After Ever Happy (After 4)

“I want you to be a part of the baby’s life, Hardin. I think this could be a really good thing for all of us.”

“Us?” I scoff.

“Yes, all of us. You’re a part of this family. When I married Karen and took on the role of Landon’s father, I know you felt like I was forgetting about you, and I don’t want you to feel this way because of the baby.”

“Forgetting me? You forgot about me long before you married Karen.” But I don’t get the same thrill out of throwing shit into his face now that I know the truth about his past with my mum and Christian. I feel for him and the shit those two pulled, but at the same time I’m fucking pissed at him for being such a shitty father up until this last year. Even if he wasn’t my biological dad, he was in charge of taking care of us—he accepted that role and then just gave it up to drink.

So I can’t help myself. I should, but the anger is buzzing in me, and I need to know. I have to know why he would attempt to make amends with me if he isn’t completely positive that he’s my father.

“When did you know that my mum was fucking Vance behind your back?” I ask, releasing the words like a grenade.

All the air leaves the room, and Ken looks as if he will pass out any second.

“How . . .” He stops and rubs a hand across the stubble on his chin. “Who told you that?”

“Cut the shit. I know all about them. That’s what happened in London. I caught them together. He had her on the kitchen counter.”

“Oh God,” he says, his voice strangled and his chest heaving. “Before or after the wedding?”

“Before, but she still got married anyway. Why did you stay with her if you knew she wanted him?”

He takes a few breaths and looks around the room. Then he shrugs. “I loved her.” He looks me in the eyes, naked honesty seeming to remove any distance between us. “I don’t have a reason aside from that. I loved her, and I loved you, and I kept hoping that one day she would stop loving him. That day never came . . . and it was eating me alive. I knew what she was doing and what he—my best friend—was doing, but I had so much hope for us, and I thought she would eventually choose me.”

“She didn’t,” I note. She may have chosen to marry him and spend her life with him, but she didn’t choose him in any way that mattered.

“Clearly. And I should have given up long before I turned to alcohol.” The shame in his eyes is humbling.

“Yeah, you should have.” Everything would be so different if he had.

“I know you don’t understand it, and I know that my poor choices and false hopes ruined your childhood for you, so I don’t expect your forgiveness or understanding.” He puts his hands together as if he were praying and covers his mouth with them.

I stay silent because I can’t think of anything to say. My mind is reeling with horrid memories and the reality of how fucked all three of my . . . parentlike figures are. I don’t even know what to call them.

“I suppose I felt like she would see that he couldn’t offer her the stability that I could. I had a good job, and I wasn’t as much of a flight risk as Christian was.” He pauses, and with his deep breath his vest tightens on his chest and he looks at me. “I reckon if Tessa marries another man, this is how he will feel. He will always be competing with you, and even when you leave her for the hundredth time, he will be competing with the memory of you.” He’s confident in what he’s saying, I can tell by his tone and by the way he’s looking me square in the eyes.

“I’m not leaving her again,” I say through gritted teeth. My fingers are clenching the edge of the desk.

“He said that, too.” He sighs and leans back against the dresser.

“I’m not him.”

“I know you aren’t. I’m in no way saying that you are Christian or that Tessa is like your mum. Lucky for you, it’s only you that Tessa sees. If your mum wouldn’t have fought her feelings for him, they could have been happy together; instead they allowed their toxic relationship to ruin the lives of everyone around them.” Ken brushes his hand over his facial hair again. An annoying habit.

Catherine and Heathcliff come to my mind, and I want to vomit at the easy comparison. Tessa and I may be a huge fucking disaster like the two characters, but I won’t allow us to suffer the same fate.

But none of what Ken is saying makes sense to me. Why would he put up with so much shit from me if he had the slightest inkling that I wasn’t his problem to begin with?

“So it’s true, then? He’s your father, isn’t he?” he asks as if losing some vital force that had been animating him. The strong, scary man from my childhood has disappeared and been replaced by a heartbroken man on the verge of tears.

I want to tell him that he’s a damn idiot for putting up with this shit from me, that my mum and I can’t forget the hell he made my life as a child. It’s his fault that I side with the demons and fight against the angels—it’s his fault that I have a special place in hell and am not welcomed in heaven. It’s his fault that Tessa won’t be with me. It’s his fault that I hurt her too many times to count, and it’s his fault that I’m just now trying to fix twenty-one years of mistakes.

When instead of all that I don’t say anything, Ken lets out a breath. “I knew from the first time I saw you that you were his.”

His words nearly knock the wind from my chest along with the angry thoughts in my mind.