“I wanted to…” I moved toward him, chafing my hands together because they were still cold. “I wanted to talk to you,” I finished, closing the distance between us. Matt furrowed his brow and then stepped toward me looking agitated. He cupped my face in his hands and stared at me, unspoken hurt clear in every line on his face.
“I am…trying to protect you,” he said before I could say anything more. He stared into my eyes. “You are my daughter. And you’ve completely fallen for a guy who is only going to bring you pain. Maybe he already is,” he added wretchedly. “I knew you two were still seeing each other, but I was in denial. He’s never here, and it worried Mia at first. She thought he’d gotten caught up in another one of his messes, but then, thanks to Logan, we found out he’d actually been going to Detroit all the time to see you…” he said bitterly.
“I’ve always made my own decisions when it comes to my life. And you haven’t really been a part of my life for the past twenty-one years, so you can’t just come in and play the concerned father now,” I shot back irritably, pulling myself away from his touch. Matt kept his hands suspended in the air, shocked at my response.
“I can’t stay out of this, Selene. Not when my daughter gave her virginity to my partner’s son. Not when my daughter continued to sleep with him under my roof, completely betraying the trust I’d placed in her. Not when my daughter is choosing to destroy her own life chasing after a seriously disturbed boy with mental problems. You don’t know him, Selene.” Matt’swhole affect changed, and he started raising his voice, one hand clenching into an angry fist. Surprised by this sudden shift, I took a few steps back.
“I know everything. I know about Kim, about the abuse, about the psychiatric treatment—”
“Did you know he abruptly stopped treatment three years ago against Dr. Lively’s advice?” Matt cut in. “Did you know that he’s supposed to be on medication but refuses to take it? Did you know that his psychiatrist is in constant contact with Mia, asking her to get her son under control before he hurts himself or someone else? Did you know about all of that?” he burst out furiously.
His words froze me where I stood. I felt like I was going to cry, my throat tightening around a knot of emotion, but I worked hard to breathe through it and keep a clear head.
“And do you know what he does when you’re not around? You’ve known him for how long? A few months, Selene? I’ve known him for a good four years now!” he said firmly. “And I can assure you—I know a lot more about him than you do.” He looked at me, his eyes oil-dark as he hammered in his point. I was struck silent again, confused and stunned by what I was hearing.
Matt saw that and took the opportunity to pile on.
“When I look at you, I see Scarlett all over again,” he said softly. “That girl cared so much for him, and at first, Neil liked her a lot…” And there she was again, the famous Scarlett Scott, daughter of officer Roger Scott. The one who was still a mystery to me, though apparently not to anyone around me.
“That girl followed him around like a puppy for a year. She put up with everything, accepting anything Neil threw at her. He would undoubtedly tell you she was crazy, but he’s the one who made her that way.”
I looked Matt solidly in the eye as I swallowed that bitter pill.
“Neil isn’t evil, but his brain doesn’t work the way others do. His reality isn’t the same as ours, Selene. He sees Kim in every woman he meets because she’s always in his head. He does to women what Kim did to him. He manipulates them, he brainwashes them, he uses them, and then he throws them away. Not out of malice, but because there’s something broken inside him, a trauma that he hasn’t resolved. Mia has gotten so many callsfrom Dr. Lively. He’s worried because Neil hasn’t made any progress in years. The whole situation is very delicate, and his ability to manipulate others has only grown. He should be on consistent medication to help him control his outbursts, his impulsive behavior, and his unstable personality. Neil isn’t like Jared; he isn’t like any other guy you’ve ever known. I only want what’s best for you. And the best thing for you is to get far away from him.” Matt placed his hands on my shoulders as my head spun. I swallowed painfully, like my throat was full of thorns. It wasn’t anything new to me, but hearing it from my father was different somehow.
“Did he…love Scarlett?” I ventured.
