Part 14 (1/2)

Tristan kept his hands firmly rubbing her back, pus.h.i.+ng into the strained muscles as she told her soul to him. She turned her face so he could see her eyes. ”He threw us out. Like we were trash. He just walked out. Never once looking back.”

He stared into her eyes. So dark and stormy and full of deep longing. For love, acceptance, understanding. ”You tend to talk about yourself like you're just that.”

”Trash,” she muttered softly.

He nodded slowly, holding her gaze in his. ”Yes, like you are trash that anyone at any time could just throw away. Even your own mom, you treat that way. I mean, as if you believe she would just throw you out too. You hide stuff from her, or at least that is what it seems, because you think if she finds out she'll just abandon you. That you are that easy to leave.”

”I... I know I'm not.”

”I know you intellectually know that. But I think inside, that's exactly what you think.”

She dropped her head to bury it back in the pillow, nodding her head up and down as she stretched her arms, flexing her shoulder muscles. ”He doesn't deserve it. That kind of power to make me feel that way.” She suddenly sat up, taking the pillow and wrapping it against her chest. She leaned her head down into it. Her nakedness was hidden, but how slight she was wasn't. How weak. How fragile. How strangely strong.

”But you do feel that way.”

She lifted her face off the pillow. There wasn't a tear even. Just a hollow, big-eyed gaze. ”Yes. I don't understand why though. You don't understand how everyone tried to help me. My mom, oh my G.o.d, she put us, me and Ally, before everything. My grandparents, and then even Donny's parents took us in as their own. And of course, there was Donny. He is my father now. I mean, he loves me. I know this... but... it's never enough. All of this, their love and support and care, is just never enough to fight off this deeper feeling inside of me.”

”This feeling that you're trash, that any of them, me now included, will leave whenever the mood strikes us, without any warning. Nothing might even be wrong. We all just might leave you and be gone. Poof. Into thin air.”

”Yes,” she said, her tone strangled. She sucked in a deep breath, her face bent down, and her hair falling over the sides of her face. He could just see her forehead, eyelashes, top of her nose, and chin. ”Pathetic, right? I mean, that doesn't happen. It's crazy to cling to this idea. They are all still there. Still loving me. But I won't let it be enough. I let him, that criminal, rule what I believe about people I know better. I just don't understand why I give him that power. Why I'm not stronger. Why I let him define me.”

”But it did happen to you, Kylie. Someone you loved, someone you trusted and relied on just willingly left you and disappeared one day. So no, really, it's not so crazy you believe this on a gut level... it happened to you.”

”Ally had the exact same thing happen to her and she doesn't carry it around like some kind of f.u.c.king excuse for being such a loser.”

”Ally... Ally... so perfect Ally. Yet, strangely you don't seem to hate her or even feel a huge amount of jealously of her. Ally isn't you. Maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe that's just the difference in your reactions. Doesn't mean either of you were right or wrong.”

”Ally cried and carried on. She was angry and horrible to Mom and everyone... She reacted. She was loud and vocal and let it out. I-I didn't really do anything. I cried maybe a handful of times that I can think of. I didn't talk about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I still don't. I just wanted to forget it. I wanted to not feel it. Maybe I don't feel things right, you know? Things happen. Bad things and I don't react. I shut down and.... and...”

”What?” he prodded gently.

”I don't heal. I just get sadder and more pathetic. I just don't understand, why don't I react? To anything?”

He leaned forward and took her hands in his. She stared down at their linked hands. Hers were inert in his for a prolonged moment before her fingers suddenly grasped his own tightly. Almost fiercely. ”I think...” he started softly, ”that hating yourself is a pretty strong reaction.”

Her head nodded. Her shoulders slunk down. ”I guess so. Do I disgust you?”

”No.” He took both of her shoulders in his hands. Her bones protruded and he let his thumbs gently rub along the ridge of them where they tucked into her neck. ”No, you don't disgust me.”

”Why? You have a thing for skeletons?”

”No. Never once before. But I can have a thing for you. And I can't be disgusted by what I like about you.”

”Why would you even want to have s.e.x with me?”

”I can have s.e.x with your body because I find you desirable. Not because you're so skinny, but neither does it repel me from wanting to. Okay? My reaction to you isn't the problem.”

”I don't know why I won't cry when anyone else would cry. I don't. Maybe I'm a sociopath or emotionally crippled or something.”

”Maybe it's just not your way. And I think you've convinced yourself that how Ally reacts is the way. She works through her feelings, lets them out from what you describe. You internalize it all. It doesn't mean you don't have them.”

