If you haven’t really gotten over the past, you’ve never really lived your present life. What you’re looking for now isn’t a better future. You’re looking at the past so full of remorse.
Anger.
Pure, livid anger.
My blood was boiling just at the mere sight of those two chatting happily like Ayden and I didn’t even exist. When I saw them like that, I came to believe that they were spending their entire time like this, ignoring my desperate plea to help Ayden.
They never even called.
When they took the money from life insurance and savings our parents had in the bank, they told the judge that they will take good care of us and that they’ll use all of the money for our sake.
Selfish liars. Instead, they sold our house and bought that little place for Ade and me—probably not wanting to take us with them on their journey around the world—before they suddenly left.
In the beginning, they used to send some money for us to manage it somehow, but after I found a job, they immediately stopped. We never saw them after that day, and I honestly didn’t mind it at all. I was not too fond of those people. They were no longer my family. Your family are the people who will care for you, who will help you when no one else wants, who will always be there to hold out their hands for you when you need them. Being blood-related has nothing to do with it.
Nor family, nor other people go around destroying other people. Only monsters do.
She suddenly noticed me before looking around as if she finally began to understand that it was I who was getting engaged. She put her smile I knew all too well to be fake as she started coming my way. My aunt.
I pushed all my previous thoughts away as I braced myself for the not too pleasant conversation that followed.
“Kaley, oh my God, we’re so happy for you,” she exclaimed as she spread her arms to hug me, but I just moved away. There they were: face, voice, and composure I was already familiar with since that trial two years ago. The only thing that changed was her hair that was currently red. It was never the same color whenever we met.
“So now you remember us, Maria?” I couldn’t help but say her name with so much venom, a mere reminder of the anger and hatred I felt toward her. That woman was a cruel, cunning creature and deserved nothing else.
Not even pity.
“I never forgot about you, my dear.” She let out a laugh as some people glanced at our way, Blake already noticing that something was wrong.
He gave me a look of question, with his eyebrow slightly raised as I only averted my eyes from him. He couldn’t help here.
I needed to let it out.
“We’re sorry for your parents and Ayden. I think we never had enough time to talk about it. What you say to renew our bonds now for your sake. You must be so lonely.” She continued moving her hand toward my shoulder, and I took a step back bitterly laughing in my head. My sake?
It would be for the best if I never had to deal with her face again for my sake.
“No, thank you. I am good as I’m now,” I replied, trying to calm down. There were so many things going through my head I wanted to scream in her face, but I knew that it wasn’t worth it—not with all those people around us.
It was at that moment that Ayden arrived, and I began to lose my cool.
“Is that the aunt, Kay?” he asked, his innocent mind not understanding a single thing that was going around. She, on the other hand, only glanced at him with disappointment written all over her face.
“Oh, you’re still alive? Too bad for the insurance money,” she quietly mumbled before looking sideways, but I heard her. I blinked twice. I couldn’t believe that the only reason they returned here was that they wanted to take money from Ayden’s life insurance once he died.
How fucking low could they get? Was the only thing those people that were of my own flesh and blood thought of money? Did they choose not to help us because they hoped to gain more with his death?
They were insane.
Before I had noticed it, my hand had already connected with her cheek. The sound of that slap resounded in the room. She had looked like a lady in that damn black dress of hers and nice hair and makeup, but she was scum on the inside.
She had been quiet for a while, not saying a single word, probably trying to understand what had just happened. I felt another wave of anger building under my skin. No more was I nice Kaley for her.
“How dare you?” she started once she finally regained her senses, but I interrupted her before she could say anything else.
“How dare you to call yourself our aunt?” I yelled. “You had disappeared for two years, and when I told you about Ayden’s state, you returned just because you wanted money!” Everyone’s eyes were on us, and her husband came next to her. He? Oh, he was just as guilty as she was.
She tried to return that slap to me, but before her hand could hit me, it was stopped by no one else than Blake.
“I would be careful if I were in your place. It’s my fiancée you’re standing in front of,” he warned her, and she retreated, her eyes wide open.
“T-those are lies. We didn’t come for that. We had dearly missed you, and we wanted to see you again,” she tried to look like a good person once again while Mel came and took Ade away. She already knew the type of relationship I had with those people, and I silently thanked her because Ayden wouldn’t have to listen to this. He didn’t deserve to.
