This Never Happened (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Part .25 - Fast forward a little

So, we're going to go quickly on to get to the important things you need to know. But. You still need to know who everyone is and stuff. So. Pay attention.

I went to college on a football scholarship. Feel free to applaud this is the only laudable thing I do for the rest of this story so you know, enjoy it.

I got a full ride to a local university (never mind which). Isaac went to the same one, of course. He got a few scholarships, but our parents paid for his tuition as well. Which worked out fine, 'cause they didn't have to pay for mine.

College was probably the happiest time in my life. Away from my father's disapproving gaze, I thrived. I found out what bisexuality was. I know, don't look at me like that. I grew up in strict religious household (that's short for: I'm gay and my family was homophobic and as a result I have a lot of internalized homophobia).

I still wasn't comfortable being openly bisexual, despite knowing what it was now. But that didn't stop me from hooking up guys as well as girls. At least I didn't have to hide who I was in front of everyone. And then I found a steady girlfriend. Meg. The only good thing to ever happen to me. I never deserved her. She was the first person after Isaac who I actually told about my sexuality. And she was cool with it. She didn't mind I'd been with guys. She liked me, for me. And she never saw the weirdness, like everybody else did. We both had good jobs, I was a supervisor at a gym, she was gonna be a librarian. Life was good. By the time we both graduated, we had two babies and a little house with a big mortgage.

By the time I graduated, Isaac had two ODs under his belt, one stint in rehab, and needle-marks on both arms. He dropped out the second year of college.

Now, our parents and I dealt with his drug habits different ways. They offered unconditional love and guidance, as well as rehab. I murdered his dealers.

Meg got pissed as hell when she found out I was just punching to death anybody who sold to my twin brother. I thought it was a good system. She did not. I mean who are the cops gonna believe? Me, steady job, two and half kids, college student (later graduate) with a pretty wife and star of the college football team? Or Mr. Drug dealer who by the way can't testify because he's dead? Yeah, they believed me.

That was apparently not sustainable. But we tried anyway. Neither my nor our parents methods were popular with Isaac, who quit speaking to me not long after my son was born. I blamed myself. I thought it was my fault. My fault for being weird, for making him an outcast, for not protecting him, for yelling at him that first night that he went and got high. Multiple clever people have told me that that's not the case. I don't know.

Now, before I tell you what happens next, I need to tell you about my kids.

Daisy is my daughter. Meg and I had her in college. Probably stupid but, eh, we made it work. I was happy. I was being normal, and heterosexual. We took classes at different times, had a little apartment, and took turns watching her so she didn't have to go to care. Daisy loved me best, she liked nothing more than riding around on my shoulders. Her favorite food was broccoli. And she had a little toy pony that I bought her that she carried everywhere with her.

Travis was born a few months after Meg graduated. She was all pregnant in all her graduation pictures, it was cute. Travis loved trucks, and digging, and his mommy singing to him. I got him a sandbox for our yard because his favorite thing to do was to dig in it. I'd buy hot-wheels and bury them for him. He'd get all excited about buried treasure.

By then I worked nights, so I could watch the kids during the day while Meg worked. I'd sleep once she got home before my shift, maybe nap in the middle of the day while babies went down to sleep.

I was too busy to cheat on her. I was happy. My mother, I think, was happy enough with me, she liked her grandkids. Isaac had quit speaking to me mostly by then, he was sick of my violent methods of dealing with his addiction. And Meg begged me not to let him in the house anymore. He'd taken her jewelry, to sell for drug money. I told her I'd get her a new wedding ring. I was the one who'd gotten it for her. I was supposed to get a bonus so I figured I'd get her a better one anyway now that we had a little money.

I enjoyed my life then. Yet those days were far, far too short.

Meg, and our babies, were soon dead. And I'll tell you how it happened in order, not how it happened for me because that's confusing (a lot of things are about to get confusing).

Travis had an immune condition. It wasn't anything very serious. But it was hereditary, and Meg wasn't the carrier of it 'cause she'd never had it in her family. So. For the first time in my life I wondered about my biological father. And I set out to contact him. My mother, upon intense questioning for medical reasons, admitted she had a couple of suspects from her college days. I wasn't too terribly committed to it, or worried about it. But if the dude had any medical information to help his grandkid, eh, why not? It was certainly worth asking.

I didn't expect anything from him (I got a lifetime of misery and torture but we're getting to that, hang on). I just figured it would be nice to say hi, get any medical information he might have, maybe he'd like to meet my kids and wife and have lunch sometime? I mean, I realized he probably had no idea I existed, so no hard feelings.

I realize that was kind of high expectations to go into it with. And to be fair, I did figure he might want nothing to do with me. I thought that would be kind of shitty but you know, his choice. I did expect he might have other kids.

I did NOT expect him to be married to an actual witch who would murder my entire family.

No.

Okay.

She didn't kill my babies.

I did.

I don't remember it, not clearly. It's kind of hazy now. I try not to think about it but---she mind controlled me. One minute I was knocking on the door, the next I was standing in my kitchen, soaked in blood, Meg lying on the floor in front of me, her throat slit. Daisy slumped at the table, Travis glassy eyed in his high chair. Dead. Dead. I don't know what I did. Screamed. Tried desperately stop the bleeding. Sobbed into the phone, begging 911 to get there. To do something.

Nothing could be done. They were gone.

A friend wound up picking me up from the hospital. I couldn't go back to that house. Grief works different in different people I guess.

Or I'm just an asshole. I mean, given everything you've read so far and are going to read, you'll probably agree it's that second one. Anyway.

I wanted to pretend none of that happened. I got married again. I talked to my parents less and less, only to check in on Isaac, who was in rehab again. I went to see him.

The girl I married, Delia (we are saying her name because she is NOT innocent here), didn't know me before. I didn't tell her about Meg. I didn't tell her I had kids. Because I wanted to pretend that none of that happened.

I wasn't okay though. It took a lot of whiskey to get me to sleep every night. And I devolved back into my old habits. I started cheating on her, with a guy. Neil (he is innocent, but he's cool with me using his name). Neil liked me, Neil didn't know about my family either. And between them I was busy enough, with secret phone calls and missed nights, that I could pretend none of that other stuff, the good part of my life, ever happened.

Anyway, long story short, Delia killed me.