Imagine Dragons—Radioactive
Relient K—Don’t blink
Life is full of pivotal moments, moments that can change your life forever. Veering it off the track that you were on and destroying the plan that you had mapped out for yourself, the one you thought you were destined to follow.
I always thought I had control over everything that I did and over what my life would turn out to be.
I was wrong.
When I went to college at eighteen-years-old, I thought I’d regained my freedom. Freedom from the life I had been brought up in: the dinners, the balls, the pretentious, fake lives of everyone around me. I was never interested in that though. I wanted to be me: I wanted to play baseball and hang out with the “normal” kids who lived on the other side of town.
Only the “normal” kids weren’t the kind of kids that my parents allowed me to hang out with. I was supposed to be friends with the people from my side of town; the side that was full of mansions, sports cars, and fake people who did nothing but gossip about each other.
I may have had friends for appearances on my side, but my true friends were on the other side of the tunnel that separated the two halves of the town. I preferred to be around the people who lived in the normal-sized houses, who cared more about their families and friendships than their reputation.
I managed to sneak out and hang out with them for a while, keeping it a secret from my parents thanks to my driver, Edward. He’d driven me everywhere since I was four years old and he still does, even twenty-eight years later.
He was, and always has been more of a dad than my biological one. He would ask me how my day was when I finished school, he knew all my friends’ names—both the real ones and the ones I kept for appearances. He never told my parents anything, he knew how to keep a secret, something which made me trust in him fully.
Looking back now, I can remember the one pivotal moment that could have changed it all. My life would have been so different, and although I sometimes wish that I would have walked away from it all—from the money, from my parents—I know deep down that I wouldn’t change a thing.
I hated the lifestyle and the people in it for so long after I was given the ultimatum; I hated anyone who reminded me of the decision I had made. But most of all, I hated him.
I used to think that money gave you freedom, that it allowed you to do anything you wanted, but I was wrong. So, so wrong.
It trapped me. Trapped me in a job that I never wanted: the family company I’ve been running for the last nine years. I never had any interest in software, let alone becoming the CEO of a software company. But again, I had no choice in the matter.
What goes around, comes around. I never used to believe in karma, but I do now because my father got his just deserts when he was kicked out of the company he had built himself from the age of eighteen and sent to prison for nine years.
What I really wanted to do was work with numbers. They were my thing. I loved the definite answer that a number gives you. There’s no in between with them, the answer is either right or wrong; there’s no gray area, it’s either black or white.
But I soon learned that being the CEO of a company meant that I could be a part of something bigger and do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to play with numbers in the software department, then that’s what I did. If I wanted to sit behind my desk all day and be in meetings, then that is what I did.
The first few years of running the company wasn’t smooth sailing, I had a lot of trust to build thanks to my father. Being CEO of Carter Enterprises grew on me, I started to enjoy coming to work. Then it all changed. Work no longer became work, but a place to hide away from the tragedy that happened nearly six years ago.
It’s all my fault.
I’ve changed many things in the company over the last few years. It’s no longer somewhere where I can put my stamp on things, it’s a place that I can be the me that I’ve become. The cold, distant person; the one I prefer.
My mind whirls with all these thoughts and memories as I watch the buildings go by through the car window, my elbow braced on the door rest and my pointer finger rubbing aimlessly along my bottom lip.
I should be taking a business call or doing my last bit of work on the forty-five minute drive home from the city, but I don’t. Instead I gaze out of the window and imagine what my life could have been like had I taken a different path all those years ago. I could have been one of those people fighting through the crowds on the sidewalk as they all rush out of work early on a Friday night, vying for a clear path to walk as they run for the subway. They may look rushed, but at least they’re free.
Instead, I’m stuck in this obnoxious town car with one of the only people in my life that I trust sitting behind the wheel.
The city passes by in a blur of people and tall buildings and we’re soon heading toward home, but to get there we have to pass through what my father calls, “the poor area.” The place where I’ve always felt more at home than my actual home.
