Family Story - 014

"Well, at least there's two things we-"

AJ stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes became dazed over, and she faltered. She faltered, and then she fell down to the ground.

"AJ!"

In a panic, I rushed over to her side. When she fell, she collapsed sideways, so her shoulder took the brunt of the impact, but she also hit her head. There wasn't any blood, however she was unconscious.

Ray sighed, and stretched his arms without a care in the world, "that was boring, wasn't it?"

"You bastard, what did you do?"

I had been looking in AJ's direction as she spoke, so I hadn't seen Ray do anything, but he must've. It's the only explanation. AJ couldn't have just collapsed like that, right?

"What are you suggesting I did? Hypnotise her?"

"Maybe, I don't know. I'm sure you did something though."

"Well, don't sweat the small things. I'm sure she's fine. If Angharad was hurt, there'd probably be blood."

"Do you know AJ that well? Calling her by her real name?"

"Not really. It's not anything to get jealous of. Though you'd be wasting your time on her anyway. If your worried about her, she'll be fine, she's only unconscious."

"I don't know if I should trust you. You haven't exactly made yourself come across as the most trustworthy guy."

"Don't trust me then, you'll still have to take my word for it. You're not a medical expert, are you?"

…

He's right. I don't know the slightest thing when it comes to this. All I can do at the moment, is take his word for it.

"Why did you do that?"

"Like I said, it was boring. And I thought talking to you would probably be more interesting."

"What? You can't just ignore AJ's wishes like that."

"Why not? I didn't ignore them anyway. I considered what she asked of me, but she didn't offer me anything in return, so there's no way I could accept it."

"Couldn't you just accept it as an impassioned plea from a family member?"

"Don't give me your naivety, boy, "Ray sneers, "what I'm doing here, first and foremost, is running a business. Impassionate pleas hold no value to me."

I can't think of anything else to say that Ray won't immediately shoot down. Basically, all he appears interested in, is what he stands to gain from the situation, but there's nothing I can offer him. Nothing, because I'm just a kid. Just a kid living on my own, with barely a few hundred dollars to my name. There's nothing I can do. No way for me to save AJ and her brother.

"Enough about that," Ray picked the conversation back up, redirecting it, "we were talking about that girl, weren't we?"

"Yeah."

"You can't accuse people of something that they didn't even do, by your own admission. Whether my son and his friends were going to assault that girl or not, they never did it. They aren't guilty of anything."

"But they would've," I responded, "if I hadn't gotten involved, or if a police car hadn't happened to be going down that street at the time, Tayla would've ended up getting raped."

"Like I said, whether that's the case or not, you can't accuse someone for having the thought to do something alone, can you? Or can you honestly say that you've never thought of doing anything… wrong."

"I've never thought about raping anyone."

"No, I haven't either, but is there no one that you hate so much that you've wished they were dead?"

"I… can't say there isn't."

My father. Even though I haven't seen him in so long, he's still a cancer on my life. It's like I can't escape him. He's everywhere.

"It isn't just the thought though; they would've done it," I replied.

"I don't think you could know that for sure. In fact, there's still no proof at all that you and that girl didn't make the whole thing up."

"What reason would we have to make it up? Tayla and her family left your cult because of what happened, and they lost something that had been supporting them after the death of a family member. Can't you understand what that must've meant to them?"

"Those words sound so alien to you," Ray said, looking bemused, "why do I feel like there's something about those words that you yourself can't understand? Have you never lost a family member?"

"I have, my mother died when I was young."

"Well, I'm sorry for your loss," Ray replied, yet continued to sound emotionless, "if it isn't that… could it be that your estranged from your family?"

"I mean yes, but… this isn't at all relevant to what's happening here, or what we're talking about."

"Oh, but it is…" Ray smiled, "I see… so you don't live with your family, huh?

…

Ray doesn't speak for a while, but when he does, what he says strikes a chord with me.

"What a hypocrite you are."

"H-huh?"

"A hypocrite. You say that we took advantage of that girl and her family, yet you couldn't possibly have understood what drove them to seek us out. The very idea of family is alien to you, isn't it? It's the same with this. Your helping Angharad out even though you don't understand what would drive her to do this much for her brother. After all, you've never had a family member that you'd care enough about.

You aren't here because you like the notion of family, and are drawn to how much she cares for her brother. You just wanted to act the hero. Isn't that the same thing you did with Tayla? You wanted to act the hero, that's the only reason you got involved. It was selfish on your part, and all but forced Tayla to be grateful to you."