Nate's POV

I was back in my childhood home, which didn't say much. I'd spent the first 10 years of my life in a lowly neighbourhood, surrounded by bleak houses and bland, carbon-copy people. I'd never quite understood why my mom, the daughter of a decently well-off accountant two towns over, had decided to elope one day with a stoic man with a gravelly voice and a dead-end job in a car garage. But then, maybe I never knew the whole story. We rarely do. And maybe it doesn't matter.

I resented my mom for the coldness she treated my grandfather with, the man who would always greet me with a warm smile and chocolate whenever my mom was too busy to take care of me and sent me over; even on his funeral, she shed no tears. But then, if it wouldn't have been for her, I wouldn't have known Gage. He was the son of my mother's childhood best friend, which allowed for our own tentative friendship despite class differences.

Every time he saw us together, my dad watched from a shadowed corner, as one would through a one-way mirror, eyeing one thing or another: Gage's new sneakers, his smartwatch, the gold cross around his neck which was a gift from his late grandma. Light fingers, son, he'd say, giving me an expectant look. I never disappointed.

On the days my father did show emotion, he was rarely kind without expecting something in return. It was always late at night, when the house was quiet, that he walked into my room, slowly but deliberately, stepping on every creaking floorboard in my tiny room. It seemed that he did it on purpose, aware that I wasn't actually asleep, although by the time I was 5 or 6 I could fake it so well my own mom wouldn't notice. It was always on nights when my mom was on the night shift at the hospital, because then she wouldn't hear my whimpers.

"Come now, Nate, you're a grown boy now, don't you cry for something so silly," it had become almost like a ritual. Him, providing empty reassurances as he rolled on top of me. Sometimes I'd struggle, and while he liked a good fight, the older I got, the harder it was for him to restrain me.

"You stupid boy," he'd say, one hand pinning me down while the other slapped me, over and over. "You're nothing. You're no one"

Over time, things got better. Pay checks began coming in more regularly, and dad got a job in a bigger repair job uptown. Slowly, we moved out of that neighbourhood, leaving behind the retched house and those retched people. His visits became less frequent, and by the time I was 15, they stopped completely. But the memories carried.

Now the room was spinning, and I lay in the last stall, back pressed against the cool tile and head resting on the toilet bowl's rim. I could still hear him; despite that I hadn't spoken to him since mom divorced him when I was seventeen. His hands are on my shoulders, and I'm sitting up, too quickly, trying to get rid of them, of him.

"Shut up," I whisper it, but the bathroom's big and it echoes, and it sounds like a mantra, repeated over and over again by different versions of me. I cursed myself for believing I could outrun him, and pop two pills in my mouth, swallowing them dry. I wait for a couple moments, then pop one more.

Slowly, he leaves, but the smell of his cologne is still heavy in my nose, on my tongue, in the very air. "This isn't real," I stared into my own eyes in the mirror, green like mom's, and try for a smile. I try and try again, before it looks genuine. Then, I am frowning, I am concerned, I am furious or frightened. I am whatever I need to be. I smile and go back to Ari. It was time to take her home. I needed to meet up with Declan again.

xxxx

Kaylah's POV

I'd been staring at my laptop screen for so long my eyes burned. It has been two weeks since that talk with Gage, and I felt even more nervous as the days went by. While Nate seemed to be buying into my whole "getting to know my best friend's boyfriend" thing, it was truly Ari's attitude that concerned me. Somehow, she seemed more distant, or removed from me. More and more with each passing day. We barely texted now, and at school, she would sometimes go to great lengths to avoid being alone with me for long stretches of time.

Most likely, if Nate wasn't in the picture, I would've let this slide. I've gotten so accustomed to her mood swings and little temper tantrums I hardly even blinked anymore. But knowing how fucked up Nate was, I suddenly didn't trust this distance between us to be her choice anymore.

No matter how much I googled, I couldn't find any clear diagnostic that would fit him. Whenever I thought I'd hit a solid lead, I was again met with the same generic words: "used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders".

I wish I could ask my mom without raising any suspicion. As a nurse, she was always huper aware and sometimes frighteningly intuitive. No matter how well I tried, she'd eventually figure out why I was asking, and most likely forbid me from getting involved. For your own safety. I hated those words.

I wiped my search history just in case, even though she had just left for her night shift and wouldn't be back until tomorrow morning. I ran through what I had to do for this plan to work.

I cursed my mom for forbidding me to go on the trip this weekend. Our director owns two houses in the mountains and agreed to allow us seniors spend the weekend there if we'd like. I guess going to a private school has its perks.

I was tempted to throw something at the wall, knowing how perfectly this would've fit into my plan if only my mom would let me go. It's a one-hour drive, and they all left directly after school, hyped beyond caring. Of course, there had been multiple attempts to console me today, but none of them felt genuine, which only managed to piss me off further.

"Are you sure you can't come?" Skylar had asked for the millionth time, with a look about as genuine as the faux leather of her Tommy bag.