“No, definitely not.” Matt shook his head as though what I’d said was patently ridiculous. “He’s never loved any woman; I don’t think he’s even capable of it. What I do know is that he feels a powerful physical attraction toward his lovers, especially the blonds. He certainly felt that for Scarlett. Neil hates talking about her because he knew he made some serious mistakes with her. He tries to justify what he did by blaming her, saying she was obsessed and too in love with him. But when she would come over here and go up to his room, he definitely didn’t have any problems…” he trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Sleeping with her,” I finished for him, staring into the middle distance.
“Yes.” Matt nodded. “He never turned her down. She always thought it meant that there might be a future for them, and she started going to more and more extreme lengths because of it. Sometimes, she’d wait outside the front door all night while he was out with his friends or lovers. Other times, she’d even…” He sighed, licking his lips uncomfortably. “She’d self-harm in the hopes of receiving just a little bit of love from him, like he’d led her to believe…”
I felt like I was taking gut punch after gut punch, and I didn’t have the capacity—or the will—to fight back.
These details were new to me. Neil had never told me.
“This is all just a game to him, Selene. Please don’t put your trust in him,” Matt went on. “Please don’t let him draw you in and trap you, or eventually, the same thing that happened to that poor girl will happen to you. You could lose yourself completely in him, and he’ll just move on to the next girl. Firstit was Scarlett, who tried and failed to save him. Now, there’s you, and after you, there’ll be another girl and another one and on and on…” he said with a sigh of exhaustion.
I looked at him uncertainly. I wriggled away from his hands that had been holding my shoulders so tightly, feeling like I might be sick at any moment.
“Neil…” I managed. “Neil…is sincere with me. He’s himself with me,” I said in a bewildered whisper. Who was I really trying to convince, my father, who was staring at me like I’d lost my mind, or myself?
Maybe Ihadlost my mind.
“He isnothimself when he’s with you, and that’s exactly the problem,” Matt said softly. “Think about it, Selene. How did this so-called relationship of yours start?” He looked deeply into my eyes, probing for doubts. “It was a way for him to amuse himself. He lured you in, and you got rid of Jared. Not because you wanted the relationship to end, but because Neil made you do it. I know that he got in your head and convinced you to give him what he wanted, no matter how dirty or wrong it felt. Isn’t that right?” he asked, troubled. I took another step back, shaking my head no. “And what happened after you dumped Jared? Did Neil quit sleeping with other women? Did he enter into a real relationship with you? No,” he said tightly, while I just stood there motionless, listening. “He’s never going to do it, Selene. He’s never going to start something real with you. He’ll just keep you dangling on a string until the day he inevitably cuts it. And he will cut it, Selene. Then you’ll fall, devastated and still in love with him, and he’ll move on to the next Scarlett so he can play another round of his game. And that will keep happening over and over again until he actually heals, until he gets help for his problems. He doesn’t need a woman, Selene; he needs a goddamned psychiatrist to assess him. He needs medication; he needs treatment. He doesn’t need romantic love. You have to understand that. I need you to understand.” He raised his voice, taking me by the shoulders again and giving me a shake. By that point, I was in a fugue state.
I felt like I’d been transported to a bewildering, undefined other world.
Matt might have been right, or he might have been a skillful manipulator who was using his knowledge of Neil’s past to freak me out. He wanted toinject doubt into what I thought I knew; he wanted to taint it with his own disparaging beliefs about Neil.
At the end of the day, I had never been able to completely trust my father before, and this wasn’t going to be the one time that I did.
“I… I gotta go…” I muttered, turning toward the door. I rubbed my forehead, which was throbbing. I felt a tremendous migraine coming on, and I didn’t even have my pain meds with me. My doctor told me that I was recovered and that the headaches would become more and more infrequent, except when I was experiencing anxiety and stress. Lately, that felt like all I was experiencing.
“Selene!” Matt called after me.
I walked out of the house and strode over to the pool house. It was insane to want to seek refuge in the arms of the same person everyone was warning me off from because he was apparently so dangerous. And, of course, Neil’s instability sometimes made me afraid, but I knew that he would never hurt me. Not if he could help it. And I couldn’t abandon him now when he’d finally started opening up to me and allowing me to support him a little. He was slowly putting more trust in me, giving me a little bit more of his soul.
