I can't believe my eyes. For a moment I'm convinced my brain is playing tricks on my vision. 

But no. 

It is none other Benjamin Stewart, my uncle, walking towards us, with his usual smug smile. Half of his face is covered with black sunglasses, hiding his brown eyes. Head to toe clad in black, he appears paler than usual. His dark hair with streaks of grey is combed back. Two men follow him closely, carrying a huge bundle of sympathy flowers.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Mason mutters as he nears us.

Even William stares at him with surprise and a tight expression.

"Hello Kathryn," he nods to Mom, who only clenches her fists at her sides. Then he turns to us. "A true loss. My brother will be greatly missed." He glances at the casket.

My heart hammers in my chest, its sound is the only thing I can hear. If rage was fire, my blood would be a burning flame.

As the men place the flowers only a few steps away from me, the last string of my sanity snaps.

I stomp towards him, passing William, and with all the force I can muster, I kick the flower stand on my way before lunging at Benjamin and shrieking, "I will kill you; I'll destroy you." Melody barely manages to stop me from reaching the bastard and beating his ass up.

He jumps back a step, holding both hands up in mock defeat. The two men who had carried the flowers, close in on him, as if they're preparing themselves if I freed myself, they'd be able to stop me before hurting their boss.

I struggle against her hold. "You're the reason my dad died. You killed him," I scream pointing at him.

"Gracie stop!" Mom shouts but I ignore her, desperately trying to free myself from Melody's strong grip holding me back.

"I'll ruin you. I'll take away everything you love from you. I'll make you wish you were dead in your every waking hour. I'll destroy you and make your life a living hell, mark my words," I roar, waving my hand.

From afar I see the priest making its way to us but I couldn't care less about it.

Strong hands grab my shoulder, holding me still.

"Spencer?" William's surprised voice breaks me out of my outburst.

Wright glances at him, holding his gaze vacantly for a long moment, his face remains utterly blank, but his jaw is set and a muscle flickers before he locks his eyes with me. "You're coming with me, right now."

I scowl at him and try to wriggle out of his firm grip but fail. He starts walking in the opposite direction, pulling me along with himself.

Even though I'm forced to walk, I turn and holler, "I'll destroy you and your companies. I'll be your doom you won't ever see coming."

Wright drags me away, and by the time I'm done screaming, we're a good fifty feet apart from them.

He continues walking, pulling me with himself and I have to jog to keep up with his long strides so I won't go headfirst into the dirt and mud of the ground. I'm barely able to catch my breath from all that shouting, my muscles begin to burn.

Suddenly he halts and I narrowly catch myself from running into him. He lets go of my arm and lours at me.

I cross my arms in front of my chest and look away.

"What was that? Two seconds I left to bring to priest and I come back to a shouting match. I get it you're angry, but what you did is purely irresponsible, reckless, and selfish."

"That man." I point my hand backward. "Is the reason my dad is not here anymore." My voice shakes as I hold his hard stare.

"All I know is, your mother and brother, both deserved to have a peaceful funeral, instead of watching out for you and constantly telling you to stop causing more trouble."

My bottom lip quivers, the ache in my throat intensifies. I hug myself and gaze hardly at a tree in the far end.

Spencer sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Do you think you're calm enough to return and not cause a scene?"

"I don't want to go back," I mumble, heat rushing to my already flushed cheeks.

"What?" he asks with surprise.

I lift a shoulder, avoiding his searching eyes. "I just... can't. I can't watch them lower Dad into the-" my voice wavers, and I close my eyes and draw a shaky breath. "I can't."

He exhales and nods slowly. "Okay," he softly says and grabs my hand, his long fingers enveloping my palm. "Let's go."

I frown but don't object as he leads me to a pathway and fishes out his phone, while we walk down the path, he types something on his phone then slips it back into his pocket.

The warmth of his hand is oddly relaxing, a perfect distraction from my messy thoughts.

Soon the cars come into view and he guides me to his black Mercedes. Before he can unlock the doors, I let go of his hand and plop down on the ground, with my back pressed against his car.

I watch the trees as a gentle breeze caresses my skin, cooling me up. I pull my knees to myself and lay my cheeks on them.

Wright sighs and sits down next to me; his arm brushes mine as he does so. With a quick glance from the corner of my eye, I watch him lean his head to the body of the car.

