SÁBADO
12:41 AM
Reid Harlow
"I'm fucking scared," I declare out of the blue, the words slicing through the silence like a knife. I don't even know if Presley is awake, or if he's sunken into a deep sleep after today's family football game—but I just had to say it. The words were throbbed in my throat, waiting to be acknowledged, and I had absolutely no one to turn to.
The slick of midnight appeals to me, and the room illuminates with the glow of the moon. The light shines through the slits of the blinds, shadowed on the floor. The ceiling being the showcase of my nighttime entertainment.
No one replies. At this point, I'm certain Presley wasted away on his pillow and I'm stuck staring at the ceiling, wishing for an outlet of release. I wanted Dahlia, out of everyone in the entire goddamn world, to be here with me, but at the same time—I realized how detrimental our relationship is.
"Why are you scared?" Presley responds back, and a rustling of his sheets is heard from the other side of the room. I didn't want to face him, admit defeat, so I continue to stare at the ceiling, wishing for stars instead of rust.
I'm picking at the day we were driving, and Dahlia was driving recklessly. She nearly killed us, but I can't help but remember the way I raised my voice at her. Sure, I panicked and the anger consumed me in a flash—but I could've done better. I could've told her without innating a flight-or-fight response, and I could've talked to her without the anger clutching my throat.
I fucked it up.
"Dahlia once asked me what my greatest fears were," I told, tears pricking the corner of my eyes. I let them fall. "I told her I was afraid of becoming attached to someone again, or to fucking lose someone close to me—I even added that sometimes, I'm living my greatest fear."
I pause, sucking in a choke breath, the ceiling feels like it's collapsing on top of me. "That's far from the truth. I thought I didn't have an immediate fear because I don't have any attachment to anyone but, I realized I fucking do."
The words startle me as I release them, "I'm afraid of becoming like her father."
The tension presumes, thick and unnerving as I await the next few words that could either make or break me. I never fucking care about what anyone had to say about me before—I welcomed their assumptions with open arms—but this time, I do. It's not because of Presley's opinion, or anyone's—it's because I'm fucking afraid of knowing the truth.
When you're met with a truth, in your own mind, it consumes you. You revisit every fucking occasion where you presented this ideology, you break your spirit and your mind just to prove yourself that you aren't. It's a guilty conscience and a despicable appetite, but you do. You want to be the opposite, you want to be better, and you want to do and believe anything that makes you feel otherwise.
But all my interactions, all my thoughts, come back to one final conclusion: I am exactly like her father.
"What are you...what are you talking about?" Presley asks gravely, his voice oozing with worry. "Dahlia's father? You're afraid of becoming like him?"
"It's not a fucking joke,"
"I'm not fucking saying it is,"
I open my mouth, but close them, wiping the stray tears falling from my eyes. I didn't think I would be fucking crying in the middle of this conversation, but it hurts me worse than I ever intended. It's burning the back of my throat and killing me from the inside.
I care about Dahlia, more than I've ever cared about anyone. I want her to feel safe, and I want her to be her own person. If she ever does find love, or fall in love—I want her to be with someone who deserves her. Who'll cherish and love her in ways unimaginable, and who won't remind her of her father.
It...can't be me.
"Harlow." Presley declares securely, "you're not her father."
"No, you don't fucking understand." I heaved a heavy breath, "I am like her father. In so many fucking ways, I can't even imagine. I'm an asshole, I smoke the same cigarette brand, we have the same empty look in our eyes when we look out in the world and the way we act—it's so fucking close. We're so fucking similar."
The thoughts that've been consuming me and driving me to insanity comes to surface, the words bobbled at my throat with a cry. I hated that I act this way, but the similarities are too fucking close to be ignored. No matter what I feel for Dahlia, I can't let anything else happen.
She doesn't deserve that.
"It's the glass," I choke on my words, pushing myself up from the bed and into a sitting position, my legs swinging off the edge and finding the surface of the floor. "It's the fucking glass, and it's the driving and I remind her of her father in so many ways. She even fucking told me."
I'm staring at my foster brother from across the room and tears are welling in my eyes, glassy and gloss. I'm fighting to keep my composure, hold the fucking torch that I'm fucking strong—but I didn't care at this moment. I don't fucking care about the reputation I produced or how Presley saw me—I don't. I care about Dahlia, and about her only and it's fucking suffocating me to realize that this is who I am.
This is how she saw me.
Presley pushes himself off the bed and mimics my position, his expression filled with intense concern. His eyes study me, trying to produce an appropriate reaction—when he remains silent. A silence that tells a thousand words.
"She had a panic attack the other day," I told, the words unraveling and hard to control. "We were driving and she swerved into the other lane, and I pulled us to safety but I went off at her. I was so pissed, so afraid and she wasn't concentrating on the road—and everything spilled." The memories flooding back in waves, collapsing my chest. "She left the car in tears, Presley. She was fucking crying—because of me."
