The Boy Who Has No Redemption

by Victoria Quinn

  I held his gaze and kept my features soft, but inside, a dam had broken, and a rush of emotions swept through me. I dropped my eyes and thought about those hard months after he’d left, how every day was more insufferable than the last.

  “Emerson…”

  I looked at him again.

  “I’m never going to do that again.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, his eyes intense as they looked into mine, pleading with me. “This catastrophe changed me, down to my core.” He rubbed his palm across his chest. “I will be here every day, through thick and thin, better or worse, in sickness and in health…forever. I’m so sorry that this had to happen to make me realize how fucking pathetic I was, but it did happen, and I’ll never go back. All I’ve wanted to do this entire time is run to you, not run away. I’ve been there for my mother every single day instead of closing off. I’m different now. I met up with Kevin a few days ago…and forgave him. I’m a new man, Emerson. Please…please give me another chance.” He squeezed his hands together as he stared at me, desperate for the answer he wanted.

  When he’d told me before he had changed, I didn’t believe him. There was no reason to believe him at the time. But now, I did. I knew that this had forced him to grow, forced him to rise to the occasion, forced him to reflect on his mistakes. But it didn’t erase what happened. It didn’t erase what I had to experience. “Derek…”

  He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, knowing my answer just by the tone in my voice.

  I didn’t want to go through every little point all over again, not when he was hurting. I wanted to be as kind as possible, to make this as easy as possible. “I believe you. I believe that you’ve grown. I believe that you’ve changed. I believe that you’re ready. But it’s been four months of hell for me. And I just… I’m still traumatized by everything that happened.”

  He didn’t look at me again, keeping his eyes closed.

  “I’m sorry.” I really was. I was truly devastated that I had to hurt him like this.

  Two tears welled in his eyes, but before they could fall, he wiped them away with his palm. He gave a loud sniff before he opened his eyes and stared at his hands. Now his eyes looked lifeless, like he felt worse than he had when he’d sobbed in my arms.

  It made me want to cry. “I’m always here for you. I will be here for you through this. I’m still here, okay?”

  He shook his head. “I want you, all of you…please.” He lifted his gaze and looked at me again. “Tell me what I can do to fix this. Tell me what I can do to make you feel differently. I can tell you right now that you aren’t going to find a guy out there who will love you more than I do. I can take care of you and Lizzie. I can be a good father to your daughter.”

  “Please…don’t do this.”

  “I have to.” He moved his hands across his chest. “You are my soul mate, Emerson. I can’t let you walk away. I just can’t.”

  I started to cry. “Just let it go—”

  “No. I let you go before. I’m not going to do it again.”

  “Derek—”

  “Come on—”

  “You dumped me in a stairwell.” I burst into tears, tears I’d been holding back for a long time. When I yelled at him, I was ferocious and angry, not a weak, crying mess. I stayed strong, I saved face, but now, I couldn’t. Now, I had to say more things to hurt him when it was the last thing I wanted to do in this moment. “I loved you so fucking much, Derek. You were a risk, but I took it anyway. I told you how I felt about you every day, so you would never leave. I made you feel appreciated every chance I could because I never, ever wanted to lose you. I trusted you more than anyone else in the world, even my parents. I went from being in a perfect relationship to being dumped… I’m traumatized. And those months we were apart were fucking brutal. The crying, the depression, the sorrow, the desperation that you would call or text me and I would take you back without hesitation because I was so pathetic. Then all the months of you acting like I didn’t matter, that I could get hit by a bus and it wouldn’t make a difference. Traumatizing. Derek, this conversation wouldn’t even be happening right now if your mother hadn’t gotten sick. If that had never happened, nothing would have changed. I don’t want to trust you because you had a wake-up call. I want to trust you because you never left and never hurt me.” I forced a few deep breaths so the tears would stop, so I could compose myself and not look like a mess when I went home. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to say these things to you, so please just let it go.”

  His head was bowed and his eyes were closed, like he couldn’t bear to watch me cry.

  “I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. Your family doesn’t deserve it. No one does. And I will be there for you because…I will always love you.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me, his eyes wet with unshed tears.

  “It’s not because I’m obligated. It’s because…I love you—”

  “I love you too.” He inhaled a deep breath, as if exchanging the words that we hadn’t exchanged in a long time gave him some comfort. “I love you…so fucking much. With every piece of me…I love you.”

  19

  Derek

  Mom took a nap after dinner, so it was just Dad and me at the dinner table.

  He sat across from me, his hands together with his lips resting against them, his eyes on the table.

  It was hard to talk to him. I’d stopped trying a long time ago. “Emerson and Lizzie want to come over tomorrow to see Mom.”

  He lifted his gaze. “Why?”