”They all want things of me I could never deliver. From the time Micah left, they wanted me to cry and carry on. I was supposed to be angry and express that. Mom was always, always asking, 'Are you all right?' 'Come on honey, talk to me, and tell me what's going on in that head of yours.' It was the right thing to ask me, as my mother, but it just... I couldn't ever find the words or the anger they wanted out of me. I couldn't answer them how they wanted. It made me incredibly sad for many years. I told them that. But they wanted more from me. I couldn't express it all enough for them. I thought I did express it and they would then want more. More talking, more tears, more feelings. And I couldn't produce it. I was just...”

”It didn't make you wrong, Kylie, to need to just feel sad. I'm hearing that you just wanted time to process it without talking or crying about it. Tell me, why did you never see him again?”

”Because... he's a lying sack of s.h.i.+t! He left us. He left Mom. She didn't deserve that. We didn't deserve that. I mean, who would want to see him? He was in jail. After he got out he tried to contact us but we told him to f.u.c.k off via email of course, and that was it. There was no reason, ever, to a.s.sociate with him.”

Tristan sighed heavily as he moved his hand to cup her neck. He prodded her head forward so their foreheads touched. Gently he said, ”What if, Kylie, that wasn't what you needed? What if you didn't need to tell him to f.u.c.k off? What if that was what Ally needed? Even your mom needed? But what if, just what if... you need to see him? What if you need to ask him why he left you? Or what he last said to you or when he last saw you? What if you just need to know he's still alive? What if the closure you need isn't no contact, but some kind of contact?”

She jerked back from him. ”That would be... an awful thing to need. Why should he get any say in my life? Why would I want to see him? After what he did? He hurt Mom. He almost destroyed her. He-”

”Wasn't her dad. He was her husband, Kylie. He was your dad. That's an entirely different relations.h.i.+p. Entirely different needs. Did your mom tell you to never see him again? Hear him out? Let him explain or apologize?”

Kylie hesitated. Her chest rose up and down as if she were breathing hard. She may not usually say a lot, or cry, but there were other physical symptoms that often showed on her. ”No. She'd never tell us not to. He contacted her when he was first arrested, first back in town. She was on her way to see him when she decided she didn't have to do that. She didn't have to hear him out or ever see him again. In fact, she and Donny got engaged instead. It was all spontaneous. They stopped at the entrance of the police station and Donny proclaimed his love and he wanted a future with her. And Mom realized she deserved that and didn't owe Micah anything. He'd stolen so much from her. No more.”

”Good for her. Seems a healthy reaction for a betrayed, wronged ex-wife to have. But Kylie, you are his daughter. You lost a parent. That isn't the same thing. You aren't expected to react how your mother does.”

Kylie jerked a strand of long hair behind her ear. ”No, no. She never expected us to. She always told us we needed to do whatever felt right for us, about him. It broke her heart that she put us in this position with this kind of father. Ally and I decided we would react to Micah together and as a united front always, no matter what. We would not let him ruin another moment of our lives. We would not give him another moment to speak his lies to us. We decided.”

”Uh-huh, and yet, Kylie, from what I see, he still has a huge chunk of your life in his hands. I don't think you let any of it go. I think that worked for Ally, not you.”

Her eyes met his and were big with confusion. ”I can't need him. He-”

”Hurt you. But maybe you do need something from him. Maybe you want to get some kind of closure. In some form. To find out the why. To hear an apology. Or to hear him not apologize so you can let it go. Maybe you desire answers. Your answers. Not your mom's answers. Not Ally's answers. But your answer.”

Her tongue darted out and licked her lips. ”I can't imagine doing that.”

”You're not arguing that I'm wrong.”

”I never... No, I don't know what I think.”

”Maybe you should take some time and decide that; decide what you think and do what you need. Your needs about this are every bit as valid as Ally's and your mom's. It happened to you guys all together, but also individually. Maybe you should deal with your end of things just a bit differently.”

”I don't know.” Her forehead wrinkled as she stared down at her feet crossed under her.

”Hey,” he said, nudging her toe with his hand. ”I'd be willing to go with you. If you ever needed to find him. You know emotional support and all that. Or just get there. Where is he?”

”Bend, Oregon.”

”Not so far you can't drive.”

”No, not so far I can't drive.”

She was chewing on her lower lip. Dried skin was peeling off it. She often picked at it. He leaned forward and kissed it to stop her. Her hands tucked into his hair. He leaned so far into her she had to fall back on the bed with him on top of her. His hands slid up the sides of her chest and his thumb rubbed along her breast as he lifted up his head off hers. ”You know what I haven't done in a... no, in perhaps years. Maybe since college?”

”What?”