Chapter 190: Unraveled - Cole

"Cole."

His voice sounds strange, yet familiar. It's a voice I have imagined speaking to so many times. What would I say? What would I do? Would it change me?

But now that I'm looking at him, looking at me with only one good eye, I feel like the monster I always knew I was. What six year old boy stabs someone's eye out? The one side of his face is scarred from the scissors I used.

My mouth is dry, and my tongue is stuck to the roof. I just look at him, this man who haunted my nightmares for years.

"I always wondered if you would come and see me." There's a small smile on his lips, making his scarred face come across as less harsh. "I thought they probably reached out to you regarding my upcoming parole hearing?"

I still can't say anything, everything I've thought and dreamed of over the years just stuck inside me.

He clears his throat when I still don't say anything. "I've been involved in several programs inside over the years. I think I am doing well now, and would do good outside."

I frown, anger bubbling up inside me. Is that what he wants to tell me right now? How good he has been so that he can be released?

"Why?" The word comes out tortured from my throat.

"Why what?" He looks confused.

"Why did you kill her?"

The look in his eye becomes guarded, like he somehow walked into a trap.

"I came to see you after all this time, almost fifteen years, and you're telling me how good you've been, but not telling me why you killed my mother." Some of the anger I'm feeling comes out in my voice. "Is that really what you want to say to me right now?"

He leans back in his chair, and sighs heavily. "I didn't mean to do that. I was just very angry at the time."

"I get angry all the time, I don't go around stabbing people, and in front of their child nonetheless."

I think back on Kamila and how she always said that I just needed to learn how to control my big feelings when I got so angry or depressed.

"Are you my real father?" I ask the words that have been swirling through my mind the whole ride here.

Recognition flashes in his eye. "If you're asking me that question, then you must know your mother wasn't all that innocent."

"What does that mean?"

"That means that she made me believe I was your father for six damn years." He leans forward, and I see some of that anger that I saw in him that day. "I always knew something was off, but I just went along with the flow, working in a fucking hardware store trying to provide for a family that wasn't even mine to begin with! I gave up my art for you and her! And you know what, the older you got, it became more and more evident that there was no fucking way you could be biologically mine, even though your liar of a mother begged me to believe it. Then I heard her talking to that bitch of a friend of hers, telling her that I was getting suspicious. I got so mad that I just picked up that knife without even thinking."

My eyes are burning, and it's not until I see the drop of liquid dropping on the white table that I realize I'm crying.

"You got me real good, though." He sneers. "You were always so soft, I thought you will turn out to be some kind of artist, but you thought you could save her by stopping me. Real heroic for a six year old."

I want to lunge across the table and beat the living shit out of him. He deserves to be in here, they should lock him up and throw away the key, and he will definitely not be getting a recommendation from me to get released on parole.

I get up, knowing that whatever I wanted to hear from him, I'm not gonna hear.

He laughs at my back as I wait for the guard to open the door. "Mark really exposed you, didn't he? He's my nephew, in case you were wondering why he has been on your case."

I turn back around to look him with a frown. "So you want my life ruined? What is it that you want?'

"I want you to suffer the way I have been suffering in here!" He spits out. "You have no idea what it's like being locked up like this. And it's not even my fault. If your mother wasn't a lying, conniving bitch, none of us would have been in this situation!"

I'm grateful when the guard finally unlocks the door, and I hurry out. I think someone asks me for an autograph, but I can't talk to anyone right now or pretend that I'm fine. When I finally get to my truck after all the security checks, I bend down at the knees and I throw up, energy drinks and protein bars that I consumed while driving.

I get in the truck before anyone tries to talk to me again, and I cry like a little baby.

The man who I thought was my father, is indeed a monster.

And I cry for the little boy that I was, the memory of the fear of that day still so palpable.

And I cry out of relief, because his blood doesn't run through my veins.