"You look great." Kylie smiled, fixing the collar of the suit I had been wearing. "I can't believe he just called out of nowhere for dinner like that."
"It really is out of nowhere, though. I thought he would have dropped dead before that."
"Oh, shut up." Kylie put her arms around my neck, pulling me closer as the smile remained on her face. "You shouldn't talk about people like that. It's not nice."
Some time had passed since the hospital. While the rehab had taken longer than I had expected, I had been out within that same year. It had been brutal, like bench-pressing your max amount of weight without a spot. All I had were a couple of wooden bars and the carpet to fall onto - but that never would have happened to me, I hadn't been about to let Kylie see that happen - and thankfully, it never did happen, though it almost had a few times.
After my release, I had become something of a small celebrity within the scientific community there. There had been a small number of interviews and questions asked, most of which I had ignored. What I had found out from someone was that the person who had hit me was caught about two days later while speeding, clearly he hadn't learned his lesson - otherwise he would probably would have gotten away with it. Apparently the sheriff had seen the dent on the grill and became suspicious after pulling him over for speeding. Whether that had been sheer luck or actual thinking was something I had never gotten answered.
He had later been killed in prison, from what that same person had told me. After I had heard that, I'd remembered that I "killed" the very same man - just way more violently. Had he fucked up? Definitely. Had he deserved time in jail or prison? Sure. Had he deserved to die? Probably not. If anything, the fault had been split. We had ran into the street, coming into his vision out of nowhere. However, he had been the one speeding and could have likely stopped without much damage if he had been going the speed limit.
Neither should have happened, and were the results of individual mistakes. My mistake was letting - rather, forcing Kylie to leave to begin with. That should have never happened, and was the result of yet another mistake - violence. His mistake had been speeding in an area with a school. That was just common sense, or lack thereof. No reasonable human should go fourty in a twenty-five, nor should there simply have been any reason for that speed. His second was getting caught for the exact same thing. Maybe he deserved it for that reason alone.
By that time, Kylie and I had long been living together - without the approval of her parents or not. Kylie had emancipated herself, and I followed not long after getting out of the hospital, though my mother had made it abundantly clear that she had nothing to feel towards me. I was just her baggage, the one thing he had left behind. The thing that let everyone know it really did happen. Kylie, who hadn't wanted to say, told me that my mother hadn't come to see me once - to her knowledge, at least. If she wanted to play that game, then I would, too.
"Do you think there's something wrong with him?" I asked as my hands fell to her waist.
"Hope not. I know he doesn't like you, and I'm still angry at him myself, but he's still my dad." Kylie took a step backwards, brushing my back with her fingers. "If he asked for both of us, then it has to be important, right?"
"I mean, I'm sure he's fine. Just be prepared for it." I brought my index finger up to her chin and nudged it. "You look fantastic, too. If we didn't have to leave, that dress wouldn't be on. Just saying."
Kylie turned around and headed for the door, and stopped to only turn back to me, entirely ignoring my comment on her dress. "I am. He's getting to that age where problems start showing up, so I hope he's grown the hell up and he can be apart of our life."
"Same here, at least for your sake."
**
After we had finished getting ready, Kylie and I had left. It hadn't been a long trip to the restaurant as it had only taken about fifteen or so minutes to get there. The problem? We had been about twenty minutes earlier than what we had told him. Kylie had thought it was easy enough to just guess the time it would take to get there, but I suppose I had been to blame too, as I had just gone along with it.
Kylie stood a short distance away from me as I smoked, while she looked for her dad who had apparently decided to come by taxi himself. She had been gorgeous, from her lightly curled black hair to the dark red of the shoes that matched her lipstick. It had been as though with every passing day, Kylie had grown more and more beautiful. Some days it had felt like she was way too far ahead of me, and I would never be able to catch up, like I was the tortoise and she was the hare.
Just as I had finished my cigarette and was about to bring Kylie inside the restaurant, he had appeared out of a taxi. We entered the restaurant and were seated quickly around a fancy, white table. The restaurant was much fancier than anything I'd ever been to, and had no idea how 'etiquette' worked. Before long, we had our drinks in front of us, sitting in the dead silence and brisk atmosphere that floated around the table.
"Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?" he turned his head to me. "What about you, Aiden? How is everything?"
"We're doing great, Dad." Kylie answered for me, somewhat coldly. "What about you? What's your reason for taking us to dinner?"
Her father leaned back and took a drink of his wine. As he rubbed his goatee, it had been clear to see that he hadn't planned any of this and that he was trying to put his words together. In a sense, I was glad that he had done that and hadn't planned some long speech. It just seemed more authentic that way. Whether what he had to say would matter or not had been a different issue altogether. It was an odd situation in the sense he had never done anything like this, especially when it included me.
"Firstly, I want to apologize for all of the things I've done to you both, and to you period, Aiden. I should have backed off and let you two enjoy yourselves, but I let my pride get in the way and tried to stop it. No teenagers should have to run away to be together, but I made you both do that. I really regret all of it." he took another drink of his wine. "I've missed so much of my angel being happy, and I've missed all of the times she cried waiting for you, Aiden. I focused so much on her doing well academically that I forgot she had feelings, and that she wanted to do other things, too."
"I couldn't give less of a fuck about how people look at me, Dad. A couple weeks into dating Aiden, I realized something. If the person I love is okay with who I am, what I do, and how I look, then everyone else can go look at themselves in the mirror. I don't care what other people think, didn't then, and I still don't now." Kylie took a drink of the water in front of her. "If you felt like that, then why didn't you say something? You had plenty of chances."
If Kylie was cold to him before, she had just turned to ice directly in front of my eyes. Kylie rarely ever spoke to anyone with a hint of coldness or even anger. Meaning, it had taken a lot for her to go this far, even with him. Had Kylie let her anger and feelings towards him build up, and they were only now being let out? If that had been the case, then she was only a ticking time-bomb, ready to explode.
"I know that now, sweetheart. At the end of the day, I was forcing the way I was raised onto you because I believed it was right. I've been thinking a lot lately, about how I'm getting older and that I've missed out on a lot of important things because of my selfishness and ineptitude." he took her thin, feminine fingers into his hand as he squeezed softly. "I should have been there for you when you started dating, I should have been there when he went into his coma, and when he woke up. I should have been there for you all along. That goes for you both."
"You act like saying all this is going to fix everything that's been wrong for so long. Obviously you should have been there from the start, and you should have been there when I needed you the most. You fucking disappeared when I needed you the most. You said nothing, and you did nothing." Kylie pulled her hand away. "Do you realize how much that hurt, being hung up on by my own dad? I needed your help. You heard me crying on the other side, and you still hung up on me. How do you expect me to forgive that?"
It had appeared as though Kylie had held back some stuff from me. Specifically, this happening with her father. She had gone to the only person who she thought could have helped her and begged him for that help, only to be hung up on. While it had only been one side of the story, it had seemed like him and something he would have done at the time. What had been a cry for help to her own father was ignored, which I assume had led into her abuse of Xanax.
No father should have been allowed to do that and be forgiven. If my father had suddenly reappeared, I wouldn't have forgiven him either. The same went with my mother. If she came and asked for forgiveness, I wouldn't have given it to her. Both of them made it plenty clear that they had bigger and better things to do that hadn't included me, so I left it as it was. There was no point in trying to fix something that was already long broken.
Not in a million years had I expected this to come from Kylie, but it had, and it appeared that she was only getting started. Not only had she silenced the restaurant, but she had appeared to attract them as an audience, as well. What had started as normal, slightly angry talking had turned into something slightly below yelling, leaving her just loud enough for what was likely the entire restaurant to hear.
"So, what?" she asked. "If you don't say something worth your fucking weight, then we'll be getting our asses right out of your life again."
"I've missed everything important to you. I know I'm the worst, and I don't deserve you in my life, but I don't want to miss any more than I already have." he answered.
"My little Kylie got married and soon she's going to a mother to a little angel herself."
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