Chapter 5: Shatter

After talking to Carly I felt significantly better. With her acceptance it felt like this was something I could get used to. She's always been the most important person in my life so having her there to walk with me is all I can ask for.

The drivers pulls up at my house. After a moment of thought I tell him he can just leave. Since I have to take care of my Dad there's no way I'll be heading back to Kalen's.

I walk shoeless into my house and the smell of alcohol is much stronger than before. As usual, the place is a mess. The first thing I do is go upstairs to check in on my Dad. He's in his room curled into a ball in front of the TV. His head lifts and he gives me a drunken smile.

"Hi Daddy. I'm gonna cook and clean for you, okay?" He nods and I sigh, heading downstairs to the kitchen. As I'm getting the pasta ready for spaghetti, the front door opens.

"I know, Angel, I'll only be here until my sister gets here. I can't leave him on his own." It's my brothers voice. He enters the kitchen and freezes at the sight of me. I duck my head quickly. I'd left the sunglasses with the driver and telling Wyatt anything is the last thing on my mind. I'd rather he not see me like this. "Alana?" He asks. There's a tinge of disgust in his voice.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. I keep my eyes on the pasta, stirring the hard noodles in an attempt to avoid his gaze. "I thought you were too big and successful to come to a dump like this."

I can hear the chair scrape the ground following by the thud of him sitting. "I came to get my birth certificate. When you didn't come back I stuck around since Gerald can't be trusted on his own. Why'd you leave him like that for two days?"

Gerald. Such a disrespectful way to refer to his father. But it can't be helped. I suppose we haven't been family for a long time. "You don't have a right to ask me that when you've been nowhere near here for years." My knuckles must be turning white given how hard I'm gripping the countertop. Wyatt and I have never had a conversation lasting this long. It hurts that when we do it's going so far left.

"You're taking care of him and you left him for two days. He's so drunk he can't even feed himself properly. What guy was so important you'd let him starve?"

"Guy?"

"Those aren't your clothes." There's that know-it-all tone that I hate. He used it a lot when I was a child.

I turn the stove down to the lowest setting. "It's time for you to go."

"We aren't done talking."

"We are. You told your wife you're only here because you're waiting for me to get home. I'm home. Get out." I finally turn to face him and he looks at me with nothing but shock. At this point I don't care if he finds out I'm a vampire. I can't sit by and let him speak to me as if I don't care about our Dad when he won't even refer to him as such.

"So you go out and get bitten and think that'll make me feel good leaving him with you? This is obviously an unfit household for him." He looks at me with nothing but disgust.

"What makes you think I can't take care of him?" I ask.

"You're a fucking vampire, Alana. You're more likely to eat him on the next full moon then take care of him!" Wyatt picks up his phone. "He's not staying here."

"Why?" I follow him upstairs where he grabs my father. He rips the drink from his hand and drags him downstairs to the front door completely disregarding the fact that Dad had on no shoes or jacket and could barely stand on his own two feet. "I don't have my mother, I don't have my brother-"

"-Dont do that."

"-Why can't I have my father? I take care of him just fine!"

"Don't be so fucking selfish Alana it's not about you!" Wyatt snaps. "Why do you make everything about you when it's not? This is about Dad and his wellbeing! This is what's best for him, not you."

"How the fuck would you know what's best for him? You left, Wyatt! You left and I was left here to pick up the pieces! I cook, I clean, I work, I keep this entire house afloat while you get to live a perfect fucking life with your stupid wife and stupid kid. You have no idea what's best for anybody because you were never fucking here!"

"Don't be a fucking baby." Is all he says, then he's gone with the only part of family that I can hold onto, and my world shatters.