Chapter 29
Subconsciously, I think I’d always imagined my father as some kind of monster.
As I got older, the childish idea of a cartoon monster disappeared, and in my head he slowly turned into the kind that walks around in dirty wife beaters and constantly reeks of beer.
The kind of man who lived off fast food, stayed in some filthy little apartment, watched the same TV show every night, and was basically just unconsciously waiting for the day his liver finally gave out.
So when I found myself standing in front of a large white house with a perfectly kept green lawn on some expensive residential street, I was, to put it mildly, confused as fuck.
This house radiated warmth, and I could’ve sworn that if you closed your eyes, and if we’d been standing there in the afternoon instead of at night, you would’ve been able to hear children laughing somewhere.
It was the kind of place where nothing is out of place unless someone puts it there on purpose.
Zwierek let out a huffed breath next to me, not a laugh, just that small sound you make when you’re taking something in and don’t have anything smart to say about it.
“... Wow,” he said, almost under his breath.
Yeah.
Fucking wow.
I was looking at the windows with the warm yellow light on inside. You could almost pretend there was something normal happening behind them, dinner perhaps, a conversation, something ordinary. It didn’t sit right, not with what I knew, or what I thought I knew. His hand hit my back, once and firm.
“You ready?” I let that sit for a second before answering.
“I think I’m taking this one alone.”
He didn’t answer straight away. I could feel his eyes on me, and without even looking away from the house, I already knew the look he had in his eyes. Then he nodded.
“I’ll be around,” he said. “If you need me.”
I turned my head and met his eyes for a second, then nodded back, nothing more than that. I started walking. It felt longer than it looked. That was the first thing that got to me, I think. From where we stood, it hadn’t seemed like much.
Just a stretch of gravel leading up to a house that didn’t belong in the same category as the others we’d been in. But once I stepped onto it, once the sound of it started following me, it changed. Every step dragged a little, like something in me wasn’t keeping pace with the rest.
The gravel shifted under my weight in a way that made it impossible to move quietly.
Little cracks with every step. There wasn’t any wind, that’s something I remember clearly.
The air just sat there, in everything. No movement in the trees, no rustling, nothing brushing against the house or ground.
Even the leaves looked like they’d been placed perfectly instead of grown.
It made the whole place feel held in place, like it wasn’t supposed to change.
I became aware of my breathing halfway up the driveway.
It sounded way too loud compared to the stillness that existed around me.
Everything else felt contained, controlled, and then there was that, something I couldn’t regulate the same way.
The closer I got to the door, the heavier my steps became.
I don’t think I consciously slowed down, but my body lowered the pace enough for me to notice it.
I tried convincing myself it didn’t mean anything, that the floating feeling in my legs had to be caused by something else, anything other than the fact that within a few seconds I’d be standing face to face with half of my DNA.
It also fucked with my head that I’d spent my whole life imagining him as some lonely alcoholic, and now I was standing in front of this huge house that obviously belonged to people with money.
Suddenly I had no idea what I was supposed to expect anymore, and that also meant the speech I’d more or less prepared in my head was useless now.
I was walking into this completely empty-handed, without any kind of preparation, and somehow that made me feel more exposed than the nights with Krystyna ever had.
I dragged a hand over my face, trying to pull myself back into the physical world instead of staying completely trapped in my own head.
I grabbed onto whatever I could, focusing on the things I could actually see.
I told myself it didn’t mean anything, that I was just taking it in. Which was true, partially.
The grass along the edges had been cut recently. You could smell it faintly, that fresh, almost sweet scent that lingers for a while after. Someone cared about this place. That thought didn’t sit right, but it stayed there anyway.
My hand moved without much thought, brushing briefly over my lower back as I adjusted my shirt. The handle of the knife pressed lightly against my spine. Solid and real, exactly where I’d left it.
The house didn’t get bigger as I got closer, not in the way buildings usually do.
It just became more defined. The details started settling into place.
The edges of the windows, the lines in the wood, the way the light inside didn’t flicker or shift.
I caught myself looking at the windows again, trying to see through them.
You couldn’t, not really. Not from that angle.
Maybe if you stood there long enough, but I didn’t stop long enough for that.
I reached the steps and paused.
A hesitation that barely lasted long enough to fully register, but it was there and I noticed.
It fucking bothered me more than anything.
I took my first step onto the veranda leading up to the front door, and the first thing I noticed was that the wood beneath my boots didn’t give at all.
It didn’t make a single sound, and somehow that was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Old houses do that, even the well-kept ones. But this, nothing.
Just the dull, solid feeling under my boots like it had already adjusted to me before I got there.
The door was right in front of me now. Dark wood, smooth surface, no marks around the handle, no scratches from keys, no dents, nothing that suggested anyone had ever struggled with it.
It looked like something that always opened when it was supposed to. I stood there for a second.
There wasn’t anything running through my head in that moment. No plan, no replay of what I was going to say, it was like all the thoughts I’d had on the way to the door suddenly disappeared until there was nothing left except this strange stillness that somehow felt heavier and harder to accept.
Then my hand lifted and I knocked.
Three times.
The sound of my fist against the solid wood rang through my ears hard enough that it still felt there even after I lowered my arm again.
For a moment, everything seemed to stop.
I could’ve sworn time had decided to stand still and simply forgotten to include me in it.
The waiting didn’t exactly help the growing anxiety I could feel burning in my stomach either, and just as I was about to turn around and walk back the way I came, I heard footsteps coming from the other side of the door.
A few seconds later, the handle turned and the door opened.
For a second, nothing lined up in my head.
He stood there, filling the doorway without trying to.
Almost as tall as me, broad shoulders, solid frame, the kind of build that comes from consistency rather than effort.
Nothing exaggerated, but undeniable. His shirt was clean, proper.
It looked way too expensive in contrast to how I was feeling on the inside.
It was tucked neatly into black trousers, everything sitting exactly where it was supposed to, like he had somewhere to be even when he didn’t.
I noticed that before I looked at his face.
But then I did, and that’s where it shifted, because it was familiar.
Not in a vague way or in a “he reminds me of…” kind of way, no. It was specific.
The structure, the angles. The way his features sat on his face, if you stripped everything else away, if you removed the expression, the posture, the way he held himself, there was no missing it.
But it didn’t land the way I thought it would, because where mine holds tension, his didn’t.
There was something else there, something kind.
His eyes met mine. Dark brown and full of a warmth my eyes seemed to lack.
He didn’t say anything at first, neither did I.
And that shouldn’t have been what made it hard.
I had stood in front of people before, hurt them, watched them break.
Watched the exact moment something left their eyes and didn’t come back.
I never struggled with that part, not once.
But this, standing there, just looking at him with nothing happening, my head didn’t settle the same way.
It’s strange, the things that throw you off.
You’d think it would be the violence, wouldn’t you?
The blood, the aftermath, the parts you can’t take back, but no.
It’s this. Moments like that. Where nothing is happening and everything is still there anyway.
He just looked at me and I didn’t fill the silence. I think I was trying to place him.
My eyes moved over his face again, slower this time, like if I took it in properly, something would click into place and make it easier.
It didn’t, it just made it worse. Because the more I looked, the more obvious it became.
Not just the resemblance, not just the structure, we’ve already been over that.
It was smaller things. The way his brow shifted when he focused, the way his mouth almost moved like he was about to say something and then didn’t.
Familiar in a way that didn’t feel learned.
You ever get that feeling, little Ghost?
When something fits before you’ve decided it should? … yeah. He broke it. “Yes?”