Chapter 41

"Give me the keys." I insisted after running after him.

His back was facing me as he was searching his pockets for his keys. His hair was messy and he looked like who hasn't slept in days.

The last hour completely broke his heart so much that he started to look physically sick.

"No."

I grabbed his arm, trying to turn him around so that he would face me. Once he dropped his eyes to me, I tried to put on a demanding expression and held my hand out.

"Keys."

He looked at my hand before looking into my eyes again. I already knew what his answer would be but my unconscious wouldn't have left me alone if I didn't try to convince him to not drive.

It was already dangerous for him to get in the car while he has been deadly furious. And now that he was somewhat drunk, it made me act like a worried girlfriend.

"Not going to happen." He said and opened the driver's door.

I took hold of it before he could close it which made him groan.

"Heds, get in the car."

"You can't drive like this." I argued. "Just tell me where you want to go and—"

"You know that you won't convince me." He interrupted me in a stubborn way.

I was so mad that he had the audacity to risk his life that I dropped my hand. He didn't miss a beat to grab the door and slam it shut.

Just when he started the engine, I realized how serious and chaotic he was and I ran over to the other side of the car, jumping in.

Something told me that if I annoyed him too much, he would eventually leave me here which was the last thing I wanted him to do.

I couldn't leave him alone, especially tonight because he was unpredictable.

I put on my seatbelt while he reversed out of the parking lot with a bored expression.

I didn't want to but I automatically crunched, wishing that he wouldn't crash the car.

When he looked over at me, he noticed my childish reaction and he laughed. But it wasn't the beautiful sound I'd grown to love from him.

It wasn't happy or delighted.

It was empty and even void.

And I hated how emotionless and numb he could become in only a matter of seconds.

Oswald ruined him and he didn't even care about that anymore. He just wanted to be somewhere but it didn't make him think straight.

"It's not my first time to drive while being drunk, Heds," he said and leaned on his elbow, the streetlights tracing over his cold face.

I glared at him.

"And I should feel better by that?" I snapped, losing my patience.

He shrugged and rubbed his jaw.

"Not specifically." He answered simply. "I just thought that you should know that I'm not going to wreck us."

Chills ran down my spine by his distant and flat tone. I was starting to lose him, I knew that, and it made me close my eyes, hoping that I'd wake up soon from this nightmare.

But nightmares were just as real as dreams. And now Seeley has been embodying one of my worst nightmares.

Losing someone who was important to you.

"I'd always look out for you." He turned his head to me.

"Eyes on the road." I said dryly.

He rolled his eyes before turning back to the road, probably cussing me out in his head.

He was right, even though he was intoxicated and barely paid attention to the road or the speed limit, the only thing I noticed was his turn being sharper and faster.

"I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

I lifted my jaw and stared out the windshield, into the darkness. If he weren't drunk and also desperately angry, his words would have had an effect on me.

But now, having him drive the car while not being fully sober made me wish that I could just get out of this car already.

"But you have high chances that something bad would happen to me, especially now."

I crossed my arms and kept tapping my foot against the ground of the car. It felt like we were driving around in the dark for hours.

"If you don't want to come with me, that's fine." He put his hand up while still taking a right turn, the back right wheel slipping down from the road.

"When did you start doing things like this?" I scolded him, and he shrugged.

"Ever since I got my driver's license." He answered. "My dad… that piece of shit… he never missed a chance to guilt-trip me into thinking that my life wasn't worth it."

My heart started aching as he started to open up. I didn't want to interrupt him but it was almost impossible to fight the urge to comfort him.

I hated how much pain Oswald has caused to him and he still had the nerve to fight against his son while the other was watching them.

It was a messed up situation.

"I can't believe that class clown is my brother." He shook his head and slightly hitting the heel.

I tensed and bit my tongue. He didn't need to hear me lashing out. Even though I couldn't stand hearing him talk about Perkyn. He didn't ask for any of this.

But also neither did Seeley.

The only person they could all blame was Oswald who had to be the most disgusting person on this earth.

"Don't talk about him like that." I warned him.

When he looked at me and saw my face being twisted in anger, he lifted his head before turning away.

"I'm sorry, I forgot that since you kissed him, he turned into a fucking saint." He snapped and I clenched my fists in my lap.

"So, what?" I asked. "I'm not allowed to live my life just because I sleep with you? Last time I checked that was the whole point of that. Us still living our lives outside of each other."

He gripped at his hair as if my words had hurt him physically. If we weren't talking about Perkyn, then I would have considered stop talking but there was a line.

Even if he had just found out that he has been blindfolded for his whole life.

Just because his anger was justifiable, him calling Perkyn names was out of line.