"I could still smuggle you if you'd like," that had made me chuckle, and look at Iusti, Caroline's boyfriend. I'd known Caroline since third grade, but she'd never been much of a big group person, so we rarely went out if it wasn't after or before going to the gym. She was the only one that looked genuinely sad I wasn't coming, despite her boyfriend having flown over from university for the weekend. Ari on the other hand, barely looked my way. It was the first time I'd realised I hadn't appreciated Caro nearly enough.

Shaking my head violently, I was now tempted to steal some Xanax from my mom's medicine cabinet. Instead, I told myself to snap the fuck out of it and put on some lipstick. I explicitly picked up the one my mom called slutty; a dark matte mauve. I then picked up my heeled Tommy boots, grabbed my keys, and dashed out of the apartment.

My hair was dishevelled, so I quickly pulled it into a bun as I called for a taxi. I wasn't even sure where I was going before the words slipped out of my mouth "The central cemetery, please" I wasn't surprised when he gave me an odd look and muttered something about teenagers these days.

A sense of calm settled over me, and I was quiet for the entire 18-minute ride, politely shooting the taxi driver down every time he tried to make small talk. I could tell it made him nervous, and I smiled, thinking of the many times my mom had told me not to take the taxi alone late at night, for fear I'd be abducted; especially after that Christian sect scare a couple years ago. This guy's more willing to get rid of me than keep me, I thought, and actually chuckled, which only made him speed faster.

I walked through the dimly lit cemetery, wondering about the people whose gravestones I passed. Did they have families? Did they get to meet their children before they died?

His gravestone was bathed in shadow, so I couldn't make out the inscription. Not that I needed to read it anymore. Stephen Ackerman had died young, at only 45, but was beloved. Chief neurosurgeon at the Municipal Hospital, my mom had caught his eye in early 2000, when she was covering for a friend's shift in the ICU.

Since my dad has worked at sea his whole life, he used to spend up to even 9 months at sea at a time when I was very little, and never even saw me until I was 4 months old. Which definitely suited my mom.

From what she'd told me over the years, their affair lasted for almost two years. His wife, a scornful stay at home mom, had figured it out about six months into it, and confronted Steph, to which he only said "Well, if you can't wrap your head around me loving two women at the same time, you're free to leave".

You inherited your father's brains, my mom used to say when I was little. It wasn't until I was fifteen that I really understood which father. Stephen died in a car crash in January 2002, hit by a drunk driver while driving home from an especially tiring emergency surgery.

I looked at his grave, and gingerly sat next to him. I don't resent his wife for wanting nothing to do with me or mom, but I always will for burying him here instead of the hospital cemetery. He would've wanted to be buried amidst colleagues, not surrounded by strangers because "That's tradition".

"Hey dad," somehow, I'd grown weirdly accustomed to this ritual. I'd come here weekly, or even more often if I could, just to talk to him. Always, I would finish with an "I love you", which I knew I would never be able to say in person. Still, it brought me some comfort. Today I didn't have much to say, so I just sat in silence, thinking wondering what my life would've been like if he'd just swerved to the right and hit the post lamp instead of hitting the other car head on. If he'd love me back.

"Kaylah?" to say I was startled was an understatement. For a stupid moment, I thought it was him saying my name, before I realised that it was both impossible and the voice was coming behind me and jumped to my feet, the taser I always kept handy in my hand.

I didn't relax, even when I realised, I was staring at a wide-eyed Gage, his hands raised mid-air as if surrendering.

"Please tell me you weren't following me, because this would be just slightly too weird to ignore," over the past few weeks, I'd gotten to know him. And as much as I hated it, I was starting to understand him. Not that it justified what he did, but still.

"I wasn't. I was leaving and I saw you," well, that wasn't very reassuring. I stepped closer, peering at his face more closely. His face was open and honest, but his eyes seemed far away.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, now looking at the gravestone behind me. I instinctively moved my body, shielding it. I decided to go with the truth "I'm visiting my biological father which I never met because he died in a car crash before I was born," it felt strange saying it out loud.

That seemed to startle him for a second before he said something that I immediately wanted to forget "I'm visiting my brother who was used as a sacrifice by a Christian sect almost two years ago"

I didn't know what to say. What the hell do you even say to that? I'm sorry some people are sick enough to do something like this? Instead, I settled for hugging him fiercely. He was stiff at first, confused by my sudden outburst, before wrapping his arms around my middle. I should've been afraid; he could've killed me right then, and no one would even know.

But then he made a small, sound in the back of his throat, and then he was sobbing, while I rubbed his back. "It's okay," I don't know how long we stood like that, listening to his sobbing, and the rustle of leaves.

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Ah okay, I've been wanting to write this chapter for a while because this marks the chapter countdown to the end of the book! I'm expecting this to wrap up in ten chapters, though I wouldn't swear on it since I keep getting new plot ideas *sigh*. Anyway, for anyone who has read this far, I really appreciate you for sticking around despite the lousy updating schedule :) I really hope you like this chapter, as I'm slightly nervous about it... Anyway, don't forget to comment or vote if you enjoyed it! It would mean the world to me. Much love!