Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2

by Mpofu, Thandiwe

  He’s heartbroken because Nancy is gone. And I’m a volcanic, angry asshole because Mia ran. Like father, like son.

  “You really did love her,” I mutter, his gaze now holding mine.

  I see the darkness there, the aching loss so clear, it steals my breath away when I identify it, because it’s the same mess going on inside of me.

  He doesn’t say anything, so I decide to go another route. I have no idea what to say about Aiden. I don’t even want to go there right now.

  “She’s gone,” I growl, the anger I’ve been reserving for this moment now resurfacing, demanding to be felt.

  “Yes,” he says, his voice low. Then I watch as he gets up and walks past me to the highboy where he keeps his decanters of scotch and shit. He pours himself a drink. “Would you like one?”

  What the fuck?

  “You look like you need a drink,” he says. “I heard everything, Julian.”

  “So you heard and did nothing about it?”

  I watch as he pours scotch into another glass, then he walks back and passes the glass to me. I just stare at him like he’s out of his damn mind. He shrugs and walks around to his chair, plopping down on it and goes back to staring at the TV.

  “What did you want me to do, Julian?”

  “To stop it, to do something…”

  “If I stopped the truth from coming out, how else would you have known how your mother works, the lengths she has gone to just to make me suffer? How would you have remembered?”

  “I guess that’s one thing you both have in common, huh?” I grit out. “The ability to hurt people.”

  What did I do to deserve the parents I got? Did I commit some kind of crime in a previous life? Is this now my punishment for that shit?

  “I’m nothing like that bitch,” Dad growls, now looking at me. “Your mother hurt my boy just to spite me!”

  “Why didn’t you make her pay for it then?” I fire back. “You could’ve, but you didn’t. You stayed married to her! You continued on like nothing ever happened.”

  “I made sacrifices, Julian,” he mutters.

  “Sacrifices?” I scoff, shaking my head. “You think ignoring Aiden for all those years, until to the moment he took his last breath, was a sacrifice?”

  “Yes!” he says, banging his fist on his desk. “That was a fucking sacrifice I paid a high price for and hate myself with each day the sun rises to this day for it. I had to stare in that woman’s cold, hard face and make that sacrifice over and over again, like I was on the threshing floor my entire life, fighting for my son! Fighting for my boys.”

  “Cry me a fucking river, Dad! You could’ve done more!”

  “I did more, damn it I did more!” he shouts. “You think I wanted to do that? Do you think I wanted to stay away from my son like that? Ignore him when he needed me?”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I just clench my jaw tighter.

  “You think I liked staying in the shadows, watching like a fucking stalker as the three of you played ball together in the backyard? Don’t you think I wanted to join in and spend time with my boys?” he questions, his voice raw and hard. “You think I didn’t love him?”

  “Yes!” I shout. “If you loved him, if you cared at all for us, you would have dealt with her accordingly!”

  “I couldn’t” he mutters, as if all the energy he had just bled out, leaving him spent and nothing more than a pile of bones with no life in them. “I still can’t.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I demand. “There are so many things you could have done! You could have had her arrested for child abuse! You could have divorced her, but you waited until Aiden is dead to take that route!”

  He looks agitated and tired as he grabs his glass and drinks the entire contents without stopping. Then he reaches for the glass he poured for me and chugs it back too.

  “We’re not divorced,” he mutters after an eternity of tense silence.

  “What?” Did I hear that correctly?

  “Your mother and I, we’re not divorced.”

  I stare at him, blinking like a fucking cartoon character. I have no idea what to say as all my anger seems to bleed right out of me in one breath.

  “How?”

  “Well, it’s complicated.”

  “Complicated?” I scoff, looking around his large office. I always hated coming in here. Dad never gave us the time of day, always claimed to be busy so whenever he was in here, I’d sometime fantasize about trapping him in here and set him on fire. The only thing that stopped me was the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach of losing him.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, out with it,” I demand. “What exactly is complicated about publicizing the fact that you are a free and divorced man to the world, getting engaged to the sister of the woman you were in bed with and going through that farce all these months?”

  It’s so absurd that if he weren’t my father, I would have cracked a smile.

  Hell, Mia would have loved this story, her beautiful laugh would have rung out, making my heart clench with the need to kiss her. She didn’t laugh often—almost like she didn’t know how to—but when she did, it was magical.

  Dad leans back in his chair, then he rubs a hand down his face like he doesn’t know where to start, that alone tells me that whatever he has to say is bad… and there’s no doubt it’s going to affect me or Liam or both of us.

  “Remember when you turned thirteen and I took you to that club in Westbrook Blues?” he starts. Mutely, I nod, my mind racing, thinking back to the small, wealthy looking town a few hours from here. “Remember that legacy talk we had?”

  “When you basically dictated that I am to take after you one day, that my dreams of playing professional football were just that, a dream?” I grit out, remembering how quickly I was disappointed in him for not supporting me. “Yeah, I fucking remember.”

  “I meant what I said.”

  I’m pretty sure he did, yes. “I don’t fucking care if you meant it or not.”

