“Christ, just you saying it is so fucking hot.”
She kissed me, softly at first, then harder. “You better get out of here or you’re going to be late,” she said, and just as quickly as she had turned and come back to me, she was gone. Once she disappeared through the doorway, I got in my car and grinned for the longest time. Finally, I drove away and headed back to school to pick up River. I had to drop him off before picking up my sister, since my car didn’t have a backseat. I was late, and I already assumed I’d probably catch shit for it. As we walked into the house, I knew immediately something was wrong—Bell’s backpack and shoes were in the foyer. She was already home.
“Hello?” I yelled.
“Daddy, I can’t do it,” a small voice cried from the landing—it was Bell.
I began ascending the stairs. “Stay here,” I called over my shoulder to my brother.
I stayed silent as the wooden stairs beneath me squeaked.
“Don’t say you can’t. You can. You’re just not playing the right chords. Do it again,” my father said.
I bolted up the remaining stairs two at a time to the wide-open loft that acted as his music studio. Bell was sobbing and her fingers were bleeding. They were fucking bleeding. Seeing my little sister sitting there on a stool while my shaggy-haired, unshaven, drunken father barked orders at her triggered a rage I’d never felt before. I couldn’t take another minute of his drunken insanity—he wasn’t only ruining his own life, he was tearing ours apart.
He gave me a passing glance as he pointed to the chord he wanted my sister to strum. “You’re late,” he muttered.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled.
“Teaching your sister how to play correctly.”
My jaw clenched tightly. “The hell you are. Bell, go downstairs with River.”
She looked at me, sobbing.
“No, Bell. Stay here,” he ordered, glaring at me.
“Go. Now!” I yelled to her as River came racing up the stairs. “Take her now and get her out of here,” I told him.
My hands were shaking as I took another step toward my father. It was strange, because he looked at me with vacant eyes, but I could have sworn I saw a flicker of fear in them. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t explain. It made its way through me as an urge to kill him. I lunged at him. He went flying backward and hit his head against the wall. A few of his framed Sound Music Magazine covers came crashing down. He scooted away from me, but my fists moved toward him in a hard, thrusting motion. He didn’t duck, he didn’t move. Hit after hit, my father just took it.
“I hate you! You’re a worthless excuse of a man!” I screamed.
“I know,” he cried. “I tried, I did. I tried to protect you all. But now with Damon Wolf, he . . .” The rest of his response was incoherent. I had no idea what the pathetic man in front of me was trying to say.
“Xander, stop it!” my mother screamed. She wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me back.
She leaned down to him but looked toward me. “What’s going on? What happened?”
I stiffened and took a deep breath, but he blurted out what had happened himself. Through his incoherent mumblings, he finally managed to make my mother see him for the worthless piece of shit he really was.
Without tears, she stood tall and told my father, her husband, the almost famous Nick Wilde, that it was time for him to leave.
He didn’t even plead for forgiveness. He didn’t say anything. He just stood and weaved down the stairs with his head down—a drunken mess. My mother pulled me to the kitchen and put ice on my hand. She finally broke down and cried. She asked me questions I couldn’t answer because my mind was jumbled with all kinds of thoughts—good, bad, love, but mostly hate.
Then out of nowhere an earsplitting bang rang through the air for a good thirty seconds. I knew immediately what it was. Running to the bedroom, I saw him lying unconscious on the floor in a pool of blood with his gun next to him. The sight filled me with as much rage as sorrow. He was dead—I knew he was. I could hear my mother’s shoes in the hallway and I ran over to the door, slamming it closed and locking it.
“Call nine-one-one now!” I screamed to her.
She beat on the door, tormented screams coming from her mouth. I heard River’s voice in the background and yelled to him to make the call and to call Grandpa too. I didn’t know what to do—I couldn’t let her see him like that. I scrambled to pull a sheet off the bed and that’s when I saw it—his suicide note.