I don’t see your father when I look into them. I just see you right now.
He wraps his arm around me, pulling me into his side. “You know every time I come back home I’m drawn here.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back. This place is where he finds his peace. This is where I could breathe. “I couldn’t sleep last night so I came down here,” he admits.
My eyes travel over his face, waiting for him to continue. His chest rises and falls, but he doesn’t say more.
I reach for his hand and lace my fingers through his. “Is it about your father?” I ask.
He nods, a pained expression taking up residence on his face.
“You can tell me,” I murmur.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
My back stiffens. What can he possibly say that can hurt me? I’m the one holding a fully loaded gun to my temple, hand trembling, petrified of pulling the trigger. I haven’t dropped my hand for over a decade.
“You won’t,” I answer.
His eyes open, slowly finding mine. He searches them for the truth.
Whatever you say can’t be as bad as what I’m hiding. Trust me.
“I don’t see the accident anymore.” Why would that hurt me? That makes me feel better. He won’t suffer for something he was never supposed to witness. He won’t– “I hear you instead.”
I blink. “What do I say?”
He whips his head to the right not wanting to look at me.
I squeeze his hand. Please, Owen, tell me.
His jaw clenches. “That you killed him.” My heart stops. “That it wasn’t an accident.”
Ohmygod.
Oh.
My.
God.
What have I done?
I said those words to him while he was sleeping. It was hours after he tried to go down on me for my birthday. I was stupid to think his mind wouldn’t store that for future use.
Why did you say that to him?! Why can’t you leave him alone? He deserves so much better, Zoë. He deserves a girl his father didn’t ruin.
This is on me.
“Zo, it’s not your fault. It’s not.” His hands are on my face, fingers brushing against my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t want to make you cry.”
I honestly didn’t even know I was crying. It’s tears of sadness. It’s tears of guilt.
I’m fueling his nightmares.
I’m hurting him.
I feel nothing besides Owen touching me, trying to calm me down. His mouth moves but I hear nothing.
It’s always been me. I’m the problem.
I’m stuck in my head.
I’m stuck in this fucking nightmare.
I wanted to confess my sins. And he heard them.
Oh, baby girl. Looks like I’m not the only one hurting him. I hear Michael whisper in my head. We’re alike. So fucking alike. Both sick and vile.
We are alike. We hurt the people we’re supposed to love.
“It wasn’t an accident.” My lungs deflate. My blood turns cold. I’m frozen with the truth. I’m paralyzed by how Owen will take this.
“Loving you is equivalent to death,” I hear Owen saying this in my head.
I’m so sorry. Forgive me.
It’s already so quiet around us, but I swear, it gets quieter. It’s like I hear his heart beating in his chest, slowing its pace as the words sink in.
“What?”
Owen never lets go of my face. He’s still trying to comfort me even though he’s confused, grasping for the truth.
I told you the truth now let me go.
“I am so sorry. I didn’t want it to happen. I never meant to hurt you. Any of you.” I stand, taking a step away from Owen as he processes every word coming out of my mouth. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend that he was a good guy. We’re both the same. Both fucking sick.” My stomach flips and I fight back the urge to vomit.
Owen stands, taking a step forward, his eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not…what are you saying?”
Baby girl, tell me you’re mine…
Get out of my head. Get the fuck out!
There’s only one way out. You know what it is.
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t hold it in. I’m tired. I’m tired of being the only one (besides Echo) to know what I’ve done.
I shut my eyes and utter the three words I’ve kept a secret for years, “I killed him.”
Three words.
Three soul-crushing words that were never supposed to be said to him.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Owen’s eyes narrow. I’ve never felt such a heated gaze like the one he has pinned on me. Looking at him right now, I don’t know who this person is. He never looked so…perturbed. “This isn’t a joke, Zoë.”
“I’m not…” I shake my head, screwing my eyes shut. “He was driving so fast. And he wouldn’t stop. I told him to stop, Owen.” My eyes open, my vision blurry. “I jerked the wheel. I did it. I killed him.”
We stand still, both of us breathing heavily.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks. When I don’t answer, he sits back down on the fallen tree and presses his palms into his eyes. “Please tell me I’m fucking dreaming. This isn’t real.”
“It’s real.” It’s my life, my nightmare. But it’s real.
“Fuck!” He pulls on his hair, his head dropping between his legs. “I don’t…” He shakes his head, growling at the snow. “Why?” Before I can answer, he picks his head back up, his eyes level with mine. “Why? He was like family to you. He loved you.”
“He wasn’t a good man,” I whisper. “He–”
“That doesn’t give you the right to end his fucking life!” Owen stands abruptly, rage filled eyes searing my soul.
I replay those words over and over again, slowly killing every part of me that Owen has brought back to life.
Every word out of his mouth feels like lashes from a whip to the back. But this is about his father. Someone he loves. Someone he believes could never hurt me.
“What could he have possibly done that justifies this?”
The longer the silence stretches I become paralyzed with fear. He wants to know.
