It All Started With Hate

csi (e)

I had spent the first couple of days in a shell of myself. My mind didn't allow in much else other than our last words to each other, and how fucked they felt. How pissed, fucking livid I was at Maggie, and at my dad from taking something else from me. The sadness, the anger, then the emptiness went in cycles, and even through all of that shit, that one fact was the one that wouldn't stop fucking with me most.

I couldn't let it go. That simple something wouldn't stop pestering at me, no matter how badly I tried to push it away.

So, I was going to figure it out.

I might be a little crazy. Delusional. Hopeful. All of the shit that I was willing to be if it got me to the bottom of this.

In order to have Maggie leave the way she did, and to have me accept it, and what she accused of herself, and of us would mean that I never had respect for her and everything we had. That I never trusted or understood her, and everything that she is.

Bull. Shit.

So, here I was, now.

Three in the morning, high off adrenaline, and a little of the weed Levi snuck me behind Kade's back to calm my nerves, on my fourth beer, and basically going CSI, private investigator shit with the two fuckers who didn't make me feel as crazy as I probably was.

"Okay..." Levi muttered to himself, grabbing a sheet from the pile I had brought over to Kade's apartment. "So. We're all seeing the same shit, right?"

Kade's dark brows closed in on the other in concentration. "Mhm." His gaze raised to mine as he slid the documents over to me. "Check it over, though, just in case we missed anything."

I nodded as a thanks, and grabbed them from the table. My legs were uncomfortable as shit from how long I'd been sitting, but I didn't plan on moving.

I studied the documents over, carefully. I had done it time and time, again, but this time was the one that would count for it all.

Everything on them added up in the way that I needed it to against my dad. I had been planning this shit for years, but there had been no exact time expectancy of when I was planning to go public with it. I had thought it to be a couple of more years, at most.

Now, though? Any type of fair shit was gone. My hope for him to change, and to actually be a father, my father was gone.

When he hurt my mother, I started the plan, but the moment he brought Maggie into it was the moment I sped up the process, and gathered everything I needed.

The thought of being free of him was something I never thought I'd experience until now. Relief lifted the pressure from my lungs just enough to give me a breath, but it didn't last for long at the next mission.

Getting behind whatever the fuck happened between Maggie and my dad.

"There's that, then," I sighed out, placing the documents to the side. "Let's get to the next part." They both nodded, then reached for the first evidence I gave them.

I stared down at my own for a moment, then raised my eyes to Kade and Levi, who were more concentrated than I'd ever seen them before. I chewed on my cheek in thought, before repeating the question that I had been asking them ever since they started helping me with this.

"You two." I flicked my head at them. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

Levi looked up first. Kade, next.

"Kind of," Kade replied with a shrug. "I get it, though. You're not willing to lose your girl over shit that could have been prevented. I did the same for Kimberly, and I don't have a single regret about it other than getting in that position in the first place. Except your dad put you in it. Not yourself."