“When I had called you to ask for money because Ayden was fucking dying in the damn hospital, you simply told me that everyone dies and that you couldn’t spend your money on something so insignificant, so don’t you bullshit me with that fake interest in your family now!”
Blake’s jaw clenched as some people gasped, but I paid them no mind. He seemed to have finally put two and two together, but I no longer gave a damn about others’ opinions now.
“When our parents died, you took all the money you could find before you went to travel around the world, leaving Ayden and me to survive on our own, so don’t say you love or care for us because the only thing you two care for are your own asses!”
There went my lady style.
“What? That’s not,” she once again started and threw that desperate laugh at my face.
“Not to forget that you said to Ayden that it would’ve been better if we had also died with Mom and Dad,” I lowered my voice, recalling the scene at the funeral and them saying something like that to Ayden who was crying. Nice? They didn’t even deserve the “n” from nice.
“Who the hell says to a three years old kid on a funeral that it’s better if he had died?” I no longer cared about who was listening to us. I just had to take it all out. “You didn’t even pay everything for their funeral. If Ryan wasn’t there, who knows what could have been of it? Few hundred thousand of dollars and you didn’t respect your sister and brother-in-law enough to pay for their own fucking funeral? What kind of people you are?”
I didn’t even notice when the tears started sliding down my cheeks. I haven’t cried like this since that night, and I hoped that I would never have to do it again.
I hated that feeling of being weak! I hated showing it in front of other people! I hated the life Ayden and I had to go through! And I hated those people for leaving us to survive on our own!
“Get them out of here.” I heard Blake say. The ringing in my ears just wouldn’t stop, and I was sure that my face looked like a mess at the moment, but I just didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn about people around me. What did they know about the burden I carried on my shoulder?
“Come here.” It was Blake again. He hugged me and took me somewhere as I walked gladly without any objections, my tears unable to stop. Like always, he didn’t leave me to deal with it alone.
“I’m fine,” I told him, but he didn’t even spare me a glance before he carried me.
“You’re not.”
Short but meaningful. He understood.
I couldn’t hide anything from him. We soon came to some doors, and when he opened them, I noticed that we were in a huge dark room.
“It used to be mine while I lived here,” he said before he turned on the lights.
“Come, let’s take care of you.” And with that, he took me into another set of doors inside that lead to the bathroom. Across the whole wall was a mirror, and looking at myself, I saw I looked like a wreck…really ugly wreck. He turned the water on and made me sit in the bath as he wet the towel and then proceeded to clean my face.
I couldn’t think. He’d say a thing or two every moment, and I couldn’t embrace the numbness. He wasn’t letting me to.
“There, I believe that you look much better without makeup, my not lady-like fiancée.” He grinned, and I just weakly showed him my tongue. I wasn’t in the mood to joke with him.
He poked my forehead, lifted me up again, and took me to the bed back in his old room.
“We can either go back now or simply stay and sleep. Cuddle?” He invited me, and I shook my head.
“I don’t really feel like going down.” I gave him my honest reply.
“I understand. Me neither. I was looking for some excuse to escape from them, anyway. Sorry for the pressure they put on you. My family can be like that sometimes.” He chuckled, and I joined him.
“They’re not too bad. They’re not like my aunt.”
“Yeah, although some of them are even worse.”
I looked at him. What did he mean by that?
“Here, feel free to change in some of my old clothes. You gave everyone quite the show tonight, and I believe that the young mistress should take a break now.” He got to the drawer, took some clothes, and gave them to me. I took them before standing up.
“I’m ruining your image,” I said as he laughed.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Kaley. I did a good job on that myself.”
I got inside before changing in his clothes. From the looks of it, they still had his clothes here, but I recalled that he lived on his own for a while. Why would they keep them after so long?
Once I came back in his room, I noticed that he was in nothing but his pants. Jesus, learn to live in the twenty-first century! Clothes, Blake. Wear clothes.
He was typing on his phone without even noticing me as I took that moment to look at him. I never saw him working out, but his torso was more than finely defined with his six pack abs. That V line of his was so prominent that it was inviting me to…
“They suit you better than me. I tried looking for something for myself, but I outgrew everything. I haven’t been here in years. I’m honestly surprised that they kept my room untouched,” he said, and I nodded. That explained his caveman-like looks. Blake the caveman—not bad.