I can tell him, ultimately shattering his world with just a few words.
Owen takes a step forward. “He treated you like a daughter,” he says, brows furrowing even more.
I take one step back like he slapped me with those words. “No…he didn’t.”
“Hey, you guys coming in soon?!” Beckett yells from the top of the hill, most likely leaning against the gate with his hands cupping his mouth.
I take a step to the side, wanting a way out of this conversation. Run. Run, Zoë.
“You are not going anywhere,” Owen states, wiping his face quickly. “You can not tell me that you killed my father and then just leave.”
I can see it in his eyes; he won’t let me leave. I’ve just broken his heart, shattered whatever picture perfect image he had of me. I am no longer his best friend or his girlfriend.
I’m a stranger.
A killer.
“Do you want to know the truth, Owen? Do you really want to know what I kept from you for sixteen years? Because once you find out everything changes. We will never be the same. I know how you’ll feel afterward and it kills me. I never meant to break your heart. Ever.”
He laughs darkly, his eyes cutting to the creek. “Well you just did, Zoë. I don’t even know who you are right now.”
I don’t know who I am anymore either.
I was his, Owen. But I always wanted to be yours.
And now, I am…nothing.
Tears run down his cheeks. I want to wipe them away, but I’m the one who caused them so I have no right.
I take two steps forward until I’m standing right in front of him. My best friend, my boyfriend, my world.
Loving you is equivalent to death. My nightmares were right. They prepared me for this moment. I should have paid them more attention.
We will never be what we were after I tell him.
He’ll know the truth. He’ll eventually hate himself for not protecting me.
He’ll hate himself for failing me.
I stare off into the distance when I say, “Your father molested me ever since I was six.”
He inhales sharply, turning his eyes on me. And in them I see everything I never wanted to see in his eyes. I see the uncertainty hiding behind the pain. He doesn’t know whether or not to believe me. “W-what?” His eyes hold mine, digging deeper. I can practically feel his soul breaking. “He wouldn’t…”
He did.
“He’s not…”
He is.
Just wait, Owen. Do you want to feel your heart being ripped out of your chest? Do you want to know what it feels like to have gasoline injected into your veins before you light the match, watching yourself being engulfed in flames and not do a thing?
That is how I feel every day when I wake up and I remember what he did to me. I was trying to protect Owen. I never wanted to distort the image he had of his father.
But today…I finally tell the truth.
“He forced himself on me on your fifteenth birthday.”
He’s staring at me with tears running down his cheeks, and he shakes his head. Something deep and painful rumbles in his throat, the sound is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. “He wouldn’t do that.” The words leave his mouth softer than a whisper but it’s one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard.
He doesn’t believe me.
I know deep down he doesn’t mean it. I wouldn’t lie about this. But I have to remember that he grew up thinking his father was someone else, someone good. Only I knew the truth of how evil he was.
I thought some part of me would feel relieved finally confessing that to someone other than my best friend and my therapist. I was wrong. It fucking pains me to see my best friend so hurt. It feels like a knife to the heart to have him unsure on what to believe.
Believe me, Owen. Believe me.
He opens his mouth to say something but then he looks away, his brows furrowed and his shoulders hunched. “He wouldn’t h-hurt anyone,” I hear him whisper, voice cracking.
When he looks up again, the immense pain in the center of my chest overrides everything else I’m feeling. I broke him.
Why would he believe me?
His heartbroken eyes have the power to steady my trembling hand holding the metaphorical gun to my temple. His eyes and every unspoken word that I will never hear are the right amount of pressure I need to close my eyes and willingly pull the fucking trigger.
Zoë Whitmore is officially dead.
She was a walking zombie for the last seven years.
She was finally put out of her misery.
This person left in her wake makes a run for it. And she doesn’t look back, blocking out the one voice that never stops calling out her name.
He needs to let her go.
I run after her until I can’t. She’s always been faster, but it’s her words that stop me dead once I grab her wrist and demand her to stop running.
“Let me go!” Zoë screams, shaking her hand free from my grasp and then she delivers the final blow. The anguish in her eyes beg me to listen. “I-I can’t look at you. Let me go, Owen. Let. Me. Go.” Tears stream down her cheeks as she turns around and runs. Always running. I now understand from what.
My fucking lungs burn as I unwillingly collapse against a chain-link fence. My heart feels like it’s being beaten with a fucking meat clever. I can’t breathe. I try to suck air into my useless lungs but it’s futile. I feel like I’ve just been run over by a Mack truck, dragged for miles before someone noticed my mangled body was stuck underneath.
I hear Zoë telling me what my father did to her over and over again. I drop to the snow covered ground and I let the fucking tears out because I’m filled with every emotion possible and I don’t know what to do with it. I want to hurt someone. I want to find Zoë and beg her for her forgiveness. I watched her struggle with those truths and I still pressed, I made her feel like I didn’t believe her. I was just…shocked and completely confused not wanting to believe that a man I idolized could hurt her.
She killed him…
He deserved to die if he raped her.
