Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
DOTTIE
I am absolutely fucking livid.
How fucking dare he do this to me, and to mum, and think he was going to fly under the radar. Did she know? Who the hell cares. This shit is ending tonight, whether I’m ready for it or not.
No one can say I didn’t try, but it fucking hurts just the same.
I read the paperwork over and over, trying to decipher if what I was reading was the truth, or if I was misunderstanding the contents. Besides a fatty liver and high blood pressure, my dad is fucking fine.
I don’t know why it surprises me that he lied to me, but somehow it hurts more than ever, especially when I continue siphoning through the endless paper in my mum’s drawer.
I’m not sure why I opened this one, but I felt compelled to.
Maybe she was sending me a sign, telling me not to continue falling for his bullshit.
Shuffling through the other paperwork I find more lies, going as far as mum being a carer for him for his “terminal illness” which his doctor signed off on.
None of it is making any sense, but the more I read through the paperwork, the more I come to realise the signatures aren’t the same. Scrunching up my face, I skim over the documents, finding exactly what I’m looking for, and it makes my blood boil.
Not only was he being fraudulent with the insurance company, but he was also pushing mum to get more money for what her father did to her, her even though he’s been dead for ten years.
The constant pain and memories she would have had to continue reliving must have been excruciating, and the fact that she isn’t here so I can apologise, or even hug her, hurts me more than I want to admit.
My dad is a lying fucking pig.
Slamming the draw shut, a syringe falls free, followed by another, and a choked sob escapes my mouth before I can stop it. She was using again, which means dad was too. I wonder what humiliating shit he made her do this time in order to get his next hit.
Closing my eyes, I force myself to stay here in the moment and not wander off aimlessly down the broken and decayed yellow brick road I once lived along. When I feel under control, I open my eyes, intent boiling my blood to octane levels, as I storm out of the room.
I can feel Damon and Arrie’s eyes on me, their energy like a lifeline to me that I hold onto as I force myself to confront my first love, other than my mother, the man who should have loved me back and should have shown me how a man should treat a woman, alas, I was cursed with a prick of a father with a chip on his selfish bloody shoulders.
I kick his foot, and he jolts awake, trying to focus his eyes on me .
“What in the actual fuck is this, dad?”
Propping himself up on his elbow and closing one eye, he squints at the papers in my hands, swaying on the damn couch he’s balancing on. It takes him a few seconds to latch onto what I’m holding, but I see the exact moment it registers.
He’s fucked up.
“What do – do you think you’re doing snooping around my shit, girl?”
“What’s going on here?” Damon questions, and I hear the undercurrent of rage he’s trying to tamper down.
“It’s none of your fuuuckking business, Woods! How about you worry about your kid, instead of screwing mine.”
I feel my face blanch, but it quickly turns hot when I see what my father is trying to do. Again. Take the attention away from him, by attempting to humiliate me once more.
Not today, Satan. Not to-fucking-day.
I put my arm out to stop Damon from stepping forward, and his hard chest hits my forearm. He inhales a deep breath before releasing it, placing his hand at the base of my spine in reassurance and understanding.
“Like you looked after me, dad? I call bullshit. Stop deflecting because if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on this minute, I will walk so fast out this door and never return.”
It’s a bluff of course. Once I find out his reasonings, I am out. There is nothing keeping me here and he’s betrayed, humiliated and lied to me for the last time. I’m sick of being his punching bag, and for somewhere for him to wipe his damn feet on.
“You – you need me!” he yells, sitting upright and lighting a cigarette.
“The fuck she does.” Arrie seethes, coming to stand beside me.
Her anger and frustration is palpable, and when she links her hand in mine for strength, my chest puffs out and the anxiety I was feeling bubbling beneath the surface dissipates into nothing.
“You fucking your cousin too? Figures. You are a slut, just like your mother.”
Before I realise what I’m doing, my hand connects with his face, the sound reverberating off the weatherboard walls, followed by a gasp and a dark chuckle beside me.
Arrie and Damon.
I hit my dad.
I know he’s going to blow his lid, but I’m not scared of him anymore.
“You’ve lied to me for the last fucking time, dad.
I am not a little girl anymore, and I have grown to find that I no longer need your approval, acceptance, or love.