Presley opened his mouth, but no words fell from his lips. He stares back at me, trying to predict a right response—but there isn't. I don't want a fucking lie to help conceal my guilt, but the truth kills me too much to consider. There's no right answer here. It's just misery.
I let out a strangled cry, and my eyes drops to the floor. I'm wiping away tears, but they're flooding faster than I could count and I just can't help it.
I could change right now, but it wouldn't matter. I'm ingrained in her brain as this low-life that reminds her too much of her father, and she couldn't even look me into the eyes to admit that. The choices are crumbling to pieces, and I don't have the strength to pick them up.
Everything: the glass, the cigarettes, the driving. Everything is too fucking much.
Presley picks himself from the bed and walks over to me, moving swift and effortlessly. He places a hand on my shoulder, something that would usually irritate me, when this time—it felt comforting.
"Come on," Presley commands softly, nodding his head to the door. "Let's go downstairs."
I clench my jaw, "the family—"
"—is all asleep. No one is awake. It's one in the morning and the adults have a damn job in the morning. We're going downstairs, you need to breathe."
I don't respond, but I don't decline the opportunity. I stand from my bed and pull to the space beside Presley, as he exchanges his hand and hooks an arm around my shoulders. He pulls me close, and we exit the bedroom and descend down the steps, our foot hitting the hardwood planks.
I wipe a couple more tears, wetness drenching the back of my hand, and I calm myself with consistent breathing methods. We pull to the living room, desolated and quiet, and Presley sits me down.
"I'm going to the kitchen for a sec," he announces, heading towards the opposite direction and returning with water bottles in his hands. He throws one at me, uncapping one himself.
We sit on the couch, with nothing to do, and I take sips from the water. I needed to hydrate from my crying, but I don't dare look to my foster brother. Instead, I stare at the blank tv, with nothing to show. Nothing to ease the mood.
Presley takes the remote and turns on a random channel, lowering the volume. It was stuck on some random movie stuck in the middle of a scene, and little captions flooded the bottom of the screen.
"I don't know." Presley declares honestly, as the pictures move and the silence precedes us. "I don't know what to say."
I clutch onto the plastic water bottle, the bottle throbbing in my hand and sharpening with each choke. "I want you to tell me the truth."
"I can't answer that." He responds, facing the tv. "You're an asshole, and you have one of the worst attitudes I've ever had to deal with—"
I scoff, "you said it was hard to answer."
"Let me fucking finish," Presley demands. It shuts me up. "You're a lot of bad things, and you're an asshole beyond anything—but you're different with Dahlia. You look at her like she's the fucking light, and that's the only flame you'll ever want to follow. The world is cruel, harsh and wicked—and you knew this from the start—but when you see her, you look at her as if she could change your mind. It's hard to explain. You see her differently."
I shake my head. "That doesn't matter."
"But it does," Presley tries to counter, "there's a different...person when you're with Dahlia, and I saw it. I saw it at the dinner, and I saw it when you got jealous of Dahlia and me."
I shake my head, refusing to acknowledge that. If I can't have her, what's the point of fantasizing? "I didn't get Dahlia's number because Claudia wanted to know how she's doing," Presley pauses, letting the words sink in. "I got her number because if anything happens to you, I have to call her first."
My grip tightens around my bottle, "nothing's going to happen to me."
"I don't know that," Presley answers calmly. "But, to answer your question, I don't know. I can't give you the answer you want to hear or need to hear. You have to figure it out. I'm not here to fix you—I'm your brother."
His final word slices through me, and my instant reaction was to argue back. I only have one brother, the words on the tip of my tongue, he's not you.
But, I don't say it. I let him have that word for a night, because of how he was there for me. How I needed someone to talk to, and he listened. My brother left. Presley didn't.
I don't allow myself to dwell on his words, because in the back of my head, I still hold this belief that I'm just like her father. I'm the asshole—as Presley cleverly puts it—and I'm a terrible person. The correlation between Clayton Gray and me are unparallel, and I fucking hate it.
I want Dahlia, fuck I said it, but I won't have her.
She deserves someone who will give her the fullest potential of love, someone who will cherish and love her without a doubt. Someone who won't remind her of her father, and dismantle her belief on marriage.
She deserves someone who will give her the fullest potential of love, someone who will cherish and love her without a shadow of a doubt. Someone who won't remind her of her father and dismantle her belief on marriage. On herself.
She deserves a love unquestioned.
And, I can't be that guy.
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to everyone who commented last chapter and telling me how you feel about my story, thank you so much. you guys really boasted my morale and so much interaction happens last chapter, i always revisit them to remember. (especially during mg my anxiety attacks) :)
you guys are the best. thank you so much, it means so much to me. i love you 💕