I haven’t walked on this side of town for ten years and even after all this time, I still can’t bear to look out of the windows as we pass through. I look down at my dark gray suit pants, dusting a piece of invisible lint off them to distract myself.
“Tristan?”
I startle at Edward’s voice coming from the front of the car and bring my eyes up to the rearview mirror, meeting his chocolate brown ones.
Clearing my throat, I ask, “Yes?”
“I was wondering if you wanted me to take Miss Isabel to her dance rehearsal for her recital?”
I frown at him and clench my teeth, my hands balling into fists. Why didn’t I know about this? I feel like I’m always the last to know anything when it comes to my kids and I hate it. I hate how I threw myself into my work so much after Izzie was born, so much so that I now don’t even know when she has a simple rehearsal.
As much as I despise missing out and feeling like a failure, I can’t help immersing myself in work to drown out the pain that rolls around inside of me.
I should be there for them more, I should have kept my promise.
“When did you say it was?” I ask, breathing in deeply to try and tamp down the rage that burns inside of my chest like an inferno.
When did I become this person that lets the days slip by like nothing matters?
“It’s, erm…” I watch as Edward visibly swallows and moves his eyes from mine, focusing on the road in front of him. That’s a recent thing; the nervousness when he’s around me. “It’s at six.”
I stretch my arm out, causing the sleeve of my suit jacket and shirt to ride up, allowing me to see the silver Rolex that sits snuggly on my wrist. The white dial shines at me brightly, the silver hands pointing at the numbers telling me that it’s only forty-five minutes away.
“Okay, how far out are we? It’s fifteen after five now.”
“About ten minutes, Tristan.”
I nod and look back out of the window, my reflection staring back at me as we go through the tunnel.
“I’ll take her,” I finally grit out.
“Got it,” Edward replies, nodding his head for added effect.
Pulling my cell out, I check for any messages or emails, trying to distract myself against the raging thoughts in my head. But it doesn’t work.
All I can think of is that if Natalia were here, she would have known every single rehearsal time and date, she would have made sure I knew too. She would have taken Clay and Izzie to all of their after school clubs, loving every minute of it. She would have been that mom: the one that was there no matter what. The one that is on the PTA and always goes into the school to volunteer. She would have been the one that all of the kids wished were their mom.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to see her face but it’s no use, my mind automatically goes back to that day, the one where she left us. Her soft, sad smile stares back at me; her dark blue eyes filled with both love and fear.
I throw my cell across the back seat, narrowing my eyes at it when it smacks off the door and lands on the floor. My breaths come faster, my hands clenching to the point of pain.
This isn’t how it was meant to be, we should have been a family. I shouldn’t be trying and failing as a single parent.
“Daddy!” Izzie squeals as I walk through the front door to our house, jumping down off the bench in the grand entrance and throwing her arms around my legs, squeezing me as tight as her little arms can muster.
It takes me several seconds to get myself together as I try to push all of my thoughts to the back of my mind. Shaking my head, I look down at her, my lips widening into a smile as I bend down, picking her up and holding her against my chest as I pepper kisses all over her face.
“You taking me today?” she asks in her sweet, little voice.
I feel all of the anger start to wane at her being in my arms, peace slowly replacing it.
“I sure am, pumpkin,” I tell her enthusiastically, pulling back and placing her on the floor. She spins around, her blond ponytail swinging like the pendulum of a grandfather clock as she skips back to the bench and shoulders her light-purple bag.
“Clay! We going now! Hurry up!” she shouts up the stairs, making me wince with how it echoes in the vast empty space.
Several seconds later we hear thumping and then his voice. “I’m coming! Jeez,” he grunts, stomping down the stairs, his attention on the book he’s holding instead of where he’s walking.
“Clayton! Look where you’re going,” I admonish. He looks up at me, his gray eyes narrowing as he sticks his tongue out at me. I shake my head and look away, not able to stop the grin lifting the sides of my lips.
