Dad’s shaking his head when I pull up to our house in my rental car. When he last saw me, he thought I was getting on a plane, but I never did. Instead, I’m here trying to cover my pain with a fake smile as I walk up the steps to him.

“Jaya, Jaya. You feel the burn, don’t you? The acid has burned right to your bones. Jaya, Jaya, do you hear me?” Betty's voice resounds from next door as she yells out to me.

I offer her a wave while staring up at my father.

“This doesn’t look like you left on a plane to me, Jaya.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I figured, I can start over anywhere. Might as well give it a go by getting to know my father better.”

His body visibly drops, he was obviously tense. “I wish that was the only reason, but I’m also happy to hear your words.” He takes my bag from my hand, and I follow him inside.

Nothing has changed, not that I expected it to. I’m actually surprised he’s even home.

“You met Syler?” I ask him after shutting the front door. He places my bag on the floor and walks to the kitchen, grabbing a beer and offering me one, then he leans on the counter.

“I did.”

“And?”

“He’s protective of you, even if I don’t approve. But what I can see from a mile away is love.” He assesses me, waiting for a response.

“We aren’t in love,” I say, shaking my head and sitting on the bar stool across from him.

He raises his eyebrow. “I may be a grumpy old man, Jaya, but I know love when I see it. Mine was epic, and you have that, too.”

“You’ve never wanted to love anyone else? Or even try?” I ask him.

We’ve never talked like this. We never even used to talk at all, so this is all brand new to me. He looks down at his hands that are grasping a firm hold on his beer bottle.

“I tried, once. It was awful. Your mother’s love and I... well, it can’t be duplicated or replicated.”

“You never want that again... the company of someone else?”

He looks up at me. “She was it. She was mine for over fifteen marvelous years. I wouldn’t trade a single breath for it.”

“Do you regret me?” I avert my eyes when I ask him. His answer will hurt too much, and he won’t see my reaction to his answer.

“I’m not going to lie, Jaya, kids weren’t in my plan. But they were always on hers. The minute I held you, though, I knew I’d love you as much as I loved her, even if I didn’t show it. It was the pain after she left me. You were her, yet you were me as well. A mixture of both. But you weren’t as closed off as I was. I didn’t want to fuck that up and figured the best way to not ruin you, was to not be around to burden you with my issues.”

“You ignored me.”

“I’m sorry.” And that’s all it takes for me to get hit with a truckload of emotions I didn’t know was coming. Tears well up in my eyes. My heart hurts, but in a good way as well. “I love you, Jaya, even if I am a crap father. I love you with everything that I am, and wouldn’t trade you for my last breath.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you told him, that you love him?”

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I nod my head. “Yes, I didn’t want to.” I don’t want to tell my father that he pulls it from me when we fuck, in the form of punishment. Because that’s what it feels like, as if he takes my heart and squeezes all the information he wants out of it, leaving me feeling empty afterward. Syler manages to get everything he needs from me, but gives me little in return.

Dad walks around the bench, kisses the top of my head, then walks off to his room. Getting up, I do the same, making sure I lock my window and pull the curtain shut before I pass out on my bed, trying to keep out any thoughts of acid eating away at me.

***

“YOU LOOK...” MY FATHER pauses and thinks for a second, “... refreshed.” Dad’s voice sounds amused as I smile at him while grabbing the juice from the fridge.

“I’m going to her hearing today. Life is okay at the moment.”

“It’s better than okay, baby.” He kisses my head again as he walks out of the kitchen.

After drinking my juice and grabbing a bite to eat, I head back to my bedroom to get dressed. Pulling my pantsuit on, I slide on some heels and grab my cell, not knowing what I should be expected from today. But knowing I must go to find out.

Syler arrives the moment I sit down. I see him straight away as he takes a seat behind her and she sits next to who I presume is her lawyer. My seat is toward the back, and I wait to listen to what happens. Everyone stands like they do in the movies then sits when the judge walks into the room. They read out all her charges, the main ones being the killings from the second murder. The one from the pool. Her lawyer is pleading insanity, and the charge requires a doctor’s evidence for this. Once everything is over, she’s taken away, and everybody gets up to leave.

“Mouse.” He slides in sitting next to me, his sister now fully gone from our view.

“You’ll miss her,” I say to him.

“It’s time you know... I’ve been covering for her... for far too long. It needed to come to a stop.”

I nod my head in understanding, it needed to stop a very long time ago. “Won’t you miss it? You love that hatchet?”

He was good, very good with his hatchet.

“I’ll save it for those that try to steal you away.” He half smirks looking at the front of the courtroom, staring at nothing as I watch him.

“I’m not yours to be stolen from.”

“Think again.”

I shake my head, but can’t help but smile. “I think he likes you, my father.”

“Of course he does, he knows I love you.”

My hands clutch the seat I’m sitting on. My mouth drops open, and he doesn’t say another thing. He stands and doesn’t look back as he walks out of the room, leaving me sitting there replaying his words over and over again in my head.

He could love me... maybe.

It’s words I never thought would come from his mouth. Not Syler Hunter. The man who doesn’t love anything, and has always warned me to not love him. But he craved those words leaving my mouth as well. It was a sick, fucked up thing we had, and it lasted long years. I was content with those years, thinking that I was happy with what I got from him, and that it was enough. I was lying to myself and worst of all, to him. Making him believe that I was happy enough to stay with him and not love him, just take and take what we had to give with our bodies instead.

Leaving that courthouse and arriving home seems to be a blur, one that I don’t quite understand but try to wrap my head around. My cell rings. The number is private, and I almost don’t answer it. I want to ignore it, but decide against it.

“Hello.”

“I didn’t think you would answer.”

“Toska.”

“Yes. You were my one and only call. I’m happy you answered.”

“Are you? Or did you call to spite me?”

“A bit of both, but nevertheless I’m happy you answered. I have a feeling soon I won’t be able to talk to anyone.”

“I would hope not.”

She laughs, but it’s dry. Her voice isn’t so chipper anymore either. I sit down on the front steps of my house, my head hanging low as I wait for what she wants to say. Why she called me and not her brother.

“You hate me... and rightfully so. I hate me...” she pauses, and we both remain quiet, waiting. “The words left his mouth, but I never believed them. He picked you... that’s what he said. I think I knew from the moment you met that he’d pick you eventually. I was just too blind to see it because I figured you’d pick me... that somehow in my head, you loved me and just used him.”

“Not once did I mean to give you that impression, Toska.”

“You see, in my head you did. Each time you chose to stay after it all... each time you saw something... you were telling me you loved me. Each and every time, Jaya.”

“I love your brother.”

“I know, trust me, I know. And he loves you. And just like you, he doesn’t like that word and can’t comprehend it. He turned his own sister in, Jaya. The same person he’s protected all our lives. Do you understand that?”

“One minute.” I hear someone say in the background.

“You don’t know what love is, Toska. Do you think I’m going to listen to you?”

“Just don’t give him an ultimatum, please let me see him again.”

“I won’t keep him from you.”

“Thank you, and Jaya... teach him how to love. Teach each other. I might have been the bad apple, and if I wasn’t locked up, I probably would still try to kill you. Because he was mine first, just like you.” Then my cell goes silent, and I’m left with it in my hand and a confused as fuck mind.