Maybe you will someday.
I smiled. “Yeah. You were right. I get it now.”
Zagan’s teasing smirk softened. “I knew you would. You were never a monster like Isesu and Akhom said. I was just hoping someone would come along to pull you out of that well like my sparrow dug me out of the dark coffin. I’m happy for you, man.”
Did I still believe I was a monster? Yes. There was no changing the fact that I was a demon and would always lean into sin and the darker side of morals and life. But I didn’t struggle over that fact anymore. That was something Serenity had helped me with. She had no idea that while I watched her learn how to embrace herself, I had been learning to do the same.
So yes, I was a monster, a demon.
But I washerdemon.
And there wasn’t anything else I’d rather be.
Chapter 41
Serenity
“ARE YOU REALLY DOING THIS?” my dad asked slowly, a forlorn expression deeply etched into the lines of his face.
My shift was over in ten minutes, which meant I only worked for this man for a handful more of minutes. It was almost over. This tie to a job and people who held me back was truly almost gone. But with that last stretch of time remaining, I was faced with this final battle—my Dad and step-mom.
Dad sat in his chair behind his polished desk while his flawless wife perched on the armrest of that chair. They stared at me like I’d lost my mind for thinking I could walk away from this business and toward a career I’d chosen for myself.
“I am,” I finally answered him, a rush of pride flowing into my words. “I’m going to be a fulltime author now.”
Scarlett sighed and shook her head. “You really want to resort to a life of mockery and misfortune? So you’ve made a bit of money in the last few weeks. That isn’t going to last, Serenity. I swear, instead of maturing with age, you get even more childish in your way of thinking. You aren’t seeing the bigger picture and thinking clearly about your future. What about your father and his business? What about your responsibility to him and this family?”
I didn’t look at the woman as she spoke. My eyes stayed locked on Dad’s gray ones, so much like my own. I smiled softly.“Mom used to tell me how much we looked alike. She said I had my daddy’s eyes. I was his little mini me. I was his most precious.”
Dad’s eyes tightened, and a flicker of hurt darted across them. A sudden spike of unease filled the air, but it wasn’t from me, for once. It was fromthem.
“I still remember,” I said slowly, “how you used to pick me up and spin me around the room. I still remember how you’d pick me up when I fell and dust off my scraped knees. I still remember how you used to tell me my smile would live with you in your memories forever, making even the hardest of moments easier to get through.”
Dad opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. He just stared at me.
“My smile,” I mused somberly. “It’s sad that the thing you used to love the most became so unfamiliar to you that you couldn’t even tell how broken it was. How much of a lie it was.”
“What has gotten into you?” Scarlett asked, her worried gaze bouncing between me and Dad. She placed her hand on Dad’s back and leaned in closer to him. “Where is all of this coming from? What—”
“I wanted to die,” I told Dad flatly.
His eyes widened, and his face went white. “Wh—What?”
I cracked a smile. “Yeah. I figured you didn’t notice. You never noticed the bruises your wife left, nor the wounds I gave myself to smother the pain that came with being alive.”
“You’re crazy!” Scarlett shouted in alarm. Like a perpetual damsel, she leaned into her husband. “Darling, I told you. She’s ill. She needs—”
“For you to shut the fuck up,” I snapped, finally looking at her. My voice had gone dangerously sharp, and my gaze narrowed with every bit of hatred I’d tried fighting for so manyyears. “That’s whatIneed. I need you to shut that stupid, useless mouth so I can talk to my dad for one fucking second.”
Scarlett’s mouth went agape, and even Dad had gone rigid, his brows in his hairline and mouth hanging wide.
I snorted a sardonic chuckle and shook my head. “I held it in. Ialwaysheld it in. And I nearly died because of it.” I met Dad’s eyes. “Your wife is a monster. But you know that, don’t you? It was just easier for you to pretend tonotsee what she did to me and how she made me feel. It was easier for you to pretend that she was the perfect wife, and I was just the crazy, lying, disappointment of a daughter. That way you could feel better about choosing her over me. That way you could sleep at night. I only realized this after I myself had become an expert at pretending. Pretending I was okay when I wasn’t.”
Dad’s gray eyes, a mirror of my own, pooled with tears, and they slowly slid down his pale cheeks. The sight made my heart break, but it wasn’t for him. Where were those tears when I’d come to him, seeking safety from his abusive lover? Where were those tears when I’d told him of my dream, only to be told I was a “disappointment?” Where was mydadwhen I needed him?
“I’m leaving here today,” I told them. “I am starting my life, my way, and I’m doing it with people I love. With people who love me.”
Faces flashed in my mind. Iyla, Addie, and Harper appeared with their faces lit up in laughter as we sat around each other’s rooms. Penelope and Franklin filled my head, their tan bodies nestled in my arms or running around as we played in the yard. Dante outshone them all, though, his signature smirk softened by a tenderness we shared, wrapping around my head and heart with his overwhelming support. These people were my family. These were the ones who saw and loved me for who I was. And because of them, I was okay letting go today. I was okay walkingaway from the man who should’ve been, but failed to be, the one always on my side.
