Was that what you told yourself when you shipped me off to Initiation 101? Did you sleep soundly? I didn ’ t,” a bitter laugh slips free, “ not after they taught us how to torture people.”
“ That…shit…” a heavy sigh of regret fills the phone. “ that wasn ’ t my doing.” He whispers quickly, as if he ’ s scared of being caught.
The great Marcus King is scared.
“ Whose was it?”
He ’ s been silent for so long that I have to check and see that he didn ’ t hang up. “ I can ’ t tell you that. I told you too much already.”
“ Figures.”
“ Son,” he calls out in desperation, “ I lo—”
On no, we ’ re not saying those four letters after all these years.
Fuck that.
I interrupt him, “ Why did you marry Mom? Did my grandfather arrange it?”
A disappointed sound echoes through the line. “ No,” Dad replies, “ Your grandfather didn ’ t arrange it. I married your mother because I loved her.”
“ But you ’ re forcing me to marry someone I don ’ t love.”
Dad snorts, “ The contract always had a clause. If you and Mila didn ’ t get along, it would have been called off when you were in high school.”
I grab the edge of the desk, knuckles white. “ We didn ’ t get along.”
She could have been free of me…
“ Dash, I had people watching you. I know you and Mila got along too well.”
“ Stay away from her!”
Dad laughs, “ I know the feeling, son, that sickness in your belly. Needing to know where she is at all times. It never gets better, not even now, after your mom passed. I still wake up searching for her. I find my feet numb after having run to her grave. I ’ m sorry. It ’ s genetically engraved in us. Kings take all. We don ’ t know subtle love, only all-consuming.”
“ I hate you!”
“ I know.” He sighs, “ Do you tell her that too?”
“ Stay the fuck out of my life!”
“ So you do...” he conveys disappointment through another sound.
“ You want my advice?”
“ No,” I grumble.
“ You called me,” Dad responds. “ Love every moment you have with her. Cherish the good and bad because one day, that ’ s all we have. Memories, nothing more, and a chasm less. Good night, my son.”