You are a vile piece of shit. A waste of energy, but the worst thing out of all of this is, mum died protecting and loving you until she no longer could, and all you did was torment her. ”
I let out a bitter laugh.
“Did mum know that you weren’t sick, that you were deceiving her as well, so she wouldn’t leave you? Did she know the documents you showed her were forged?”
“You know nothing, you ungrateful bitch!”
I feel Damon move behind me, but I won’t allow him to get himself arrested for the sake of my piece of shit father.
“Damon, don’t. It’s what he wants. If you hit him now, then he will run to the cops, press charges and sue you for damages like he’s done in the past. My father is vermin who feeds and latches onto everything and anything if it benefits him. Don’t give him the ammunition he needs.”
“I’ll – I’ll sue you!”
“No, you won’t. These documents are coming home with me, and if you spread any more lies, I will hightail it straight to Constable Shane Elliot. He would be more than happy to throw the book at you.”
My dad’s eyes bug wide, realisation settling into his murky hazel eyes. The green has dulled around the irises, the pupil blown wide, but it’s the sadness that clings to the corners that has my chest caving.
Shaking out of the stupor he almost has me under, I step back from him, Damon’s wall of muscle moving with me. Swallowing, I feel the first tear escape with the knowledge of what needs to be done.
“I’ve always loved you, dad, but you didn’t love me back, not the way I needed. You hurt me, betrayed me, and used my feelings and emotions for you and mum against me, but I’m done, and I refuse to allow you to do it for a second longer.”
“I’m sorry. Dorothy, baby, don’t do this. Please.”
More tears cascade down my face, and I take another step away from my father, the melancholy poisoning the air we are all breathing in. It’s toxic of course, it always has been, and I know what follows after his apologies and pleading.
Anger.
I take another step back, putting more distance between us as I swipe the wetness from my face.
“Your secret is safe with me, dad, but it’s the last thing I will ever do for you.
Once I walk out this door and leave you all alone to drown in your own misery and filth, allowing you the reflection mum should have given you so many years ago, I will never step foot back in this house again.
Keep it, burn it to the ground, do whatever you want, because when you leave this earth as well, I don’t want it. ”
He sobs on the lounge, and he looks so small, something I would have never associated with him before. He looks… pathetic. It’s sad, really, but he did this to himself, allowing his de mons to suffocate and rule him. I won’t let mine do the same.
“I love you, dad, but I don’t have to live this life anymore. Goodbye.”
I barge past Damon and Arrie, anticipating the grief and anger I know that will follow. Stumbling out the front door, it slams closed as I hear the angry screams of nasty, pure hatred, followed by his anguish cries, pleading for me to come back, and not leave him like mum did.
I rush to the car, wiping the tears from my eyes, sobbing, strangled cries leaving my throat. The door hits the wall as I reach Damon’s car, and I turn back in time to see him and Arrie rushing down the stairs toward me, followed by my dad.
We lock eyes but we don’t say anything, both of us locked in this final bout of depression I fear neither of us will recover from.
Guilt resurfaces, the gravity of what I’m doing leaving me on the verge of a panic attack, but then I return back to the land of the living, the reality settling in, and I do the one thing I didn’t ever think I would…
I make guilt my friend.
Swallowing down my cries, I give my dad a small nod and a sad smile, turning away from him to open the truck door, his screams of pain and anguish freezing the blood in my body, but not my movements.
“Dorothy, bub, please! I’m sorry, I’ll change my ways, I promise I’ll get clean and show you the father I should have been to you!”
They’re empty promises, ones I’ve heard in the past, ones that had me clinging to hope. But hope is a dangerous thing, and it died with me a long fucking time ago.
Slamming the door closed, I refuse to look back, petrified the little girl inside of me might win out, and have me running back to comfort him. The pain is excruciating, like I’m cutting bone deep into my flesh, leaving it bloody and ragged, damaged beyond repair, and I guess it is.
His screams penetrate the truck when Arrie and Damon open the doors, and it drowns out when they close them, but it’s not enough to shut out his cries of affliction that reverberates within me.
My throat closes up, and tears stream steadily down my face as Damon starts the truck and pulls away from my childhood home for the last time, my father’s voice fading with the engine roaring.
We move further from the house… and I don’t look back.