  “Because they care about her.” And she still cared about me, even though I didn’t deserve it.

  “Did you get back together?” He grabbed his scotch and took a drink.

  “No…she wouldn’t take me back.”

  He set his glass down on the surface. “Don’t blame her. You acted like a fucking lunatic.” He hardly looked at me as he released an annoyed sigh, his fingers still wrapped around his glass. “People get tired of your bullshit, Derek. I’ve been fucking sick of it for ten years.” He took another drink then set the empty glass on the table.

  I was so shocked by what he’d said, I didn’t even breathe. Never in my life had my father spoken to me that way, with such anger and bitterness, like he didn’t give a damn about me at all. My chest started to tighten, and I felt the tears form behind my eyes, feeling like my father was the one who died, even though my mother was the one who was sick. “Dad, I understand you’re going through a hard time right now—”

  “Oh, you don’t like it when someone treats you like shit?” he countered, his voice dripping with aggressive sarcasm. “Now you get to be on the receiving end of that. Who cares that Valerie had a heart attack and croaked. She never loved you. She took the first opportunity to leave. Cleo is your mother, but all you’ve ever cared about is the people who’ve slighted you rather than those who’ve loved you. I’ve always been here, but you act like that’s nothing, and then when your mom might die, all of a sudden, you actually give a damn about us—”

  “Deacon.”

  Dad shut his mouth instantly, silenced by the intense disappointment in my mother’s voice. All she had to say was a single word and she controlled the entire room, controlled the volume, took all the power from both of us.

  My eyes were wet, but I managed to hold on to the tears so they wouldn’t fall. I hadn’t thought I could be more heartbroken than I already was, but my father hurt me more than anyone else had—in my entire life.

  Mom walked closer to the table and stood beside him, glaring down at him with a vicious expression. “Don’t ever speak to my son like that again.”

  Dad kept his head bowed, not looking at either one of us.

  My lips trembled because of her choice of words.

  “I’ve never been so disappointed in you. Leave.”

  He stayed in the chair for a moment longer, his head still down, his eyes on the table. Without looking at my mother, he rose from the chair and started to walk to the hallw
ay toward the bedroom.

  “No.” Her angry look drilled into his back.

  He stilled at her command.

  “Get out.”

  I’d never seen this happen with my parents. Dad never slept on the couch after a fight. In fact, fights just didn’t occur.

  He stood there for a few seconds, the tension lingering, and then he headed to the door and grabbed his wallet on the way. He left his phone behind—on purpose. He shut the door behind himself quietly and disappeared.

  Mom continued to stare to make sure he wouldn’t come back before she sat in the chair where he’d been sitting just a moment ago.

  I had a headache every single day because of the amount of the stress and the tears. Every aspect of my life had been shaken. There was no foundation anymore. My mom might die, my father was an ass, the woman I loved was gone…and I was alone. I couldn’t cry anymore. I just couldn’t.

  Mom stared at me before she moved her hands across the table and grabbed both of mine.

  I squeezed her fingers back, squeezed her hard, breathing through the pain.

  “That wasn’t your father, Derek. Don’t believe a single word he said.”

  “He’s been that way for a long time…”

  “I know. There’s no excuse for it.”

  “I used to act that way all the time, so I get it.”

  “No.” She squeezed my hands. “He’s your father. There’s no excuse for that behavior. He’s the man of this family, and he should be there for us instead of crashing and burning. He should be the rock. And he should never, ever speak to you that way.”

  “I deserve it—”

  “No, you don’t.” She brought my hands together and encompassed them with hers, even though my hands were larger. “He loves you more than life itself. He didn’t mean a word he said. He just…said it. He’s angry and scared, and he’s lashing out at anything he can because he doesn’t know what else to do. But we’ll forgive him and forget, because that’s what families do.”

  I nodded.

  “When this is over, he’ll be back. We all respond to stress differently.”

  “You’re a saint…and we’re monsters.”

  She shook her head. “No. You are two men whom I admire greatly. I’m just…better with the emotions. That’s all.” She pulled her hands away and looked at me, wearing a slight smile. “I’ll talk to him in the morning. I think this conversation has been coming for a while. I hoped he would work through his issues on his own, but it seems to be getting worse, not better.”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t know the half of it. She didn’t know the kind of verbal abuse I received from him on a daily basis. The man looked just like my father, my hero, but he was a whole other person right now.

  “Emerson and Lizzie are visiting tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  She smiled. “I’m excited. I’d love to see them.”

  “Yeah, they want to see you too.”

  She studied my gaze, observed the sadness in my eyes. “I’m sorry…about Emerson.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I felt so much pain in my chest. A constant hum of grief, a constant state of anxiety.