No, it’s not an “if.” He did.
Zoë wouldn’t fucking lie about that.
My father molested and raped her.
Those are words I never thought I’d ever say.
I’ve cried over someone I thought I knew for years. I was fucking proud that I looked like him because he was my father.
I’ve done nothing but hurt my best friend for the last sixteen years. I couldn’t protect her. I only reminded her of the worst moments of her life.
I fucking failed her.
It all makes sense now. Why she pushed me away, why she always froze up if I touched her. The contacts. The reasons why she never wanted to sleep over my house when we were younger. Why when I kissed her she said “we can’t.”
Every memory floats through my mind and I try to see deeper. I cringe thinking about all the times my father took us out. Zoë would be the happiest person, smiling and dancing, and then she wouldn’t. She’d keep her arms crossed over her chest, not speaking unless the answer was important.
I never questioned why her attitude changed so drastically if she was left in my room while I had to wash up after playing outside with our friends. I was too young to ever think something like this could happen. I always assumed she missed me. I know how that sounds but we were close. Too close.
We were best friends. But I knew she was my soulmate.
Being away from her suffocated me. I thought she felt the same way.
He hurt her. Repeatedly. And I never saw it.
I didn’t notice then. I never thought he was capable of this. I told him everything. And he betrayed me by hurting my best friend.
Who the fuck was he? How couldn’t I see it?
A roar rips through me and I bang my fist against the fence. It does nothing so I do it again and again and again until my skin tears open and blood trickles down my forearm.
I throw my head back, staring at the darkening sky.
How could you let this happen to her?
I stand, not giving a fuck about the blood splattering against the clean white snow, trailing behind me.
When I make it back to my house, I walk inside and follow the sound of my mother’s voice. Everyone is in the living room, phones in hand, panic in their eyes.
Ari sees me first. She exhales in relief until her eyes drop and find my bloodied hand. “Owen?”
I turn my head slightly, staring at the family portrait we had taken the year before my father died. Everyone is smiling. My father has Ari on his lap, and I feel my insides being yanked out of my body violently. Did he touch her too? I swear to God, if he hurt her…
What can I even do? He’s dead.
“Owen, what happened?!” Mom shrieks, running toward me.
I grab the framed picture off the wall and I throw it across the room like a Frisbee. The glass shatters, and yet, it does nothing. The family in that picture is still smiling. They’re clueless. They didn’t see the evil lurking in their own home.
They couldn’t protect the most precious person to ever set foot in my life.
I stomp over to the bathroom down the hall and slam the door shut. I turn the sink on, pushing my hand underneath the running water. It burns. It’s what I deserve.
I fumble with the drawers underneath the sink, looking for the first aid kit. When I find it, I throw it onto the counter and I look up.
My eyes connect with forest green ones reflecting back at me.
I’ve never hated myself more than I do right now.
I’ve never wanted to hurt myself by mutilating the way I look so I never have to see my father when I look at myself in the mirror.
I loved him.
Jesus fucking Christ I hate him and yet a small part
of me still misses him. I feel sick to my stomach over that small part of myself. He hurt my best friend.
I don’t even know who my father is.
Who did I love?
I stand up straight never breaking eye contact with myself as I throw my arm back and punch the person in the mirror. Spiderwebbing with cracks, I still see him in the mirror.
His blood is still in my veins.
I am still his fucking son.
The bathroom door opens. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Beckett yells, running to my side. He takes in my bleeding hand, the broken mirror, and the vacant look in my eyes. “You’re freaking us out. Where’s Zoë?”
“She’s gone,” I state.
He’s silent for a second. “Like dead?”
I whip my head toward him. I know he has something against her. He always questioned why she survived the accident. It caused a shift between us when I found out. He wanted his father back. I never wanted to lose Zoë.
Beck must see how close I am to beating the shit out of him for even saying those words because he throws his hands up in surrender. “Dude, you’re covered in blood and she’s not here.”
Because just like him, I hurt her too…
“Did Dad ever touch you?” It tastes awful coming out of my mouth. I never thought that question would leave my mouth. I’ve heard stories about child sexual abuse, but I never, not once in my life, thought I’d be the offspring of one of the monsters.
I feel sick.
How do you think Zoë feels?
Beckett’s eyes widen. “What did you just say?”
“Did he ever touch you?”
“Fuck you, man. What the hell is wrong with you? Of course he never did. He would never!”
“He fucking did!” I roar, slamming my fists on the sink’s counter. I barely feel the pain in my left hand. Blood trickles down my skin. I must have done some damage.
I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck.
Ari and Mom rush into the bathroom.
Through tear filled eyes, I spot Echo and Freddie behind them.
I think back on how I found both Echo and Zoë with red-rimmed eyes back at their place in Seattle. Echo hasn’t looked or talked to me since. I thought it was odd, but I didn’t press it.
I never fucking do.
I don’t ask questions.
I don’t do shit and because of it people I love get hurt.
Let Her Go Page 14
