Justin's P.O.V
"Justin, you don't have to do this" Selena spoke in a soft, comforting tone, rubbing up and down my arm.
I shook my head, dismissing what she had said. "I want to"
She nodded and gestured her hand for me to walk through the door. Just before I went in, she lightly grabbed my wrist and turned me around.
"I'll wait in the reception room, you go" She placed a gentle kiss on my cheek and walked down the hall, her curled hair bouncing around her shoulders.
I hesitantly walked in, seeing him sitting at the small round table in the middle of the room. I took slow steps over and sat down on the chair, on the opposite side from him.
He smiled a little and relaxed into his chair, lacing his fingers together on his lap. I swallowed the forming lump in my throat and inhaled deeply through my nose, ignoring the pain in chest from my healing ribs.
Earlier Selena got a call from Officer Young asking if I could come to the prison my dad is in, because he wanted to see me. After an hour, maybe two of thinking, I finally agreed. I don't know what he wants to see me for or what he will say, but Selena drove me down here anyway.
I'm nervous, kinda skeptical and a little curious. I hope this goes well, but it's not like he can hurt me, there's too many gaurds around. In here, I'm safe.
"Hello, Justin" He broke the thick silence, no emotion on his face.
"Hi" I whispered, my eyes falling onto the light blue table top.
He sat up a little straighter and scanned me, looking for what, I don't know. "You look good. You have a certain glow to you"
My eyebrows furrowed at his comment and I looked back up to meet his gaze. "What?"
"It's funny," He started with a chuckle. "Your mother had the same glow. It was bright and warming for the first few of years of us being together, but when you turned four, it slowly started fading"
"D-did I do something wrong? It's my fault, isn't it? I-I didn't mean to, I-"
"Justin, relax!" He cut me off. "You worry too much. Why would you say that it's your fault?"
"Because it is! You basically said it yourself!" I pointed my finger towards him.
He shook his head and frowned. "No I didn't, because it's not your fault. She would always light up again when she saw you. It's my fault that she lost her glow and that she was becoming unhappy"
"Dad," I sighed, closing my eyes for a second. "Please tell me why you did it? Why did you take her away from me?"
He just looked at me for a moment, before swallowing loudly and licking his lips. He looked like he was arguing with himself as to whether or not to tell me. His eyes flashed with an emotion I've never seen on him before, but couldn't quite work out what it was.
"You really wanna know?" He finally spoke, his voice softer than before.
I went to answer, but stopped myself. Do I really want to know why? After all these years, do I actually want to know the truth?
After a minute or two, I nodded slowly. "Y-yeah"
He nodded, too and sighed. "Alright, but I won't just tell you about her, I'll tell you everything"
"Really?!" I spoke almost too quickly and a higher pitch than normal. I cleared my throat and shook my head, mentally slapping myself.
"Yeah..." He trailed off. "But promise, not to freak out or interrupt?"
"I promise" I whispered, butterflies filling up my stomach, making me feel a little sick.
"Okay, well..." He took in a deep breath and released it slowly. "It was an accident, I-"
"An accident?!" I yelled, cutting him off and grabbing peoples attention around me.
"Justin" He spoke sternly, reminding me of the promise I made. I muttered a quiet sorry and he nodded, silently forgiving me.
"Anyway... Yes, it was an accident. It was actually her who picked up the knife in the first place and everytime I tried to move closer to her, she threatened to use it on me. I went to take the knife from her, but somehow we ended up fighting over it and well, when she snatched it off of me, she accidently plunged it into her chest" He frowned and stared at his fingers that were now ontop of the table. "I didn't do it, I would never have even thought about touching her like that!"
I sat there blinking slowly, with my jaw hanging low and goosebumps all over my arms. I wanted to think about everything he was saying, but I just couldn't. My mind had gone completely blank and nothing would form.
