A beast.
His every move and cry was like some animal that had just been rudely awakened from a deep sleep. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his shirt strained with every movement like it was going to tear. His breathing grew heavy, so heavy that it clawed at me. For a second—just an instant—he met my terrified eyes, but he did not recognize me.
There was no pity, no feeling.
There was nothing. Just rage and darkness. Disillusionment and anguish. A lie over twenty years in the making that was now killing him.
“Out!” he shouted again before continuing to smash everything still intact. The room was soon unrecognizable; there were shards of crystal everywhere, dents and smears all over the walls, and the floor was covered in discarded food and broken bottles. No one dared to stop him; no one even dared to get close to him. Not even Logan, who had pressed himself into a corner with his sister, holding his hands over her ears to shut out the sounds of destruction.
Neil’s destruction.
“You have to get out! All of you, get out of my life!” he continued to shout in the grips of his fury.
John stared at him, stunned—he had never seen this part of his son before.
“Get out…you have to get out…” Neil repeated under his breath. He rubbed his temples like a madman. Veins stuck out starkly from his tensed neck, and he was covered in sweat. He paced back and forth over the shards of glass, which crackled underneath his shoes.
“Go away…” he muttered to himself over and over again. Then, as if he’d had some bizarre epiphany, he turned around and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Driven by foolish bravery and a determination not to lose him, I ran after him. I found him in his room, somehow even more furious. He flung open drawers and closets, tearing out his belongings and stuffing them in an open bag on the bed.
“What’s going on, Neil? What are you trying to do?” I said as I walked into his room. I had abandoned healthy fear, common sense, basic logic—everything.
He could have turned his anger on me, but I didn’t care about that in the moment.
I wasn’t just going to stand there and watch him walk out of my life.
“Get out,” he said in a furious mutter. He looked shell-shocked, incapable of reason, and destroyed. Completely destroyed.
“Do you really want to leave?” I said to his back, murmuring through my tears.
How could I ever accept the idea of only seeing him in my dreams? Of feeling him only through my memories? There was no amount of distance that could keep me away from him.
I drew in breath through his mouth.
It was my heart that beat in his chest.
How could I let him go?
Without even glancing at me, Neil grabbed his car keys, slung his bag over one shoulder and shoved me aside roughly as he passed. My hip hit a sharp corner of his desk, and I gritted my teeth against the pain, but I recovered quickly.
I raced out of the room after him. Neil was fast and determined, I had to run to catch up to him. He went thundering down the stairs, his feet pounding the floor like he wanted to destroy every part of that house. He threw the front door wide open with a sharp, decisive movement.
“Please, no! Wait! Think about this!” I clutched one powerful arm, trying to hold him back, but he jerked himself free, sending me tumbling to the floor. I felt a sharp shock to my shoulder when I landed, and I gasped in pain. My breath was ragged with fear that I would not be able to keep him there, with me. I looked up at him, searching for recognition, trying to create some kind of connection with that honey gaze that now watched me intently from above.
But he had fallen deep into the dark.
All my pleas would be wasted.
“Quit looking at me like that; it’s over. This was always going to happen anyway. Ask your mother about it if you want to know more…” He smileda cruel smile, all icy calm. I sucked in a breath as though he’d just put a blade through my chest. And he didn’t say anything else before walking out the door and slamming it behind him so hard that the walls shook.
Those were the last words I’d ever hear from his lips.
“Where did he go? He shouldn’t drive like that,” said Logan, from behind me. He helped me up to my feet, but I wasn’t processing anything.
My vision was blurry with tears; my whole body was trembling…
A piece of my soul had been torn away. Neil had cruelly ripped it out of me and taken it along with him.
“He’s gone,” I said in an incredulous whisper.
