Crashed (Driven, #3)(65)
“You say she’s not going to leave you when things get tough, son, but your actions are telling me something completely different. And yet you didn’t see her fighting for you every damn day you lay in that hospital bed. Every damn day. Never leaving. So that leads me to believe this little dilemma you have here isn’t about her at all.”
Every part of me revolts against the words he says. The words that said by anyone else would have me ready to rage, but respect has me holding back from yelling at the man who’s words are hitting a little too close to home.
“It’s about you.” The quiet resolve in his voice floats out in the room and slaps me in the face. Taunts me to take the bait, and I can’t hold back anymore.
And I don’t want to do this any more than I want to spend another night without Rylee in my bed. Looking too close causes dead ghosts to float to the goddamn surface, and I don’t have any more room for ghosts because my closet’s already full of f*cking skeletons.
But the match is lit, gasoline thrown. Fire inside f*cking ignited and all of the frustration and uncertainty and loneliness from the past week comes to a head, explodes inside of me. I wear a hole in the goddamn floor pacing as I try to fight it, try to rein it in, but it’s no use.
“Look at me, Dad!” I shout at him while he perches on the couch. I hold my hands out to my side, and I hate myself for the break in my voice, hate myself for the unanticipated show of weakness. “Look what she did to me!” And I don’t have to explain who she is because the contempt dripping from my voice explains enough.
I stand there arms out, blood pumping, temper raging, and he just sits there, calm as can f*cking be and smirks—f*cking smirks—at me. “I am, son. I look at you every day and think what an incredible person you are.”
His words knock the wind out of my sails. I yell at him and he comes back at me with that? What kind of game is he playing? Fuck up Colton’s head more than normal? Shit, I hear the words but don’t let them sink in. They’re not true. Can’t be. Incredible and damaged don’t go together.
Incredible can’t be used to describe a person that tells the man molesting them that you love him, whether the words are forced or not.
“That’s not f*cking possible,” I mutter into the silence of the room as vile memories revive my anger, isolate my soul. I can’t even meet his eyes because he might see just how f*cked up I really am. “That’s not possible,” I repeat to myself, more emphatically this time. “You’re my dad. You have to say that.”
“No, I don’t. And technically, I’m not your dad, so I don’t have to say anything.” Now that stops me dead in my tracks … brings me back to being a scared kid afraid to be sent back. He’s never said anything like this to me before, and now I’m f*cking freaked out about the direction this conversation has taken. He stands and walks toward me, eyes locked on mine. “You’re wrong. I didn’t have to stop and sit with you on the doorstep. I didn’t have to take you to the hospital, adopt you, love you …” he continues feeding into every childhood insecurity I’ve ever had. I force myself to swallow. Make myself keep my eyes locked on his because all of a sudden I’m f*cking scared as shit to hear what he has to say. The truths he’s going to admit. “… but you know what, Colton? Even at eight years old, scared and starving, I knew—I knew right then the amazing person you were, that you were this incredible human being I couldn’t resist. Don’t you walk away from me!” His voice thunders and shocks the hell out of me. From calm and reassuring to angry in an instant.
I stop in my tracks, my need to escape this conversation that’s causing so much shit to churn and revolt within me begging me to keep walking right on out the door to the beach below. But I don’t. I can’t. I’ve walked away from every f*cking thing in my life, but I can’t walk away from the one person who didn’t walk away from me. My head hangs, my fists clench in anticipation of the words he’s going to say.
“I’ve waited almost twenty years to have this conversation with you, Colton.” His voice is calmer now, steadier, and it freaks me out more than when he rages. “I know you want to run away, walk out the f*cking door and escape to your beloved beach, but you’re not going to. I’m not letting you take the chickenshit way out.
“Chickenshit?” I bellow, turning around to face him with years of pent up rage. Years of wondering what he really thinks of me coming to a head. “You call what I went through the chickenshit way out?” And the smirk on his face is back, and even though I know he’s just goading me, trying to provoke me so I take the bait and get it all out, I still take it. “How dare you stand there and act like even though you took me in, it was easy for me. That life was easy for me!” I shout, my body vibrating with the anger taking hold, the resentment imploding. “How can you tell me I’m this incredible person when for twenty four years you’ve told me a million goddamn times that you love me—LOVE ME—and not once have I ever said it back to you. Not f*cking once! And you’re telling me you’re okay with that? How can I not think I’m f*cked up when you’ve given me everything and I’ve given you absolutely nothing in f*cking return? I can’t even give you three f*cking words!” When the last words leave my lips I come back to myself and realize I’m inches from my dad, my body shaking with the anger that’s eaten me whole for a lifetime as tiny flecks of it are being chipped away from my hardened f*cking heart.