He came close to me to take off the butterfly-like accessory from my head and put it on the nightstand.
“There, you’re ready to sleep. You can rest in this room. I’ll see if there’s another for me. No one is going to bother you here,” he said, and I widened my eyes. I didn’t want to be alone. My thoughts would’ve eaten me alive.
“B-Blake!” I suddenly said, and he stopped in his tracks before giving me another of his eyebrow looks, and I gulped.
“Um, I…” It was a bad idea. “I’ve been wondering if you’d stay—” But it was the only one I had.
And he interrupted me.
Asking a single question I was afraid to hear.
“Do you hate me for what I did? I want an honest answer.”
Hate.
Did I really hate Blake? Were the feelings I felt toward him associated with hatred, or was it something else? If I were to compare him and my aunts, could I really say that those two feelings had the same weight of hatred?
“I…hate you from the depths of my soul. I have never hated someone in my life as I hate you.” He looked defeated. I bit my tongue.
That sounded so wrong rolling out my tongue.
“Is what I would like to say. But that’s a lie. If it weren’t for you, Ayden would have been dead. You saved my little brother, no matter how it actually happened, no matter the price paid for it. And now, now you gave us a safe roof over our heads, and you accepted our child. For the first time after so long I could live without any worries. You make me feel alive, human.
“So there’s no way in hell I could ever hate you…Yes, I’m still afraid of you because I don’t know who you really are, what your true personality is like, but I definitely don’t hate you. Actually I…I did hate you at beginning. I won’t lie, I did. I cried. I cried so hard that the times when my parents died felt so tranquil, and I thought I’ll forever hold those feelings in my heart. But I’m grateful to you.”
Why was I saying this? Why couldn’t I let go of it? Those feelings were unknown to me. I had never felt the need to speak about my feelings with someone.
“When I think of home, it’s you and Ayden I see. The same goes for family. So thank you…No matter how sick this sounds, thank you for offering me that deal on that night, and I don’t hate you.” I finished truly. Even if he did hurt me and I cried for days after, I was thankful to him for saving Ade.
Maybe I could have told him somehow what I needed money for, but it was in the past. I would no longer stay trapped in it. I was sick of it, and maybe that’s the reason I had come to accept Blake that easily. He was helping me realize that I was sick of it. He was pushing me forward.
Saving me.
“I see. Thank you too…for not hating me,” he said and started moving once again.
“Alright then, I’m tired. I’ll immediately go to bed. Come to the dark side. We have pillows!” he said, jumping in, and I weakly joined him, regaining a cool composure. I didn’t mind his company as much as I thought I would.
“What’s with Ade? In all this hurry, I forgot about him,” I asked, concerned about my brother, but Blake simply showed me his phone.
“I just texted Mel to inform her of us staying here. She’ll take care of him,” he said, and I nodded.
“Blake?” I asked, and he glanced at me. “I don’t really want to sleep.”
He was silent for a while before he spoke.
“I don’t care. I do.”
“You’re mean and evil.”
He only laughed at that one before winking at me.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And not gentleman-like at all.”
“Truth. But ask anyone who knows me, they’ll all say the opposite.”
“Aha, so you’re also a good liar.” I grinned, and he feigned innocence.
“More like a good actor…That reminds me, you complained about not knowing me?” he asked, and I nodded. The walls of his room were completely black except for those little white cubes I believed were lights. His bed was white except for the gray pillows. I didn’t see blankets anywhere and should probably remind Blake about them, but looking at his room, you wouldn’t really say that it was a kid’s room. It looked so…empty, except for the drawing of a white horse I only now noticed.
“Yeah, I remember.” Back then, when I first met him, I even thought that he might have been some vampire. He looked so mysterious and out of this world.
“Then let’s play Questions until You Fall Asleep, deal?”
“Does that even exist?”
Surely not.
“I doubt that twenty questions will be enough for us, so we’ll play until one of us is too tired to continue. What you say?” he asked and yawned. Weakling.
“You seem like you’re about to drop dead,” I commented, and he chuckled.
“I assure you that I have more than enough stamina to keep me all night long, sweetheart, so just go on. I promise to stay awake until you fall asleep.” I could only sigh to that. Men.