"When the police came, they concluded it as suicide because of her fingersprints on it. I tried to explain the situation, but they didn't believe me" He shook his head, muttering the last part through his teeth.
"I've only cried a small amount times in my adult life, and that was one of them. The first time was when I first saw you and held you in my arms, you were the perfect child. The second time was when your mother said yes to marrying me, it was a long shot and I didn't think she would actually say yes, but she did immediately - I never got to marry her in the end, the whole knife thing happened before we could even start planning it. The third time was on your first day of school, I was so proud of you and I couldn't believe that my little boy was going to school on his own. The fourth time was when I hurt you for the first time. I felt so disgusted with myself for even touching you in a violent way that all I could do was cry, I didn't stop for hours because I knew that what I did was wrong and it made me feel sick. The fifth time was when you ran away from me and hid at that girls house over the road. I thought I lost you, I thought you had been taken and that you didn't have anyone there to save you. I was so broken, every bad thought ran through my head, making me scared that I really had lost you forever. And the last time I cried was the night I was brought in here. It hit me like a tonne of bricks that I had failed you and my myself in life. I hurt you, I let you down and I put myself in here. I'm so ashamed of myself, hell that doesn't even amount to how much I hate myself. I'm just waiting for the day that God decides that it's my time to die and kills me, because honestly, I'm too much of a coward to do it myself"
I stared at him in disbelief, not bothering to wipe away the tears that were filling my eyes and spilling over, falling down my face. My eyes were burning, my palms were sweating like crazy and my stomach flipped over and over again, churning everything up.
"W-why did y-you hurt me? I-I'm sorry if I did s-something wrong, I swear I didn't m-mean to" I squeaked out, my voice breaking in the middle.
His eyes began to water and he bit lip, before shaking his head. "You did nothing wrong, that's why I'm so sickened by why I did it. I don't actually have a reason, not a good one at least. I could blame it on the death of your mother, I could blame it on the way my father raised me or I could balme it on that fact that I'm not strong enough to be a single parent, but none of those reasons are good enough and they don't justify abusing you. I wish I could give you a reason, just to put your mind at ease, but I just can't"
"B-but why did y-you drug me when I came b-back home?" By now, my tears were falling off my face splashing on the table, making little wet spots.
"When you went, I was scared. I didn't know what happened to you, you just disappeared. One minute, I'm on the couch and then I guess I fell asleep because when I woke up, you were gone when I went to check on you in your room" He bit his lip, holding back the tears that were so close to slipping over. "So when I got you back I drugged you, so you couldn't run away again. I didn't want to lose you again, I was worried sick and hurt. Every night I slept in your room, just hoping that you would climb through the window again, like I know you do, but you never did. I didn't want to feel the way I did again, so I did whatever I could to make sure you couldn't leave. You scared me and all I wanted to know was that you were safe and out of danger"
"Selena would n-never hurt me" I mumbled, looking down.
"I know," He sighed, nodding. "I know that now"
"Why did you d-drink so much before? You did it even when m-mum was alive" I whispered, my voice barely there.
"I'm an alcoholic, Justin. I never planned to grow an addiction, but it just happened, I'm not even sure how" He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck.
There was a few moments of silence, apart from my quiet sobs and sniffling, before dad broke it.
"It hurts to know that you don't need me anymore. I remember when you were young, I would do things with you all the time, because you always needed me to help you. With your mother gone away on work all the time, because of my addictions, we spent a lot of time to together" He finally let the tears he had been holding back for so long, fall. I've never seen my dad cry before, this was all so new to me.
"I'll always need you, d-dad. No matter h-how much pain you've put me through, I always will and still do need you" I wiped my nose on my sleeve and bit my lip, so I didn't cry loudly.
"That's what I've always liked about you, Justin. You're always so kind, even if you're talking to a person you hate. You got that from your mother, she was like that too. I loved her so much and I know she loved me too, because when I was at home getting myself wasted and drugged up, she decided to stay with me and never cheated on me once. I know I accused her of cheating, but deep down, I knew she hadn't. I guess it was the drugs and alcohol talking"
There was another few moments of silence before dad once again broke it.