  “I think you do,” he counters.

  “Why? Because you threatened Liam’s future?” The nerve of this man…

  “I didn’t threaten Liam’s future, I’d never do that no matter what you think of me, he’s my son. It’s just the order of things, Julian. The sooner you realize and accept that, the sooner you see the bigger picture at play here.”

  “Are you trying to say that you’re part of an underground cult or something?” I scoff. “Or some kind of cartel?”

  “I’m trying to say that you can’t escape legacy,” he says. “Neither could I when I was your age. My father basically told me I had to marry a woman I didn’t love, Courtney Mason.”

  The fuck?

  “Your marriage was some kind of archaic, shit contract thing?”

  “Yes,” he says, looking disgusted. “Guess that might explain most of the resentment and war in this house.”

  My mind is racing as I process everything he’s just said.

  “See the thing about these marriage prisons is that there is no possibility of breaking out of them,” he says, holding my gaze as if there’s something else he’s trying to tell me. “There’s no out. There’s no way to break out of the contract. It’s binding ‘til death.”

  “So why…?”

  “Why did I parade women around like a sleazy asshole and made you and your brother’s lives hell with all that press coverage throughout the years?” he says, finishing my question. “I had to try, Julian. I thought if I brought attention to the infidelity in my marriage, that I’d be able to get out of it.”

  It’s like I’m stuck in a twilight zone, looking around with eyes wide, my head spinning around on my shoulders like the Exorcist.

  “It didn’t work?”

  “Like I said, there’s no getting out of it,” Dad sighs. “Not when I was eighteen. Not when she tried going after Nancy. Not when Courtney was pregnant with you and hurting Aiden to hurt me. It didn’t work then; it certainly has
n’t worked years later. Your mother and I are still married.”

  Nancy. He’s been having an affair with Nancy all these years.

  “Yes. I loved her. I’ll always love her,” Dad confesses, and I realize I spoke out loud. The raw emotion in his voice as he says that makes another question pop in my head, making dread sink in deeper in the pit of my stomach.

  “Wait, so is Nancy, Aiden’s mother?”

  “That would be a huge clusterfuck for you, wouldn’t it?” he mutters, shaking his head as he glances back at the TV.

  I look too and see Nancy dancing, the serene, beautiful look on her face right in that moment so similar to Mia when she dances alone in her old studio, my knees weaken. Nancy might not have been my baby’s biological mother but all her mannerisms, all her quirks and love for dance comes from my father’s late lover.

  “Is she Aiden’s mother?” I growl.

  “No,” Dad says, with a sigh. “Nancy never wanted kids. She never wanted to pass down that ALS gene. I wish she was the mother of my children though,”

  Uh, no thanks. That would mean I really wouldn’t be with Mia.

  “Why the hell couldn’t you marry her?” I ask instead.

  “Well, when I went back for her, she was already married to another asshole who has had it out for me since we were boys.”

  Nathan? But before I can ask, he turns to look at me, a serious look in his eyes now.

  “You do realize that everything I’m telling you is important right? That your turn is coming and you can’t run from legacy?”

  “You must be out of your fucking mind if you think I’ll do anything you ask or join you in your shitty business after what you fucking did! After you hurt Mia!”

  “What?” He reels back, looking up in confusion that I want to smack out of him.

  “You fucking hurt Mia!” I shout. “You came after her and her family for that three year old shit with Aiden and the press. She was just a girl. She didn’t know any better and you decided to what? Teach her a lesson in keeping her mouth shut?”

  Isn’t that what you tried to do to her, shithead? Am you any better than your family?

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “I never went after Mia.”

  The fuck?

  “Why the fuck are you lying now? I found the file in your damn desk!” I grit out, pointing at his monstrosity of a desk. “You have heaps of information and surveillance on her family.”

  Dad stares at me for a long beat, then he swings around in his chair, opening a drawer and pulls out the file I saw and left on his desk what feels like a forever ago. So much has happened since then.

  “Open it.”

  “I’ve seen it before.”

  “You made assumptions when you looked at it before, but you didn’t really see what’s in there or read the reports.”

  I reach for the damn file, my heart thundering in my chest. Opening it, the first thing I see is a picture of Nathan just like before. I flick through the pictures and notice every picture I saw last time, the medical records, the list with Nathan’s companies and clients, everything’s the same as last time.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “A file on Nathan and Nicky,” Dad says. “I never went after Mia.”

  “But you knew she was…”

  “Their daughter? Of course. I just never thought your mother would go to the lengths she went through just to get that information. Anyway, read Mia’s medical history.”

  I flick through the file again until I get to a picture of Mia. She’s always been stunning her whole life, but there’s that look in her eyes, like she’s about to take on the world or something.

  Where are you, Little Minx?

  I flip through the pages, looking for Mia’s medical history but there’s nothing but another one with another name on it.

  “Her medical history file isn’t in here,” I growl, impatience searing down my spine.

  “Son, it’s the one you’re holding,” Dad says softly, the pity in his eyes making my stomach lurch. Why is it there?