From afar, crows are cawing, a song so out of tune that it's almost painful. The sun is beating down on us from behind, and this moment cannot appear more depressing. Even the sunlight lacks its usual warmth.

I never thought I'd be spending the last days of this year's fall like this.

"My dad left us because of him... and he is still standing, talking, breathing like nothing's happened."

"You have all the right in the world to be angry, but you can't keep yourself going just by anger. You have to let yourself feel all the other feelings too. If you don't, you won't ever be able to heal." Spencer pushes his glasses up his nose and glances at me.

I huff and straighten myself. "Oh really? What else do you think I should do?" I glare at him but he holds it with kind eyes, spiting me further. "You don't understand! You don't know anything!"

He nods. "You're right, I don't. I wasn't a silver spoon. I didn't grow up in a house that was fitter to be called a castle than a house, I wasn't rich so I don't know how it feels to lose it all, to go from hundred to zero. On top of that, neither of my parents shot themselves."

I watch him raised eyebrows; I didn't expect him to go down this lane.

"But I've seen it first-hand what bankruptcy does to wealthy people. I have seen how it affects and ruins a person. Overcoming it is hard, really hard. This rage you feel towards everyone is justified but clinging only to anger so you can stop yourself from feeling other emotions is wrong."

I roll my eyes and hug my legs tighter, muttering, "Of course." I glower at a nearby tree.

"The path you're going down is wrong. If you don't let yourself grieve at the right time, you won't ever be able to heal properly."

"And you would obviously know that," I huff. "From which stupid psychological website did you look this one up."

"Personal experience."

His answer gives me a halt and makes my gaze jump back to him. That's the last thing I expected to hear. Maybe from my quizzical gaze, he can tell that, because he lifts a shoulder and pushes his glasses up. I keep watching though because, from similar stupid psychological websites I've read if you keep on staring at someone, they'll be subconsciously forced to continue.

Although, Spencer Wright seems quite immune to this method. With an arched eyebrow, a side of his mouth twitches upwards. "I'm not going into details if that's what you're waiting for."

My gaze flicks upwards in annoyance. "It's supposed to work."

He smiles.

A comfortable silence falls over us. I keep my mind occupied with anything other than the biggest occurrence of my life, in motion just a few feet away from me.

Like the blueness of the sky and how sunrays cut through the clouds, the sound of wind rustling the trees. The birds flying away to their new homes, to save themselves from the coming winter. Anything but the fact that my dad left us, left me.

"Are you better?" he asks, snapping me out of my mindless scrutiny of the cemetery ahead of us.

"I'm fine," I reply a bit harsher than I intended to.

Again he sighs and slightly angles himself towards me. "You're not supposed to be fine. You don't have to be, and no one even expects you to be. Why are you trying so hard to-"

I cut him off, "Because I don't want to, okay? Because it hurts. I saw him on Thursday... and," my voice breaks, and I shake my head, hugging myself tighter. "Someone has to stay strong. One of the three of us has to be okay," I softly add, avoiding his gaze.

"You're wrong. They don't need you to be strong, they just need you by their side."

"And how would you know that?"

He shrugs. "Who knows, maybe I did the same thing you're doing now and realized a bit too late how wrong I had been."

I blink a few times and look away from his deep eyes. I know his father is alive, because of that black suit guy showing up in his office and talking about his offers. Does that mean he did what I'm doing when his mom passed away?

I want to ask him what happened, what he did but instead, I only say, "Thinking about it hurts too much."

"This isn't a sort of pain you can ignore and forget about it. The only way is to face it heads on, let yourself go through it and time will fix the rest."

Silence envelopes us once more.

After a long moment, I gaze at him. "Can I ask what happened?"

He shakes his head, opening his mouth and I can tell he's about to object so look at him pleadingly and he halts, huffs, and leans his head back to his car.

As he surveys the sky, I patiently wait for him.

"Fine, hopefully, you won't make my mistakes after my sappy life story."  

∞ ∞ ∞

Thanks for reading, I know this might not be what you expected when you started this story, but for the path I've decided to take this story on, it seemed necessary.

Regardless, I hope you're not despising these chapters xD but do comment your thoughts and suggestions =)

Next update will be up on Monday.

Stay safe, lots of love, happy reading <3