As the parent, you’re not meant to find things like that funny—at least, that’s what everyone tells you, but I can’t stop myself from chuckling then coughing to try to cover it up. It doesn’t work though because I know he heard me.
“Do I have to go?” he groans when he gets to the bottom of the stairs, flopping his arms about in the air.
I straighten my back, trying to be the authoritative figure that I need to be, but it somehow doesn’t work with Clay and Izzie. When it’s just us three, I’m the Tristan that I used to be, but as soon as they’re not around, I’m a different person; the one I’ve had to become. “Yes, now hurry up otherwise we’re going to be late.”
I spin around and hold my hand out for Izzie. Her small, soft one slips against my palm and I can’t help the way that my heartbeat picks up at the feel of it. When I look down at her, I revel in the look she gives me; like her whole world starts and ends with me. I never want that to change, I want to make sure that I’m there for everything that she does, I want to be the one constant in her life—in both of their lives.
It’s even more important now that I’m their only parent. Life is hard enough being a dad to a little girl, knowing that there’s going to be things that I won’t know how to tackle; like when she’s a teenager and bringing boys home to meet me. I bat that thought away as soon as it comes to me.
“Hey... Dad?” Clay calls, his footsteps nearing us. I turn to face him and raise a brow, asking him silently what he wants. “Can we get burgers after?”
“Burgers!” Izzie squeals, letting go of my hand and clapping hers in excitement. “I love burgers! They’re my favorite! Can we, Daddy? Can we? Pleeeease?”
I chuckle and pull the front door open, waving them ahead of me to my own car.
I nod. “I suppose so.”
“Yes!” they shout back in unison.
Smirking, I shake my head and follow them, strapping Izzie into her seat and checking that Clay is buckled in.
“Right!” I say, pulling back and clapping my hands. “Let’s get this little princess to her dance rehearsal!”
I bow slightly as I step back and close the door, relishing in Izzie’s giggling face. I can’t help but chuckle at Clayton as he shakes his head; even he can’t stop his growing smile.
For me, this is what having children is all about. To make them smile, make them laugh and give them all the attention they’d ever need. I want to make their childhood a happy one.
After stuffing their faces and running around in the play area of the burger joint, they both fall asleep on the drive home.
The closer I get to the house, the more my mood deteriorates, knowing that when I step foot in the house and they’re both fast asleep in their beds, I’ll be once again left on my own. Sitting in the deafening silence that consumes the house.
I never in a million years thought I’d end up here—alone, raising two children and not knowing whether I was doing it right or wrong.
I suppose that all parents think the same thing; worrying that they’re not doing a good enough job, that they’re doing more harm than good. Although, in my heart, I know that there is no right or wrong; it’s all a big learning curve, and one that I’m constantly veering off.
Am I doing enough? Should I stop working so many hours? Should I ask my mom to step in and help? All of those questions fly through my head constantly, but I always come up with the same answer—no.
I worry that I’m not enough for them, that I’ll never be enough for them. How can only having a father ever be good enough? They should have two parents, not one.
I scrub my hands down my face, trying to not let my mind run away from me again as I pull onto the property. Driving up the gravel driveway and around the circular fountain that sits in front of the large house, I put the car into park in front of the double garage. The headlights beam off the limestone brick of the house and the trees that line the whole property.
I switch the engine off and jump out, making my way around to Clay and giving him a gentle shake on his shoulder to wake him.
“Clay? Clay? Get up, bud.” He startles awake and looks around in panic, his gray eyes clashing with mine. It takes several seconds for him to realize where he is and when he finally comes to, he calms.
“I need you to walk inside, bud, Izzie is sleeping.”
He nods his head at me and reaches around to unclip his belt, his movements jerky. I help him down and pass him his book to carry before walking around the back of the car to the other side. He stays close to me as I open the door and unstrap Izzie, picking her up and letting her head flop down onto my shoulder.
