Page 45

“Really, Mom, I'm fine. Why don't you go upstairs and lay down for a little while?”

Swirling his glass in the air, my father dipped his head to look into the cup. “The woman said she wants to cook, let her go cook.” Veering his stare at my mom, he nodded his head. “Chicken parm sounds good about now.”

My mother bowed her head, looking between us. The tension in the air was dense and thick, making the small standing room hot and stuffy. I knew they fought about me and my place in this family.

For my father, I was dead to him. He wanted nothing to do with me, he hated everything about me. But my mother wasn't as harsh, she couldn't cut me out completely and he resented her for that.

She still loved me in her own way, even if she hated the man I had become.

Forcing another small smile, she started down the hall towards the kitchen, and I stood quietly, watching her leave.

When my mother was out of view, I looked back at my father. “What the fuck happened?”

Stuffing a hand into his pocket, he jerked his head for me to follow him. “Your brother wouldn't listen and he did something stupid. He got shot Porter, and it's your fault.”

“Who shot him?” I asked, my voice trembling with pent up rage.

You know who it was.

“Oh, so now you suddenly care? I highly doubt that.”

Gritting my teeth, my fingers curled into my palms. “I didn't come here for you to play mind games with me. Just spit it out, who killed him?” Walking behind him, I stopped in the center of the living room as my father kept walking towards the fireplace. “Who? Who did this, Franco?”

“Franco? So what? Now you're too good to call me Dad anymore? Porter, I didn't ask you to come here, you decided to come on your own. We were fine this long without you, we don't need you now.” Waving the glass in the air, he stared up at a picture of my brother from grade school. “Your mother is the only reason I called you at all. If I had it my way you'd be clueless still, living in whatever fucking hellhole you crawled into.”

“Look, I fucked up, I know that. But I meant what I said before, I never meant to hurt any of you. I did the right thing in the end, you and I both know that. So why can't you let it go?”

“Right, you never meant to hurt us. You never meant to hurt your mother or your brother.” Pointing his finger out to the side, he eyed me over his shoulder. “But the choices we make affect other people, Porter, even if you think they won't.”

“I'm not playing these fucking games with you. All of that is in the past, it's not who I am anymore. I just need you to tell me who did this.” He wouldn't say, simply staring off into space, leaving his thoughts a mystery. “Tell me what the hell happened, I need to know.”

My father was quiet for a long moment, hanging his head as he touched the picture of my brother. “You would know if you had been here. . .” Pausing, his head slowly clicked over his shoulder, eyes black as death. “He went looking for you, Porter.”

“No—why? But he—”

Downing the rest of his drink, he slammed the glass on the mantle. “He did this because of you.” Flicking his eyes back to the picture, he said, “You drove him right into the barrel.”

People don't choose to be evil, evil chooses the form it wants. And right then, I felt the evil as it turned my blood to tar and harnessed all the hatred I had kept bottled up all this time.

How could he blame me for this? I didn't ask Zander to come looking for me, I told him to stay away. I tried to explain how dangerous those people were so he could stay safe.”

I failed him. He didn't listen, he didn't believe me.

But I didn't kill him.

“How can you blame me for this?”

“Look,” he said, turning to face me with his palms up. “I know you think that you did the right thing.” Taking a step forward, his hands danced in the air as he spoke. “And I know you might have convinced yourself in that fucking brain of yours that everything was over. The truth is, it's not, it never was. We were here, we've always been here, living in your fucking filth. We didn't leave you, you left us. And that didn't fix the problem you created.”

“So you really think this is my fault?” Shaking my head, I gawked at him in disbelief. “I did what needed to be done. If I stayed they would have killed us all. I left to keep everyone safe, I left to keep Zander safe, I did that for him.”

Bobbing his head up and down, his voice went soft and thin. “Of course you did, you did it for him. Obviously that didn't work in his favor.”

Veering my stare, I wanted so badly for him to just understand that I didn't do anything on purpose to hurt our family. It hurt so much when he looked at me like I was garbage. All I ever really wanted from him was his acceptance, to feel like I belonged. And he never gave me that.

“If I had stayed, all of us would be dead right now. Don't you understand that?”

He hated me for everything I had done. But the thing was, it just felt good to be accepted and wanted, to feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself. I found something I excelled at, and that drew me in like a moth to a flame.