Like a fatal car crashthatyoucouldn’t look away from,eventhough you knew the scene would haunt you every time you closed your eyes.
There wasn’t a single part of methatdoubted her. Maybe it was gut instinct. Maybe it was the resignation in her tone as she finally purged herself of the secret she’d kept for ten years. Maybe it was the way she stared vacantly at nothing as if she’d been pulled back to theverymoment my father pinned her down.
Maybe it was the rip in her topthatindicated he had tried to attack her again.
My father.
A rapist.
The man I looked up to and aspired to be like.
A dirty fucking rapist.
“Say something.”Long after silence had descended, the soft tones of a delicate voice reached me through the thick black cloud hovering over me, casting me in endless darkness.
‘I need a minute,’I replied. Although I wasn’t sure the words actually left my mouth, they were lodged somewhere inside, among the hurt, the pain, the fury.
The betrayal.
Not Kiera’s betrayal, though.
My father’s.
She reached out and laid her hand on top of mine.“Jackson, please.”
The black cloud lifted in an instant, the open-plan space of my family cottage coming back into focus as a million happy memories rushed back in.
The Christmas when my mom, dad, and me were snowed in, and we spent hours building a snowman family in the huge back yard, followed by endless board games as the fire crackled. The summer holidays where dad and I would paddleboard in the nearby lake.
In recent years, he and I would sit up well into the hours of the early morning, sipping whiskey and discussing the future of Legion.
Every memory now tainted.
I couldn’t breathe. The room was shrinking around me, stealing all my air and making my lungs constrict. I leaped from the couch, knocking Kiera’s hand from where it rested on mine as I bolted to the front door and yanked it open, throwing myself out into the cool night air.
Bile churned in my stomach, my eyes burning with tears desperate to fall and release the agony coursing through me. I stumbled down the stairs, running over to the wooden carport my dad and I had spent time building together when I was seventeen.
Weeks after he raped Kiera.
I almost made it to the carport before my body lurched. Hunching over, I expelled the contents of my stomach, narrowly avoiding puking on my sneakers, my tears falling free and blurring my vision.
When there was nothing else to bring up, I straightened, making out the carport through water-filled eyes. Like what had happened indoors, a flash of memories whizzed through my mind. My dad clapping me on the shoulder as we stared at the land where the carport would be, telling me he was excited for us to get started on building it together.
The conversation he tried to pull from me as we dug holes for the base, telling me he was concerned as to why I’d been withdrawn for the last few weeks. I didn’t tell him I was fighting an internal battle to find the fucker who had knocked Kiera up and murder the cunt.
If only I knewthenthatI was staring at the man who not only got her pregnant but also stole her innocence.
Before I knew it, my foot slammed against the side of the carport as I kicked it with every ounce of strength I had. The pain in my foot traveling up my leg barely registered as I kicked it again, and again, and again, until the wood cracked. And still I kept on kicking.
With a final kick, the wood splintered apart.
Just like my heart.
With my chest heaving from the sudden exertion, I stared at the damage I’d caused, wishing I had a fucking hammer so I could knock the whole thing down. An anguished sob echoed into the air, and it took several seconds to realize it had come from me.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, staring at the carport with a constant stream of tears sliding down my face and sorrow burrowing deep into my heart. In a way, it felt like I was grieving, like I’djustlearnedthatsomeone I loved with my entire being had died.
But in a way, Iwasgrieving. Grieving for Kiera and the life she never got to have. Grieving for the future we both lost.