As soon as I’m a couple of steps away from the car I press the button on the key fob, the flashing lights of the car illuminating the dark space outside as the car locks.
Clenching my jaw, I hold my hand out for Clay and he grips it hard. I can hear his breathing becoming faster and louder, almost turning into gasps because of the darkness that surrounds us.
Why didn’t I leave the light on? It’s such a simple thing and I forgot, again. First thing in the morning I’m contacting someone to come and install lights that can be clicked on and off remotely.
I manage to open the front door with my elbow as my hands are full and we walk in, Clay staying in the doorway as I move over to the left to switch on all the lights.
“It’s okay now, bud,” I tell him, turning to face him with what I hope looks like a reassuring smile as the whole place illuminates with light. Holding my hand back out to him, he takes it and I adjust Izzie on my shoulder, making our way up the grand staircase.
I shiver as we walk up to the first floor, hating the coldness that emanates from the entryway. The white walls and marble floor are all for show, along with the intricate design that wraps around the black and gold railings that adorn the staircase.
Natalia hated it, she always wanted to have a wooden staircase installed and a warmer color on the walls, but I kept putting it off. Now I wish I would have said yes when she first asked instead of telling her to wait until her pregnancy with Izzie was over.
Another thing I should have done differently.
Once we get to the top of the staircase, we turn left toward Clayton and Izzie’s wing.
We get to Clay’s room first, his name in blue letters on the door with a plaque of a book.
I push the door open and say to him, “You get into your pajamas, bud, and I’ll be back once I’ve put Izzie down,” as I switch his main light on.
“Okay,” he whispers back, his eyes full of trepidation.
“I’ll be back in a minute, okay?” I reassure him, hating that it’s my fault that he’s so scared right now.
He finally nods and I wait until he’s inside before I walk into the room opposite.
Izzie’s door has the same letters spelling her name, only hers are pink, sitting above a plaque with a princess riding a unicorn.
I let my eyes adjust to the darkness and wait a couple of seconds before I move forward, aware that I could possibly trip over one of the thousand stuffed animals that she has in here.
I skirt around the tea party that she’s set up in the middle of the room and lay her down onto her bed, not bothering to change her clothes before I pull the covers over her.
I place a gentle kiss on her forehead and switch on her princess night light, illuminating the pink and purple walls with figures of princesses that adorn the outside of the light.
I walk back out, closing the door halfway behind me before crossing the hallway and stepping into Clay’s room.
My eyes settle on him sitting on the dark blue padded seat of his little reading nook in front of the window. He’s surrounded himself with all the pillows he has and is leaning against one of the many bookcases that incase him in his safe place.
There isn’t one spare space on his shelves, he has so many books and all of them are well read. Many of them are ones that Natalia passed down to him, and I think on some level, she knew he would be able to connect with her on those pages and inside the words.
He loves reading, even at the young age of eight he can surpass the reading that his peers do. He gets lost in the magic of another world for hours without realizing how much time has passed, and it often means that I have to pull him out of that world, telling him that it’s time to sleep.
“Dad?” he asks, his voice a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Could you read me the next chapter?” He holds out the old battered copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I smile and nod as he jumps down from where he’s sitting and crosses over to his bed, lying down before pulling the covers up to his chin as he waits for me to come over.
I step closer and settle down next to him, opening the book up to chapter ten and starting to read out loud.
It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep and once he has, I close the book and place it carefully on his nightstand before turning my head back to look at him. I sit and stare at him for several seconds, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath he takes.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s harder for Clay or Izzie. Clay got to meet his mother, spending three years with her before she was taken from us. Whereas Izzie; all she has are photographs of her.
“Look after my babies.”
Her soft voice rings in my ears as I allow myself to think about her, not able to stop my eyes from closing as I imagine that she’s here with us.
We may not have been a “normal” couple—one that falls in love, then gets married and has kids—but we made the best of a bad situation. Neither of us wanted to marry each other, not in a bad way, we just didn’t feel like that for each other; but in the end, neither of us had a choice.