“So, favorite food then?”
“Anything eatable. You?” how the heck can he like everything? Like even the insides of an animal? I hated those. Eww.
“That’s hard…Lasagna, I guess. I used to eat it a lot when I was younger.” Dad would always make me one for dinner even if the whole family was eating something else. I smiled remembering those times.
“Color?”
“Cliché, light green. Just like your eyes.” He winked at me once again, and I blushed. I never knew when the playful Blake was going to jump out from serious, business Blake.
“Kaley? I’m sorry to hear that your parents died…I think I just assumed that your relationship with them wasn’t good, or I don’t know, maybe I did realize it, but I just ignored it because it was easier to assume that, but…I’m sorry,” he suddenly said, and I shook my head. I hated that theme.
“It’s alright. I never really talked about them.” No one ever asked, so I never had a need to talk about them, anyway.
“Can I ask how it happened?”
Should I tell him? No, I don’t have a reason to…
“Car accident…It…It…It was all my fault.” Before I had noticed it, my lips moved on their own accord. I knew it was my fault. If only…if only I had listened to them instead of arguing.
“How do you mean your fault—I mean, if you don’t mind telling me?”
I…I needed to get rid of those feelings.
“It was my sixteenth birthday…My friends have prepared a party for me, but my parents wanted us to go to a family dinner.” Tears started forming in my eyes just from remembering that event. I could do this, I told myself. I could talk about it.
“We–we were in the car. They were sitting in the front seats while Ayden and I were in the back…I started arguing since I wanted to go to that damn party, and they told me that I was childish.” I could still hear their voices from that night. Blake pulled me into his arms, letting me sob on his chest.
“Dad turned around to tell me how I can go to the party once we’re done with dinner, and…he–he lost sight of the road just for a few seconds, and the other driver was drunk. He came out of the left track, but Dad tried to turn cars but…but…but we got hit anyway, and they–they died in an instant.” I was crying my heart out on Blake’s chest, but he didn’t seem to mind.
I should have stayed calm in that situation, not argued with them. That way, they might have survived. If only I didn’t act like a spoiled brat, they might’ve survived, and we could’ve had a normal family life. Maybe Ayden wouldn’t have gotten sick, and we could have had normal lives, ordinary lives.
“It’s not your fault,” Blake said gently, but I shook my head. He wouldn’t understand the guilt eating me.
“It is…I was so stubborn and stupid!” I argued back, but he only kissed my forehead.
“Trust me, I know the feeling, and it isn’t. Even if your father didn’t turn around, nothing says that the drunk man wouldn’t have hit you. If it’s someone’s fault, then it’s the fault of that drunk man.”
But…but!
“Still…still…” I don’t know what I was looking for. It seemed to me like it was for the best if I were the one to blame.
“There’s nothing to think anymore. Don’t blame yourself.” He gently caressed my cheeks, wiping my tears away. “It’s in the past. Nothing’s your fault. That guilt you feel only means that you care, not that it was really your fault.” And then he kissed my head again.
“You see, that happens when we lose people because of some actions we were not too proud for having done. Then we start questioning our choices, begin to ask ourselves if we could’ve done something differently, if we could’ve changed what we did. Regret is too big to handle. It eats us alive, and then we embrace numbness because we don’t know what else to do. Some of us prefer pain and solitude, but the truth is that we can’t deal with them on our own. Trust me, I know. Which is why I have to thank you,” he added, and I looked at him, confused.
“Thank you,” he said, “for telling me about yourself so that I could help and for not asking me about Marine,” he said. The name was unknown to me. I tilted my head to the side.
“Marine?” Who was that?
“The girl on my laptop. I saw that it concerned you, but you still didn’t ask.” It was never my business to start with.
“One day, I will be able to tell you about her, but not now. Just not now while I’m in the same house as him.” He? For a second, I thought he said to George something about not coming here again if he’s here…Lucas?
“Can you tell me who she is? You don’t have to if you don’t want.” I warily approached him. And what he said left me stunned for a few moments.
“She…she was my deceased sister.”
Curiosity was the way of young. We want to know more, to understand more because there is no other way for us to come to realize the world of grownups.
But sometimes we learn some answers way too earlier than we should have.
And because of that, we learn to regret our choice to grow up.