CHAPTER 62: A BROKEN CHAPTER

Chapter sixty two

Chapter Sixty Two

I took a few steps back, my heart clenching with a pain I thought I’d already gotten over.

Four years. This was how long I last saw him after he left for another city.

Why was he back here now?

The unwanted memories crashed over me once again, dragging me back to when I was about eleven years old when it all began, the unpleasant quarrels between my parents that sometimes lasted the whole night while Pumpkin cried while clinging onto me, asking me when it would be over.

But their fights only got worse.

Did I once mention that I had an easy time coming out with my sexuality?

Well, that hadn’t been the complete truth.

Staring at his face resurfaced that particular night before he left and for some reason, the memory was more vivid than ever.

I had been standing by the kitchen door when his voice blasted the whole house with that same familiar anger, but it was laced with disgust this time.

"This is what happens when you let your son turn into a freak! Look what you’ve done to him!"

"He’s just a child, David. He’s exploring..." Mom had tried to defend me like always, but today Dad seemed more furious than usual; maybe it was because of the demotion he had gotten a few days ago.

"Exploring? He painted his nails with your nail polish! He was playing with dolls when I came home! What kind of sick joke is this?"

I’d pressed myself harder against the wall, my small fingers touching the chipped blue polish I’d forgotten to remove from my pinky nail.

I’d only wanted to make my hands look pretty like Mom’s, so I’d allowed Pumpkin to paint it for me.

"He’s still a kid! Children play with dolls..."

"Normal children don’t! Normal boys play with trucks and balls, not dolls and nail polish. You should fix him instead of accepting such behaviour! I won’t have a son who acts like... like that! "

The way he’d spat out ’that’ like it was something dirty, something shameful.

Even at that age, I’d understood he was talking about me being different. About the way I’d rather read fairy tales than play football. About how I preferred helping Mom in the kitchen to watching sports with him.

Their arguments echoed in my head while I tried hard not to cry. At that age, I knew my preferences, what I enjoyed or not, but I didn’t understand why Dad was so angry about it.

"Maybe if you spent more time with him instead of drinking yourself to stupor every night... you’ll finally get to understand that our son is perfectly normal, you just don’t want to understand him!"

The quarrel continued long moments after that, and I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore.

"Don’t you dare blame this on me! I work to provide for this family while you turn my son into something... wrong!"

The sound of something breaking shattered in the air followed by Mom’s sharp intake of breath. My own silent tears as I’d realized my father thought I was broken. Just like that glass vase on the floor.

"I can’t do this anymore. Our marriage is already in the dirt, having a gay son just makes it worse,"

"So you are using the excuse of our son’s sexuality to escape from your responsibility?"

"I’d rather not stay and watch my son turn into something I can’t even recognize!"

The door had slammed that night, and I’d waited in my hiding spot for hours, thinking he’d come back. Thinking maybe if I threw away all the dolls, if I promised to never touch nail polish again, if I became the son he wanted, he’d stay.

But he never came back.

The next morning, I’d found Mom crying at the kitchen table, still in the previous day clothes. Pumpkin had been too young to understand, asking over and over why Daddy wasn’t there for breakfast.

"When is Daddy coming home?" she’d asked every day for months.

And Mom after the divorce, tried to hold it together, working extra shifts at the hospital just to keep food on our table. I’d heard her crying through the thin walls, seen her shoulders shake when she thought we weren’t looking. All because I couldn’t be the son Dad wanted.

It took two years before she finally managed to convince me that Dad left not because of who I was, but because he already had a different family outside.

It was never my fault and nothing was wrong with me.

So, I stopped blaming myself for being different, I no longer told myself that if I’d been the boy he wanted that maybe Mom wouldn’t have had to work double shifts and Pumpkin wouldn’t have grown up asking why Daddy didn’t love us anymore.

I began to see myself as normal once again.

Now, looking at this man in his expensive suit with a woman who wasn’t my mother, he looked... happy. Successful. Like walking away from the broken family he had caused had been the best decision he’d ever made.

The rage hit me first, burning hot in my chest. But underneath it all was the hurt - so deep it felt like drowning. I wanted to march over there and scream at him, to ask him if abandoning us had been worth it. If his new life was better without the disappointment of a son like me.

But my legs wouldn’t move. The little boy inside me was still hiding behind that door, still believing he’d destroyed his family by being himself.

I couldn’t confront him, so I did what I’ve always done when things got too complicated.

I ran.

My ears caught a voice. His voice was calling my name, but I didn’t stop.

I pushed through the crowds, my vision blurring as panic clawed at my throat.

I couldn’t breathe.

The walls felt like they were closing in, voices around me turning into white noise.

I crashed into someone at the entrance and nearly fell, but strong hands caught me.

"Ollie? What—"

Before Kieran could finish, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him with me. I didn’t know where I was going, just away. Away from that man who’d looked at his own son and decided he wasn’t worth staying for.