We had to get married and solidify the bond between our families, we had no option but to go along with it, no matter how much we tried to fight against it.
It didn’t help that Nat was her best friend. The woman I walked away from, the woman who has held my heart in the palm of her hand since I first laid eyes on her.
I knew she’d hate me for leaving her like that with no real explanation, no reason as to why I was doing it. I didn’t have a choice. I was protecting her, making sure that she could have the life that she always wanted, that she dreamed about.
But to then marry Natalia? That would have been the final nail in the coffin for her; I knew that, Natalia knew that, but it was still something we had no control over.
Both Natalia and I were aware of the turmoil it would cause, and we tried several times to suggest something different, to come up with a solution that wouldn’t mean tearing us all apart, but neither of our fathers would accept it.
So we did the only thing we could do and got married. For a business deal.
But by the time Clay was born, my father was being kicked out of his company and our family name meant a fraction of what it used to. Natalia’s father was one of the investors that lost millions of dollars, one of the reasons he demanded that she divorce me, effectively rendering the whole point of us being together moot.
But by that time, we had this beautiful, newborn baby boy and we were both determined to make it work. She told her father no, and in turn, her parents disowned her.
We tried our hardest to make a life for us and to be the proper husband and wife unit that we were meant to be. It was hard at first, trying to put roots down while we had so much against us, not only that, but she knew that I still loved her.
Natalia wasn’t stupid, she could see that I’d never love her the way that I did with her. It wasn’t that I didn’t try, because I did, I tried so hard to love her in the same way.
Things became hard when Clay was a toddler, and I pulled away, more than I ever had done, but when we found out we were pregnant with Izzie, life seemed to lift. That’s when something changed between us and I realized that I did love her.
There was another child coming into our family and I made a promise to myself that I would be there for everything, not just for the children, but for Natalia too. It was time that I made good on the promise of our vows and be the husband that she needed.
I loved her. She was my wife, the mother to my children. She became my best friend, my confidant, the person who I turned to the most. I could feel it happening, the love between us blossoming. I knew it would never be as intense as it was before—nothing could compare to that love, the kind that consumes your heart, body, and soul. But this was a different kind of love that I started to feel, one that I was more than happy to live with for the rest of my life.
Part of me hated that she accepted the fact that I would always love her too. I wanted her to scream and shout at me, I wanted her to hate me for loving another woman, but she didn’t. She understood, which almost made the whole thing that much worse.
I lift off Clay’s bed slowly, careful not to wake him as I make sure all of his nightlights are on. That’s another thing, ever since Izzie was born, he’s had this irrational fear of the dark. I don’t know where it’s come from but I’ve been trying everything and anything to make him comfortable. The ten lights dotted around his room are one of the solutions that I came up with. Another one was to paint his room a light blue, hoping that the light and airy feel would make him feel less closed in—less trapped.
I know I should probably ask for help with it, but I fear that I’d be seen as not coping, and the thought of having someone judge me and my parenting, it’s too much to bear.
I take one look back at him and his sleeping form before I close the door halfway, walking toward my wing where my bedroom and office are.
I walk into my office, heading for the small table that sits next to the black, leather sofa before picking up the crystal decanter. I pour the amber liquid into a matching crystal glass before sitting down on the sofa, looking out of the window that sits opposite it and then to the left where my huge oak desk stands proud in the middle of the room.
My gaze roves over the bookcases that line the entire wall behind the desk, full of books that I’ve never even opened. They’re just for show, and besides, I don’t have the time to read. All of my time is either spent in the office or at home with the kids. Once they’re off to bed, I’m never far behind them.
I lean back on the sofa, gulping down the drink and relishing in the burn at the back of my throat. The warmth spreads through my chest and I let my head drop on the back of the sofa, closing my eyes and letting my body relax for the first time since I woke up fifteen hours ago.