Page 52 of Like Fathers, Like Son
“I blamed you. This whole time… I was so angry at you, so convinced that you’d destroyed my family, but it was me all along.” His whispers were so quiet, I struggled to hear him, but I felt it; that moment when he suddenly realised he was showing me his pain rather than causing mine. He stiffened, and so did I.
“Blaze-”
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” he hissed, but all he did was sit up, and kind of pull free of my hold. We were both sitting awkwardly on the bed, without each other to use for balance.
“I’m sorry for my part in this, I really am. I had no idea that my words had been passed on, or used against you. I was a kid, Blaze. I was a scared kid, trying to grow up without a dad, and with a sick mum, and with a boyfriend whose sole purpose seemed to be trying to deflower me as soon as he could.”
Blaze finally moved enough so that we could see each other again, and he looked so young and vulnerable, his face blotchy from crying, and his cheeks and eyes still wet. He caught my sympathetic gaze, and sneered at me, dragging an arm across his face as he sniffed and straightened a bit.
“She started cutting herself when she was eleven, Anneka. Eleven years old and carving lines in her skin, to try and gain some semblance of control over a life that was spiralling into hell. She was skipping school, drinking with some losers she hung out with. She was an alcoholic at twelve years old. And she was twelve the first time she tried to kill herself.”
Oh my god, his words felt like physical blows. His fury was making more sense with every word.Did I do this?
Wait… thefirsttime. He said it was the first time, which meant that she’d tried again. How many times did she try? Oh god, had she succeeded?
31
Blaze
Thiswasn’tgoingtheway I’d planned, because I’d come to this horrifying realisation that I could have prevented everything, and it was killing me inside. I could have done something, so many different things, and I could have stopped Em from going through that hell.
What would she be like now, if I had? If I’d just had the balls to speak up, and tell my dads.
Would she still be that sweet little blonde fairy-like girl, who loved all things pretty and shiny, and giggled a lot? Would she have ended up darker anyway? Was our upbringing part of the reason she was who she was now? Tattooed, pierced, scarred, broken… she’d found new ways to express herself since she stopped drinking, but would she ever be whole again?
“Blaze?”
I realised that Anneka had cried with me. While I was being a complete pussy and losing my mind like that, she’d held me and cried with me, like she empathised with my personal hell. A hell she’d created with a seemingly offhand statement to the wrong person. Was she really to blame at all?
“Is Ember okay?”
Just hearing my sister’s name from her lips made me bristle again, and I clenched my fists.
“No.”
“Is she… did she…” She looked afraid to ask, and so she fucking should be.
“She tried to end her life four fucking times, Anneka. Your little comment to that asshole set all of it in motion, and I thought killing the people involved would make amends, but I didn’t realise that I’m the one I should have started with. If I had just told my dads. If I’d just fucking let them know what hell I was going through and surviving every day, maybe she could have been put in a different school, and had a different life. Maybe she wouldn’t have scars from the many times she needed to open a vein to try and control her fucking emotions, and her life. Maybe she wouldn’t be so tattooed and pierced that she’d still be recognisable as that beautiful little girl I grew up with. She’s still beautiful, you understand. She’s a fucking goddess, a true phoenix rising from the ashes of her life. That asshole who assaulted her, he died first. I made him scream as he died, yeah… turns out a red hot poker up the ass of a guy will really put thoughts of raping teenagers out of his mind.”
I wanted to keep horrifying her, because I felt like she still hadn’t paid enough, but if I killed her, then I had to end this by killing myself too, because we were the last living perpetrators of my sister’s hell.
I lifted my t-shirt off, setting it gently beside me, because it was my favourite. I lifted my arm, even as she started edging back, afraid of the reason for my sudden striptease.
Under my arm, across my ribs, there were seven names, and six of them had lines through them. Nick Boon, Ed MacDougal, Sid Evans, Tel Rogers, Cal Collier, Steve Tiller, all crossed through because I’d killed them. The last name, the one that wasn’t crossed out yet, was just a first name, because it didn’t need more clarification.Anneka. The list wasn’t accurate though, was it? It needed my name there too. My list had never been complete, but I’d fix that as soon as I could.
Cool fingers touched my skin, shocking me out of my thoughts, and I watched as Anneka shakily traced her name on my skin on that offending list. Pretty much most of my tattoos were of her name, and some declaration of hate, or wishing evil on her. I’d marked my body with my hate, and now I realised each time her name appeared, it should have been mine instead.
“If you have to kill me, Blaze, I’ll understand. I know that sounds crazy, but even though it was never my intention to cause what happened, I can’t hide from the fact that it started with me. Without my stupid thoughtless comment, none of this would have happened, and I’m devastated to learn about my part in this. I’m so sorry, Blaze. Ember should never have suffered like that. Neither of you should, and that’s… oh god, if you need to finish this list off, and cross my name off it, I forgive you. I want Ember to have her retribution.”
I let out a frustrated snarl, lunging at her, and pressing her down against the bed, my hand lightly resting over her throat.
“You don’t get it. This isn’t her retribution, it’s mine. Seems I’m seeing a lot of shit really fucking clearly right now, and I can see it for what it is. My fucking attempts to make up for what I did, my anger directed at others, when it belongs aimed inward at me, and my fucking failure to protect her. You shouldn’t have said it, and Boon and his friends shouldn’t have run with it, like some big news they needed to share with the world…and then there’s me. I should have just fucking opened my mouth and said something, anything, to stop her going to that fucking school. If any name needs to be crossed off, it’s mine, and I wasn’t even brave enough to put my own fucking name on that list. Fuck!”
I shoved away from her, and got up, striding from the room and heading for the kitchen to find something, anything, to carve my name into my skin. To burn it into my skin. To add it in some fucking way, to admit my culpability and own my own mistakes.
Then we could cross it out together. Anneka could cross it out for me, once I’d finally grown some balls, and put an end to the real monster.Me.
Anneka
