Page 47 of Loving Bad

"It's okay. I like the name," he said as he turned to face me in the darkness. "The girls love it."

The girls loved him, but it had nothing to do with his name. I wasn't sure if he was serious about his last remark or if it was an attempt to cover up the hurt.

"It’s also a reminder to me that people are human and they make mistakes. My mom made a mistake believing my father's lies."

A heavy silence descended. It was a depressing way to view people. It was like meeting a person for the first time and already taking for granted that they were going to fuck something up.

"Did you ever meet your father?" I asked tentatively. I knew it was a really personal question and I wasn't sure if he was going to be prepared to answer it. He seemed to consider my question for a moment.

"No," he answered. "He wasn't really a father in the true sense of the word. He was just a sperm donor."

He shifted to lie on his back with his hands behind his head.

"Did he ever try to contact you?" I kept probing, unable to believe someone would turn their back on their child.

"No, and then he died a couple of years ago."

I remembered him telling me that his father had died when I'd told him about my parents' death. It was a finality that was hard to face. He'd never met his father—or, sperm donor—and the fact that he was dead meant he never would. My heart hurt for the fact that his father had never shown him any interest and he had no idea how it felt to have a father who loved you. I knew that feeling. I hadn't felt that in a long time, but at least I'd felt it.

I swallowed the emotion that bubbled to the surface. My parents had loved me. But then one dark night they had been taken away from me. I closed my eyes for a moment to keep myself together as a brief memory from that night passed through my mind.

The loss that I'd felt had been like a piece of me had died along with them and there was no recovering from it. All I could do was try to ignore it and carry on. The easy option would have been to allow it to crush me and take away my will to live. But I persevered because my parents had given up their lives to protect me and simply giving up was taking their sacrifice and throwing it away.

That was the thing—no matter how crushing the loss of someone close to you was, life kept moving along. Maybe it was a good thing so you couldn't just fall apart and never put yourself back together. Perhaps it was life's way of pushing you along until you started living again. I let out an emotional sigh. Some days it was hard to carry on without them and then there were days when it was impossible.

"I'm sorry," he said softly as he reached for my hand and held it in his. "I didn't mean to remind you about your parents."

He was so sweet. Little did he know it was the horrors from their death that made it harder to handle.

"It's okay."

"How old were you when they died?" he prodded further.

"I was nine."

There were times I'd wished I'd been younger so the memories of my parents' death would have been forgotten. But I'd been old enough to remember everything clearly.

"Do you still see your mom?" I asked, redirecting the conversation to him.

He was silent for a few minutes.

"Yeah, I check up on her every week. She doesn't live far from here," he said as he shifted on his side. I lay on my side, facing him.

"She never quite recovered from the rejection from my father. From then on, she tried to find solace in the form of alcohol," he revealed further. My heart tightened at the realization that his childhood had been hard. Maybe even as hard as mine. It was difficult to think that he didn't have a father and that his mother was an alcoholic who could barely look after him.

"Who took care of you?" I asked the question, already knowing the answer.

"I did," he stated as a fact.

"I'm sorry," I said, knowing it was inadequate. But what did you say to someone who'd told you that no one had loved him enough to put him first?

"Don't feel sorry for me. I had Slater and he had me," he said. I had to keep myself from letting the sadness of his words wash over me; otherwise, I would have started to cry.

I also knew they were close, but now I was getting a little insight into their deeply formed friendship. Had Slater grown up with no one to look after him either? My heart broke at the image of two young boys growing up with no one to love and care for them. It made me angry that people would have children that they didn't want. The lack of love and affection was detrimental to a child who was unwanted. I was thankful I'd been loved even if that love had been taken away from me at such a young age. At least I remembered the love that my parents had felt for me. It was the type of love that had saved my life.

"Does Slater have any siblings?" I asked as I looked at the outline of the guy who meant more to me than he should. He would walk away and it would break my heart. Walking away now was pointless; it wouldn't ease the heartache that was to come. With the lack of love from his childhood, I wasn't surprised that he was the way he was. How could you expect him to love someone when he didn't know how?

"He had a sister," he revealed softly. Had. My inquisitiveness grew.