  I glance down at the name, the age, the date of birth. What the fuck?

  “This isn’t her name,” I murmur, reading the file anyway like I’m witnessing a bad accident so gory and bloody, there won’t be any survivors.

  I can feel my father’s stare on me, his gaze shrewd and assessing, but he sits there silently, as if he’s waiting for something. I swallow the damn ball in my throat but it only gets bigger as the hairs at the back of my neck stand-up on end..

  “Read it,” he prompts but I’m already doing so.

  Four years old.

  Emergency room.

  Blunt force trauma to the head.

  Memory loss.

  Complete personality re-generation.

  “What the fuck is this?” I whisper, pain shooting through my chest. I re-read the report, over and over again. Each time feels strange, out of sorts, like I’m reading some sick, twisted story that isn’t real. “This isn’t real.”

  “It’s as real as this shitstorm with your mother is.”

  “How…” I start, but my voice trails off, the emotion singing through me too intense to speak. “Who did this to her?

  Right now, that’s the only question I can focus on. Not the fact that she might not be who I thought she was, hell I’m not sure if she herself knows her real name.

  “This report was found after years of digging. It was initially hidden, the evidence covered up by piles and piles of shit, but Nancy insisted that somewhere out there, the evidence of what Nathan had done…”

  “What?” I roar. Her father did this to her? He beat her so hard that she lost her memory? That she lost herself?

  “Julian, son,” Dad starts, that pity in his eyes now turning my stomach until I start feeling sick. “Nancy said she doesn’t know, but I’m afraid with all this trauma happening of late, it might bring it all back to her.”

  Fuck! I need to find her. Goddamn this all to hell.

  “That good for nothing asshole did this to her, huh?” I growl then put the damn file down on his desk and turn to leave but he stops me.

  “No, don’t you dare, Julian!”

  “Fuck off, Dad.”

  “Son, I swear if you lay hands on that man, everything I’ve been working to do for the past few years will all be for nothing.”

  “What the fuck do you expect me to do then?” I grit out, turning around to look at my father. “Just sit here while she’s fucking missing and he did this sick fuck to her?”

  “I expect you to leave that shithead to me. I expect you to be smart. I expect you to do everything you can to find that girl and keep her safe but Julian I have to tell you, there are rumors that say after this happened,” he says, nodding at the abandoned file lying on his desk. “The girl you know as Mia didn’t just undergo a serious memory change that left her believing Nancy was her mother while Nicky was her aunt, but it’s said that Nathan inspired those thoughts.”

  “What?” I groan.

  “This girl, the one who’s name is on that report, she knew that Nicky was her mother. But the girl you know now, thinks she just found out about it from Courtney.”

  Oh fuck. I run a hand down my face. Does this shit ever get easier? What the fuck is this anyway?

  “What the fuck are you trying to say?” I growl, my heart beating out of control.

  “Son…”

  “Just spit it out!”

  “It’s possible that Nathan might have influenced the way she grew up by brainwashing her in such a way that she’d always do what he asked. According to Nancy, it’s almost like he used the opportunity of what he did to build Mia up to be his weapon.”

  Jesus Holy Christ.

  My mother hurt Aiden. My girl’s father hurt her. What the fuck is this?

  “So, you’re saying…” my voice trails off, scrambling for words to say. “You’re saying that bastard might be using his own daughter?”

  “Yes.”


  “To do what exactly, huh? To get to me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “I’m not saying it’s true, hell Mia is strong minded, and I’m sure she’s nothing like her father wanted her to be, Nancy died believing that and so, there is hope.”

  “But what you’re actually saying is…”

  “Be careful with her. She might be your downfall in the end.”

  “Fuck you, Dad!” I murmur, staring up at him. “Fuck you and all the lies you and your wife spill, trying to take away the already fleeting moments of happiness that any of us will ever feel. Fuck you!”

  “Son—” he starts, but I cut him.

  “Is this is your way of washing your hands off of destroying a teenager’s life, huh? Just chuck a file my way and tell me she wasn’t your target? That she’s already messed up and you were doing all this to help who? Mia?”

  The tension in the room has escalated to a point where danger and violence is ripe in the air.

  “I can’t help what happened or change the damage that was inflicted, but to be fair, I was hoping that you didn’t know each other,” he says. “I just didn’t know that you were this obsessed with her.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you have with Mia…”

  “Is none of your fucking business! She’s mine and I’ll fucking fight for her with my dying breath if I have to.” I grit out, feeling like I’m breathing fire as I stare at him with my eyes narrowed. I don’t give a damn what memories she has, so long as she knows me, is with me, she’s worth every ounce of my fucking attention.

  “Good.”

  I stare at my father like he just grew horns from his head.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re going to have to keep that same energy, son because I promise you, by choosing her, you’ve just plunged yourself in the middle of a war I’m not sure you’ll survive, let alone win.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because that asshole is going to play dirty and come after you.”

  That asshole? Who is he talking about?

  “And also because you also have your own marriage contract ready for you.”

  Ah fuck.