Page 45 of The Truths We Burn

“Hit, beat—he’s sometimes into whips on the weekends. Yes, Sage, my dad hits me. Big whoop. There are kids who are starving.” Classic Rook, make a joke of it. Make a joke so you can cope with what you’ve done to your own family.

What you could do to Sage if she gets too close.

“And the scars on your chest? That too?”

I nod, not wanting to say the words out loud.

“But, he, he’s always at Sunday mass, and he always seems so—”

“So what? Nice?” I raise my eyebrows. “A godly man whose wife tragically died? Sure he is, outside of the house. But inside, he makes me pay for being born. Masks are still masks, no matter how tightly glued on.”

Of all people, I would expect her to know that. No matter how much you know someone on the outside, you have no idea how twisted they can be internally.

What a person is truly capable of.

And my father is capable of just about anything short of murder. I’m just patiently waiting for the day he gives in to that.

Ends the pain for both of us.

Tears finally fall down her face, wetting her dark eyelashes as she blinks.

I shake my head, tightening my grip on her wrists. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t need it.”

“Wh-why don’t you tell someone,” she whispers, frozen in front of me, desperately trying to grasp what makes a father hate his son this much.

And there it is, the question that unlocks the real truth.

Why don’t I fight him back? Why don’t I tell someone?

Anyone else would be scrambling to get away from a parent like Theodore Van Doren.

But they don’t know him like I do. They don’t know what I did to him.

“Because I deserve it.” I drop my hands from her, staring down into her sad eyes.“I told you, I’m not a good person. My father used to be someone kind, someone nice. I made him into a monster, and I am facing the consequences of that. He is punishing me. Making me pay for what I’ve done. He’s the only one who can do it.”

I know she’s confused. I know she doesn’t grasp what I’m saying, not fully.

But it doesn’t stop her from speaking on it.

“I can’t believe you can’t see what he’s done to you. I can’t believe you actually think he is justified in abusing you! No one deserves that, no matter what you did. There is more to your life than being a punching bag for your father. More to your life than being angry or the black stain on a town that doesn’t take the time to understand you. You can have more.” She pleads for me to see that, as if her soft words will cure years of abuse or conditioning.

I admire her for trying, because it’s more than anyone else has done.

“You deserve more than that, Rook.”

“I don’t need more.” I slip my hand on her cheek, cradling her head as I wipe tears with my thumb that don’t need to fall for me. Knowing one day she’ll look back and see that those were wasted on a boy who didn’t deserve them.“I did something terrible, something disgraceful, and there is no coming back from that. I’ll never move past it. I am damned to lead a miserable life for my actions. I’m condemned.There are just some things that don’t deserve forgiveness, Sage.”

She’ll never be able to get me to see it any differently. Because the only person who can forgive me is dead. I’ll never find salvation until I’m six feet under.

“I don’t believe that, Rook.” She grabs for my shirt, pulling herself into my body, hugging me tightly. Trying to squeeze out all the suffering from me.

I gaze down at the top of her head, my heart doing this funny thing, beating faster but aching. Hurting. “I refuse to believe it. There is still good in you. I see it. I know it’s there.”

No one who knew me after the accident had ever said something like that to me. Shock waves go through me from the sentence, all of these feelings resurfacing. Things I’d buried.

There is still good in you.

Everyone else talked. They made rumors of my birth, calling me the Antichrist, a demon, the devil. They took what happened, a tragedy that lived inside my veins like poison, and made it worse.