"When I brought here, everything was taken away from me, but they let me keep these" He reached into his pocket and pulled out two items. He put a small photoin front of me and smiled a little.
"This was on your first birthday. We went to Build A Bear, because from the first day you were born, you would cuddle up to everything. The bear we got you was twice the size of you and you never put it down. The workers there took the picture of us, I've always kept it on me"
He put the second photo down in front of me and wiped under his eyes, removing the still falling tears. "This is my favorite picture of you, it always was from the moment it was taken. Your mother took it when she found her camera after she had lost it about three months before. You look so much like her in this picture, that I kept it in my wallet and never took it out, just so I could always have it with me. Now I keep them under my pillow"
I looked at the pictures a little longer, until my vision became blurred from all the tears. I passed them back and he put them back in his pocket, after glancing at them one last time.
"I know you hate me, but-"
"I don't hate you" I cut him off, looking up at him.
The pained expression on his face turned into a shocked look. "What?"
"I don't hate you" I repeated, making my words more clear.
He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "You don't? Even after everyhting I've put you through?"
I shook my head. "No. You're my dad, I couldn't hate you even if I wanted to"
He smiled a little and his face soften, before turning sad again. "You know, I regret alot of things, too many for me to even count, but one of my biggest ones was telling you that I never loved you. It's not true, I've loved from the day I found out you were alive and then even more when you took your first breath. I don't know why I told you I didn't love you, because it's the biggest load of bullshit I think I've ever let come out of my mouth"
"Y-You don't h-hate me?" I stuttered, shocked by his words.
He shook his head quickly. "Of course not. I love you, Justin. I always have and I always will"
Now I couldn't keep in my loud sobs and I let myself cry so much, that I begun to shake violently. Dad stood up from his chair and sat back down on the one next to mine, he opened his arms and I instantly sat on his lap, my arms around his neck with my head leaning on his shoulder. We both cried for what seemed like hours, but I'm not sure how long it actually was.
"I-I love y-you too, daddy" I whimpered into his shirt, clutching some of it in my left hand.
He tightened his arms around me and placed a loving kiss on my temple. "I'm so sorry, Justin. You're my son, my boy, my special little warrior. You're so strong and I couldn't be more proud of you. I love you, so much and you were the only thing left that kept my going after I lost the only woman I could ever truly love"
"Two minute warning!" A man called out, his voice boomed to the othersde of the room.
"I-I don't want to leave!" I whined, sniffling a little.
Dad pulled away from me and held me at arms length. "You have to, Justin. I don't want you to go either, but you have to. You can come back whenever you want and be here. I'm in here for four years, so you have alot of time to come and see me. Justin, I'm so sorry for everything, if I could go back in time and change things, I would in a heartbeat, but I can't"
"I'll come and see you soon, I promise" I spoke quietly, standing up from his lap. He gave me one last hug and we said our goodbyes.
I walked out of the visiting room and went into the reception room where Selena was sat, reading a magazine. She smiled when she she saw me and stood up.
She walked over to me and frowned. "Have you been crying?"
I nodded and looked down, wiping under my eyes and nose. She pulled me into a hug and rubbed my back. Tears built up again and without warning, they fell down my face. I felt safe in Selena's arms and she always gives the most loving and tender hugs.
"What happened?" She whispered, still holding onto me tightly.
"H-he told me e-everything. He s-said he l-loves me" I cried into her neck, her skin wet.
"Shh, baby, don't cry. It's okay, shh" She cooed, still rubbing my back, making it easier to breath through my sobs.
"Thank y-you fro bringing me h-here, Sel"
I felt her shake her head. "It's no problem, Justin. Now come on, let's go home. How does icecream and movies sound?"
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idk how to feel about this i