  “But don’t give up, okay?”

  “Her answer is pretty definitive.”

  “Does she still love you?”

  I nodded.

  “Then there’s hope. You’ll just have to be patient.”

  “You really think that?”

  She took a long pause as she considered the question. “I think that when two people love each other as much as you two do, they will find their way back to each other. She’s been through a lot, Derek. It’s been a long and painful breakup for her. Her heart needs time to heal before it can love again. Give her that time. You’ll have to be in this relationship by yourself for a while, but when she’s ready, she’ll come back.”

  “By myself?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been in a relationship before with your father without him being in that relationship. I had to wait for him to join me. I had to keep it going so it would stay alive until he was ready to be present. But there was no one else I wanted to be with, so I was fine with it.”

  “Why are you so confident that it’ll work?”

  She dropped her gaze for a moment. “Before I told you I was sick, I told her I could help her get a job so she could stop working for you. She rejected the offer and said she wanted to cut ties with us, because it was too hard. The only reason it’s hard to be around us is because we remind her of the life she had with you, the life she still wants on some level. If she were really over it, she would have taken the job and run with it. But she didn’t.”

  My mother was usually right about everything, so I hoped she was right about this.

  “If you can build rockets and write novels, you can do this. You can earn her trust again, earn her love again, and be what she deserves.”

  I watched movies with my mom on the couch until she fell asleep. When she was out, I straightened on the couch and covered her with a blanket so she wouldn’t get cold. It was almost midnight, so I headed home, choosing to walk instead of taking a taxi because I wouldn’t sleep when I got home anyway.

  After I stepped out of the elevator at my building and headed to my front door, I noticed the man sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

  It was my dad.

  With his arms on his knees and his head against the wall, he narrowed his eyes on me as I approached.

  I stilled in the hallway and almost turned around to walk away.

  He got to his feet and straightened, his eyes no longer mean like they’d been the last six weeks. They were soft, his shoulders were strong but not aggressive, and he looked like the man I knew—my father.

  I continued down the hallway and pulled out my keys.

  He stepped back slightly from the front door, so I had room.

  I got the door opened then turned to look at him, unsure what to do now, if I should invite him inside or just walk in and shut the door in his face. Normally, I’d be so angry that I wouldn’t speak to him again for a long time. But now, I looked at him with new eyes, with a haze of compassion I didn’t have before.

  He moved his hands into his pockets and stared down at the floor, like he couldn’t look at me. “I’m ashamed…of the way I treated you.”

  I stayed still and listened, let him compose his thoughts without interruption. I knew he didn’t have his phone on him, so my mother hadn’t called him and told him what to say. This was all him, coming to his senses the second he left the condo.

  “I’m…I’m so sorry.” He lifted his gaze and looked at me again, his eyes wet. “I know I’ve been an asshole to you through this entire thing, taking it out on you like a punching bag. And I don’t know why. I love you more than anything in this world…even your mother.”

  “I know, Dad.” My hand moved to his arm, comforting him even though I was the one wounded.

  Once he felt my touch, his eyes watered more, like the compassion was everything that he needed right now. “I don’t know why I’m sabotaging this relationship when you might be all I have…if she’s gone.”

  “Dad, that’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m scared, Derek. I’m scared. I’ve never felt so helpless. I’ve always taken care of her, and now I can’t help her.”

  “I know…I know.” I continued to rub his arm.

  He stood there with tears rolling down his cheeks, like he didn’t even feel them. “I didn’t mean anything I said—”

  “I know.”

  “I’m just…”

  “Dad, I understand more than anyone. I understand what it’s like to crack under the stress and destroy the world around you…because it’s easier than feeling the pain. Trust me, I get it.” And I was very successful at it. I had nothing to show for these last ten years. I had less than what I started with.

  He cupped the back of my head and looked into my face. “You forgive me?”

  I nodded. “Always,
Dad.”

  He inhaled a deep breath, his eyes watering more, and then pulled me in for an embrace. He held me like he wanted to be there for me, rather than using me as a crutch. He was my father again, being there for me, being the man I remembered and admired. “I love you, little man.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  My dad slept in one of my guest bedrooms, and we woke up and had coffee and breakfast together the next day. I hadn’t expected him to stay over, but I didn’t ask why he didn’t go home.

  Lizzie and Emerson were coming over after lunch, so we had a few hours before we had to go back to my parents’ place.

  He sat across from me and drank his coffee, his hair messed up and his shirt wrinkled.

  I made scrambled eggs and toast, and we ate together in silence.

  He added pepper to his eggs and sliced into them with a fork. “I don’t want to go back…”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head slightly. “The shame.”

  “I don’t remember you sleeping on the couch when I was little.”