"That's it." He said.

"What?" I asked.

"I don't want to have a life outside of you." He admitted, still staring out the windshield.

My breath got caught in my throat as his words slowly sunk into my skin, my heart and bones. He was everywhere yet it seemed like he was too far away from me.

"For the last four years of my goddamn life… you were the only constant thing in it and you made me forget about my problems. Sometimes even helped me survive them, you just never noticed."

I stayed still as he stopped the car and turned the engine off. The silence falling upon us was unbearable and made my throat itch.

Looking back to the last few years of my life, most of my memories with Seeley included making fun of the teachers, sometimes talking to him deeply outside of the building or laughing at each other's failed tests.

It was both incredible and intriguing that I couldn't see how much his inner demons have been eating him up. Because he always smiled on the outside. Smiled for me.

"That would be it." He said flatly and got out of the car.

I casually followed him while my legs weighed twice more than they actually did and I hugged my torso to keep myself warm.

We were on the edge of a cliff that over looked the beach. I let myself getting lost in the beauty of the dark waves moving beneath us and the wind moving the trees in the distance. I could see the appeal but I had no words.

"I can't go back to Hillsboro." He suddenly said, staring at the ocean.

I turned to him with a questioning look on my face.

"What?"

"There is nothing for me there." He said. "I finally graduated and I barely saw my father until now. Even if he decides to sta here with his family… I'm not sure if I can live in that house anymore. There are so many bad memories from there and I just want to go forward not backward."

I understood him but I didn't want him to never come back to Hillsboro.

"Where would you go?" I asked instead.

He turned to me and his eyes roamed over my body.

"Somewhere far." He said. "I've been thinking about it for a while."

I hated how my heart couldn't bear the thought of him moving away.

I couldn't hold it against him. After the deaths of his mother and sister, then finding out that his father has been lying to him for almost nineteen years. He had every right to feel neglected, cast out, and lost.

If I was him, I would want to leave too.

"I always wanted to move ever since my mom…"

I bit into my lip, trying to collect myself. I didn't have a right to fall apart now even though my heart was repeatedly breaking into many pieces.

"You know my sister, Alexa, she was the best thing of my life." He said quietly, looking at the sky. "She was full of life and I was never bored around her. And since dad wasn't always around, now I know why we spent awfully a lot of time together. She was my best friend. And I loved her with all my heart. I was five years old when she died in an accident. And I could swear that even the sun stopped shining when my mother told me what happened to her. I cried for days and even at night I'd just grab her favorite toys and sleep with them, hoping that it would somehow bring her back to me. My dad… he just went crazy. Losing a child is the worst kind of pain a parent could ever experience. We all were depressed and barely talked to each other."

I swallowed my tears, not daring to tell him to stop because hearing his voice crack whenever he mentioned his sister was just too much for me.

I wanted him both to continue but also stop because his story was already gut-wrenching in the worst kind of way possible.

"He… uh… he blamed my mother for Alexa's death, you know." He said with a frown, it was obvious that he was in much pain. "He said that she should have looked after her. She accidentally dropped her bags after shopping and she let go of Alexa's hand for one second. It was all one second. But Alexa noticed our neighbor on the other side whom she was very fond of and she ran out to the road."

"Oh, my God." I closed my eyes and wished I didn't hear him right.

I just couldn't take it when innocent young kids lost their lives. All because they were happy and because the parent looked away for a few seconds.

Just a few seconds. That's all that you needed to end your life or have it ruined like that.

"He started to lose his shit that he became paranoid." Seeley shook his head with tears in his eyes. "And each day that passed it all became worse. He even accused my mother gof etting Alexa killed on purpose."

I covered my mouth with my hand as tears rolled down my cheek. Eternal sadness surrounded us and it was hard to breathe.

"I kept arguing with my dad about it. I stood up for my mother because I saw how heartbroken she was and he hated that I kept taking her side. Of course I did, my mother has always been an angel. He'd even beat me until I couldn't stand up."

The more I heard about Oswald, the more hatred grew inside me which also made my blood boil.

He was one of the worst people that walked this earth, there was no doubt of that. And if he didn't have a problem beating a five years old boy until he almost fainted, who could have known what has he done over those years after Seeley's mother, Dakota, had also passed away?

I started to feel sick, real sick. I had a feeling when I met Oswald at our graduation that he wasn't the father Seeley deserved but this kind of haunting thing would have never even crossed my mind.

"A few days later my mother completely lost herself. She'd either hug me all day or wouldn't even dare to look at me." Seeley sniffed and wiped his cheeks. "And my dad told her that he wanted a divorce. While, apparently, he was already having an affair with someone else outside of town, my mother was crushed. Despite seeing how much she had broken down after Alexa's death, he just kept saying hurtful things to her to punish her."

