Page 128 of Off-Limits

I feel Damon move behind me, but I won’t allow him to get himself arrested for the sake of my piece of shit father.

“Damon, don’t. It’s what he wants. If you hit him now, then he will run to the cops, press charges and sue you for damages like he’s done in the past. My father is vermin who feeds and latches onto everything and anything if it benefits him. Don’t give him the ammunition he needs.”

“I’ll – I’ll sue you!”

“No, you won’t. These documents are coming home with me, and if you spread any more lies, I will hightail it straight toConstable Shane Elliot. He would be more than happy to throw the book at you.”

My dad’s eyes bug wide, realisation settling into his murky hazel eyes. The green has dulled around the irises, the pupil blown wide, but it’s the sadness that clings to the corners that has my chest caving.

Shaking out of the stupor he almost has me under, I step back from him, Damon’s wall of muscle moving with me. Swallowing, I feel the first tear escape with the knowledge of what needs to be done.

“I’ve always loved you, dad, but you didn’t love me back, not the way I needed. You hurt me, betrayed me, and used my feelings and emotions for you and mum against me, but I’m done, and I refuse to allow you to do it for a second longer.”

“I’m sorry. Dorothy, baby, don’t do this. Please.”

More tears cascade down my face, and I take another step away from my father, the melancholy poisoning the air we are all breathing in. It’s toxic of course, it always has been, and I know what follows after his apologies and pleading.

Anger.

I take another step back, putting more distance between us as I swipe the wetness from my face.

“Your secret is safe with me, dad, but it’s the last thing I will ever do for you. Once I walk out this door and leave you all alone to drown in your own misery and filth, allowing you the reflection mum should have given you so many years ago, I will never step foot back in this house again. Keep it, burn it to the ground, do whatever you want, because when you leave this earth as well, I don’t want it.”

He sobs on the lounge, and he looks so small, something I would have never associated with him before. He looks… pathetic. It’s sad, really, but he did this to himself, allowing his demons to suffocate and rule him. I won’t let mine do the same.

“I love you, dad, but I don’t have to live this life anymore. Goodbye.”

I barge past Damon and Arrie, anticipating the grief and anger I know that will follow. Stumbling out the front door, it slams closed as I hear the angry screams of nasty, pure hatred, followed by his anguish cries, pleading for me to come back, and not leave him like mum did.

I rush to the car, wiping the tears from my eyes, sobbing, strangled cries leaving my throat. The door hits the wall as I reach Damon’s car, and I turn back in time to see him and Arrie rushing down the stairs toward me, followed by my dad.

We lock eyes but we don’t say anything, both of us locked in this final bout of depression I fear neither of us will recover from. Guilt resurfaces, the gravity of what I’m doing leaving me on the verge of a panic attack, but then I return back to the land of the living, the reality settling in, and I do the one thing I didn’t ever think I would…

I make guilt my friend.

Swallowing down my cries, I give my dad a small nod and a sad smile, turning away from him to open the truck door, his screams of pain and anguish freezing the blood in my body, but not my movements.

“Dorothy, bub, please! I’m sorry, I’ll change my ways, I promise I’ll get clean and show you the father I should have been to you!”

They’re empty promises, ones I’ve heard in the past, ones that had me clinging to hope. But hope is a dangerous thing, and it died with me a long fucking time ago.

Slamming the door closed, I refuse to look back, petrified the little girl inside of me might win out, and have me running back to comfort him. The pain is excruciating, like I’m cuttingbone deep into my flesh, leaving it bloody and ragged, damaged beyond repair, and I guess it is.

His screams penetrate the truck when Arrie and Damon open the doors, and it drowns out when they close them, but it’s not enough to shut out his cries of affliction that reverberates within me.

My throat closes up, and tears stream steadily down my face as Damon starts the truck and pulls away from my childhood home for the last time, my father’s voice fading with the engine roaring.

We move further from the house… and I don’t look back.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

DOTTIE

THREE MONTHS LATER

Can I miss someone who was never really there for me?

Turns out I could and can.