The Boy Who Has No Redemption (Soulless 8)

“Oh, your mom will love that.”

“Yeah, she will.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, cutting herself off from me again.

I lingered in front of her, knowing I should leave, but I had nowhere to go. This was home to me now. “I want you to know I’m not seeing anybody. I haven’t seen anyone since I found out about Mom.” I’d never tried to win a woman back, so I had no idea how to do it. I just told her the thoughts as they came into my mind. “I know you don’t want me, but I can’t picture being with anyone but you…so I just can’t do it. And when I saw how my father lost it today…, the way he loves my mom so deeply, it reminded me of myself… It reminded me of us. Emerson, what we have is so—”

“Derek.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.

“You think I’m just going to stop loving you?” I whispered. “No. And you aren’t going to stop loving me either. We love each other in a way most people don’t, and that’s worth fighting for.”

“I fought for you for a very long time, Derek—”

“And now I’m fighting for you. I’m in this relationship even if you aren’t. I’m here. I’m going to be here forever until you join me.” There was nobody else for me. I couldn’t go to a club and pick up a woman. I couldn’t get on a dating app. I couldn’t do any of that because it would be cheating, at least to me—that was how committed I was. “I wasn’t what you deserved before, but now I am. And I’ll be the best damn man the world has ever seen.”

She kept her eyes on the floor. “Derek, you forget that there’s two of us…not one.” She lifted her eyes and looked at me. “I told you we came as a set. My daughter is the most important thing in the world to me, but I took the risk of letting her get attached to you, and you broke her heart. You don’t have kids, so you don’t understand how fragile they are, even if they act tough all the time. And it’s not just what you did to my daughter that hurts, but the fact that my daughter had to witness my complete demise. Those are memories she’ll have forever, Derek. You said you would be a great father to her, but you don’t even understand the first thing about being a parent. If you did, you would have handled that better. But you put yourself first. You didn’t put her first—which is the number one rule of being a parent.”

I dropped my gaze in shame.

“You think I enjoy tearing you down like this?” she whispered. “I don’t.”

I took a breath before I looked at her again.

“Please stop making me do this—”

“I have to. Even if it hurts, I have to. Because the three of us are a family—I want us to be a family.”

She gave a loud sigh. “Derek, I know you’ve just opened your eyes, and all of this is new and painful…but you need to let it go.”

I couldn’t.

She turned back to the door. “Goodnight, Derek.”

“Can I talk to her?”

She looked at me again.

“I’ve never really had the opportunity to apologize to her for everything.” I’d talked to her on the phone once, but that was her opportunity to air her grievances and I didn’t have a chance to say anything. Then she called and asked for help with that guy, but that wasn’t the right time. A face-to-face interaction had never been on the table.

Emerson hesitated, like she thought it was a bad idea.

“I’d really appreciate it if …”

Emerson considered for a while before she opened the door. “Hold on a sec.” She stepped inside, and muffled voices were heard back and forth before she opened the door again. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

I stepped inside, the apartment familiar yet foreign.

Lizzie sat on the couch with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at the TV in a blatant attempt to ignore me.

“I’ll be in my bedroom, if you need me.” Emerson left the living room and walked into the bedroom she used to share with me.

Lizzie continued to watch TV, her knees pulled to her chest, her hair in a high ponytail. She looked so much like her mother; once she became an adult, they would probably look like sisters. I stood there awkwardly for a bit before I moved to the couch beside her, leaving a few feet between us so she wouldn’t feel suffocated. “Liz?”

“Don’t call me that.” She didn’t look at me.

The remote was between us, so I grabbed it and turned off the TV.

She kept her eyes on the black screen. “I wasn’t watching it anyway.”

I returned the remote to where it’d been before. I knew this was futile, but I tried anyway. “Liz, watching my mother go through this has really changed my priorities. It’s changed who I am as a man. I look back on my mistakes and wish I could do things over again, but unfortunately, I can’t.”