Seeley's voice cracked and he dropped his head, then he took a shaky breath.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to." I whispered, stepping closer to him. I put a comforting hand on his arm but he didn't move at all.

He glanced down at me from the corner of his eyes before dropping his gaze to the quiet ocean.

"I want to. I've never talked about it to anyone." He admitted and my mouth went dry. I had always thought that he at least had one person in this fucked up and cruel world whom he could open up to.

But facing the fact that I was the first person to hear about his childhood, made it more difficult to listen to his story.

If he felt somewhat relieved that there was someone else that knew about the truth, then I'd let him talk all night. I owed him that much.

He shook his nerves off and slowly took my hand into his palms. I kept searching his eyes while he closed his hands around mine and pressed it to his chest, to his heart.

"In a few months, while the trials were going for their divorce, he moved to another house. It was the beginning of the summer so he took me there because he wanted me to be there. I was living with him for two months but I was never allowed to leave the house. I couldn't even go to the garden. Once I tried to sneak around just to feel the grass but he almost broke my arm for opening the door. From time to time he took me to one of his friend's house who lived on the other side of town. Then he told me that my mother committed suicide."

I gasped and he tightened his hold on my hand. It hurt a little but I didn't care because it was nothing like the pain and grief he has been carrying on his shoulders for almost fifteen years. Hearing him talk about the darkest times of his past made me feel guiltier when I played with his feelings. Only if I had known how much he has craved for someone who could help him…

"I was depressed. I couldn't eat, sleep or think. In the following years, I kept looking for trouble, pissing boys off who were much bigger than me because I wanted them to beat me up. I always wanted someone to hurt me physically because I knew that it would distract me, even if it was only for a while. But the worst amount of physical pain couldn't be compared to how I felt inside. I lost most of my family in a few months and I still couldn't process it after years. I blamed myself for a while for my mother's suicide. I had always thought that since I wasn't there to look out for her and reassure her, she just gave up."

I leaned my head on his arm while my tears soaked his shirt and his bloody arm. I could barely breathe because my heart wouldn't take his pain anymore.

"Turns out that while I was at my dad's house, the police were looking for me. At first, I didn't understand why. When my neighbor told me that they were relieved that I had been found in time, I couldn't even answer, I just ran into the house. Then I started to put the pieces together. My father took me away from my mom but he had never told her that. It made sense now that he always closed me into the house and beat me so much that I was afraid to even look at the windows and doors. My mother must have thought she had lost me too after Alexa, so she called the police. And since my mother lost her job and started to drink, it was easy to manipulate the police into thinking that she lost track of me and couldn't be trusted. My own father kidnapped me from my mother who had thought that I had been gone too so she killed herself so that she could be with me, with us again."

I sobbed uncontrollably while Seeley was also fighting his sadness and grief. He turned to me and cupped my face. His eyes were just as sad as they might have been when he was a kid.

"I don't want you to feel bad for me." He licked his dry lips and took a shaky breath as tears covered his cheeks. "I just want you to understand me."

I inhaled and tried to hold my sobbing back but I had a hard time. Especially now that I've seen him crying which was something new to me. As new as having him open up to me and tell me the worst traumas he had to live through when he was only five years old.

How could I not feel bad for him? How couldn't anyone show empathy for him?

Because I knew for sure that my heart just shattered into million pieces and I wished I had the power to free him from his cross.

"Seeley, I'm so sorry." I said softly and wiped my cheek.

He stared into my eyes, showing me nothing this time but honest admiration and vulnerability.

Seeley lifted my jaw and tucked me under his head, letting me press my face into his chest. He pressed his lips on the top of my head while closing his long arms around me.

"You shouldn't have gone through that. No one deserves this kind of pain."

"I know, darling. But life doesn't make exceptions." He said in a muffled tone as if someone was suffocating him.

He was right and I hated that.

I was so sad and furious at the same time that I couldn't even take deep breaths to let myself relax a little. How could I?

I knew that I wouldn't be able to raise my voice at him ever again. Not after learning his story.

And I made a silent promise that I would never lie to him. Not even for a joke because after tonight, his trust issues will probably be through the roof.

When I leaned back to look at him, he sighed and wiped my wet cheeks. Seeley was without a doubt the strongest man I've ever met. And I could only hope that he'd come to peace with himself at someday in his life.

He tucked my hair behind my ears and slowly leaned down to kiss me softly. I closed my eyes and gave him what he needed. Peace, empathy, forgiveness, and someone that would hold him.

We might have seen each other naked before and saw every part of each other but we had never been this close to each other as we were right now.