Chapter 68 #3
I didn’t give her another chance to come back into my life, wanted her as far away from this house as possible, which was why I turned away, stepped back into the hallway, and closed the door.
Tell Siya The Truth
Mr. Kamera
I kept turning the whiskey glass Tony had left behind after our conversation, staring into the flames. A habit that had always calmed me, ever since the first moment I’d started doing it.
It was as if secrets lay within the flames, calling out to me. Almost as if someone had buried some of my fondest memories there. Memories that refused to die.
Someone knocked tentatively on my door, and I waited until Lara entered my study and closed the door behind her.
Remorse lay in her doe-like eyes, stirring a deep sense of care within me.
I hadn’t spoken to her again, had wanted to give her time, grateful that she’d come to me after all.
“I’m sorry…”
“You did nothing wrong,” I interrupted her and looked back into the flames. “She’s the woman who gave birth to you. I should have known that sooner or later you’d want to get in touch with her and meet her.”
“I promise you. She didn’t try to turn me against you.”
I rose from my chair and walked over to the bookshelf where the authors I looked up to for years were shelved. However, the works of the most important one were missing.
One day, she would get an entire shelf dedicated to her.
Even if our paths were to part, I would collect every one of her books, devour her words, if that were the closest I could ever get to her.
Between her lines, I would search for her, determined not to miss a single fleeting hint of her.
And every single drop of her ink, no matter how small, would have to be enough to keep me alive.
“We just kept meeting up for coffee, talking, and she invited me shopping…”
“I don’t want to know what the two of you do or what you talk about. You’re an adult. And you can decide for yourself what’s good for you.” I shoved both hands into the pockets of my light gray plaid pants. “There’s just one thing I ask of you.”
She chewed on her lower lip, looking at the floor. A habit she fell into whenever she regretted saying something. To this day, I wondered who had made her feel that way. That's how she’d been ever since she’d been friends with that blonde girl I now always saw near Brittany.
“The fact that Tony knew showed me there’s a barrier between us.” She looked up. “You can always talk to me. About anything. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I won’t judge you, because I want what’s best for you.”
It took a moment, then she nodded.
“Okay”
My heart did a relieved little leap.
“Dad?”
I nodded, trying to interpret her hesitation.
“Mom leaving you was your third-biggest win.”
Oh. Great.
How could I have forgotten that her room was right above the front door?
“What was your second-biggest?”
I gave her a reassuring smile.
“You, Pumpkin.”
It wasn’t until the words came out of my mouth that I realized what an idiot I was.
Secrets and Lies
Atli ?rvarsson
Lara held my gaze as panic broke out inside me. Panic that I was struggling with all my might to keep in check.
“What was your first-biggest?”
My lips felt glued shut.
That answer wasn’t meant for my daughter’s ears. It could instantly destroy everything I’d painstakingly built with her over the years.
I wanted to open my mouth, yet I didn’t even know what to say.
Lara raised a hand.
“Don’t tell me.”
I closed my mouth again, letting the panic rampage inside me.
She couldn’t know…
“Tell me instead if you’re serious about what you just said.”
She held my gaze, serious and determined, as if she intended to stare me into the ground.
“That barrier between us isn’t there for no reason.”
Tears filled her eyes as she stepped toward me.
“All these years…” She shook her head, contorted her face as if in pain, and something inside me tore seeing her like that. “...you’ve been keeping a goddamn gun?”
Nothing could have prepared me for those words.
Tony’s gun.
I could feel its weight. In the top drawer of my nightstand. It wasn’t loaded anymore. But it existed.
“For protection.”
“That” She pointed at me, taking another step toward me. “Exactly that is why I can’t take your request seriously, Dad.”
More tears welled up in her eyes, and she hastily wiped them away.
“Quill had that gun on her because you told her the truth.”
The panic returned, intensifying.
My heart was racing.
“Why can’t you do that with me? I’m your daughter.”
A tear managed to escape her eye.
Shit.
What had I done?
She must have put two and two together. Or Quill had told her where she’d found it. More than that…
But that seemed to be all she’d told Lara. Otherwise, my daughter would have already moved out and cut off contact with me.
“I don’t want you to see me weak, Pumpkin.”
Exactly what I was failing at right at that moment, as my voice broke and tears – which I had always tried to hide from Lara – came to the surface.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” she whispered, her voice breaking as well.
The truth hurt, but I had to say it. Lara knew too much.
“That you’ll become like me.” I swallowed. “Miserable.”
Lara looked at me desperately, and I wanted to step toward her.
“Lara, I…”
She staggered back, and I stopped automatically.
“No.” She raised both hands, but let them drop again immediately. “I need time. A lot of time.”
I nodded, a sense of loss in my chest.
“And I think it’s time that I ask something of you.” She stared at me intently. “That you come to me when you’re ready to talk. And that you talk then. And tell me everything.”
Her words were like the push of a button. And suddenly, all the despair that Tony and Monica had made me suppress came crashing down on me.
Lara left me, wished me good night, and I couldn’t even tell if I’d said it back.
All I knew was that I had failed.
I was miserable. And now Lara knew it.
In the world of masks,
you can’t survive without one,
the man said to the boy and pressed
a paper mask into his hands.
The boy folded it into a paper crane,
whereupon the man gave him a stone mask.
– Leaking Batteries Diary