"Your father scares the hell out of me," Amelia said.
She and Wyatt were sitting in his bedroom, Wyatt on the floor leaning against his bed while Amelia was up in the nook of the large, round window overlooking his mothers garden. Wyatt was sipping from a can of soda as he looked through his collection of baseball cards, sorting them, organizing. Something he often did when he felt stressed. Amelia was sketching in her notebook, eating a cracker mix from a nearby bowl as she did.
"He scares the hell out of me," Wyatt replied, "I'm not sure if he knows he's intimidating or he does and he uses it to his advantage, but...god knows I'd never want my kids to be scared of me."
"I don't think it'd be a problem for me because I can't envision myself ever having kids," Amelia said, "I don't think I'd be a very good mother."
Wyatt grimaced. He wanted to be a dad someday, but he also wanted to be with Amelia, without forcing her to give up her autonomy. He wasn't sure how to reconcile this. He thought, maybe, with time, she'd come around, but...but what if she didn't? Would this lead to resentment? He wanted his future wife to be his best friend, not his enemy. Wyatt looked up towards her, diverting his attention away from his cards and to Amelia, smiling as he did. She looked ethereal, like a pixie, with her small face, her curly bangs falling halfway over her eyes, her small frame fitting perfectly into the windowsill as if it were custom made for her body.
"I hate playing baseball," Wyatt finally said, "my dad's the one who pushed me into sports. I mean, it's good exercise, helps you learn how to work with a team, sure, but it just...it isn't something I wanted. And then these cards...they were his, and he got me to start collecting, and I don't even like that. I feel like I'm nothing but an extension of his interests and not my own person."
"There's living vicariously through your kids and then there's whatever the fuck it is he's doing," Amelia said, making Wyatt laugh, which in turn made her smile. Wyatt stood up and walked to the window, climbing up onto the small built in wall bench in front of it. Amelia looked up from her notebook at him as he reached out and put a hand on her face. She shut her eyes and put her hand over his, enjoying his touch. Wyatt then leaned in and kissed her, and she happily kissed him back. Amelia had never felt this kind of love before.
And she never would again.
***
"You know, we could just cram a bunch of stuff into an underutilized piece of foreign bread and call it a specialty food and start our own business," Wyatt said, biting into his lunch, "people will try anything once. Look at folks who use cocaine."
"An odd jump to make but you're not entirely wrong," Celia replied, laughing.
Celia had come to his place of business to check up on him, have some lunch. Wyatt looked better than he had at the funeral, that was for sure, but he was still pretty not with it, wearing sunglasses indoors, not matching his clothes as well as he used to. Celia could tell Calvin's death had hit him really hard, harder than he'd likely ever admit. Wyatt picked up his root beer and took a long drink, then wiped his mouth on the arm of his suit before leaning back in his chair and burping. Celia smirked.
"So..." Celia started, "...things seem to have...quieted down, for the time being."
"Remarkable how that happens when you don't have someone constantly stirring the pot, isn't it?" Wyatt asked, "...still, I'd like to find out who was behind it all. Not the person who sent Ricky, we know that. We know that was Grudin's wife. I mean with Wattson. With the trade ring. That's the loose end that's eating at me."
"We'll figure it out, don't worry," Celia said, "in the meantime, just-"
"In the meantime," Wyatt interrupted, "I'm not able to just do anything. I can't focus, I can barely sleep, I've been drinking more. I don't...I don't like who I'm becoming. I know getting Calvin out of the picture was a necessity, hell, a prerequisite, even, but that doesn't make it easier to swallow. If anything, it makes it harder to SHIT."
Celia gave Wyatt a confused, but mildly bemused look until she noticed he was looking at his office door, now open, his father standing in its frame smiling at them.
"Hello," Rufus said, "I didn't realize you had company."
"I'm Celia Moss," Celia said, reaching out her hand to shake, which he politely did, adding, "I'm just someone Wyatt went to high school with."
Rufus then entered the room, and, standing between Celia and Wyatt, looked down at her.
"Would you mind giving us a few minutes?" Rufus asked, "I need to speak to my son about the business."
Celia glanced at Wyatt, who looked nervous as hell, but she couldn't really say no. Instead, she gathered her things, what was left of her lunch, her purse, her jacket, and headed outside the office. Leaning against the wall and continuing to eat gave her perfect earshot of the conversation going on inside. Rufus had sat down in the chair she had been seated in and crossed his legs.
"You don't seem particularly pleased to see me," Rufus said.
"I'm sorry I didn't throw you a ticker tape parade for coming into your old job," Wyatt said sternly, making his father smirk. He'd always appreciated his sons sense of snark, albeit generally moreso when it wasn't directed at him, which he found rather disrespectful.
"I don't know what Scarlett was talking about. You seem okay to me," Rufus said, which got Wyatt's attention. He looked up now.
"...Scarlett called you?" he asked.
"Everyone is worried about you, Wyatt. You look like hell, her words not mine though I certainly won't debate them, and she says you've been drinking more. As your father, it's my duty to ensure you're doing okay," Rufus said and Wyatt scoffed.
"No, it's your duty to ensure I'm still capable of running the business, which I am," Wyatt said.
"You think I don't care about my own sons well being?" Rufus asked, sounding genuinely hurt, which made Wyatt feel remorse. Wyatt sighed and shrugged.
"I...I don't know, dad, I just...I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of stress and-"
"The you go to a doctor. You get on medication. You don't do whatever this is," Rufus said, his tone now changing, colder, more direct, catching Celia off guard, but certainly not Wyatt, who was more than prepared for this having grown up with it.
"That's easy for you to say, Mr. My midlife crisis was paying showgirls in Vegas to hook up with one Another," Wyatt said, making his father glare at him until he added, "at least mine is just me being a little run down and drinking more, not cheating on my wife. Not that you ever loved mom."
Rufus stood up, the chair scooting across the floor, Wyatt now regretting his words. Rufus walked around to his side of the desk, hand planted firmly atop it, as he leant down and lowered his voice to a low growl.
"You listen to me," Rufus said through his teeth, his eyes boring a hole into Wyatt's, "and you listen damn good. You may be a grown adult, but that doesn't entitle you to the right to backtalk me. I put up with this shit when you were a teenager because adolescence is a time for rebellion. I didn't like it, but I would've been wrong to quash what was a relatively normal phase of growing up. But you're a fucking grown man now, you need to get your shit together and start acting like it, do you understand me? Because you think the worst I could do is turn your wife against you? Take this business back? Dream on, boy. What I could do is so. much. worse."
Wyatt, breathing hard and fast, nodded, giving in. Rufus smiled and patted him on the face with his other hand.
"Glad we had this talk, I'll be back in in a few days, and we'll be having dinner at your place soon," Rufus said, standing up firmly and heading to the door; he tugged it open and exited, saying goodbye to Celia as he passed by. Celia entered and sat back down, looking at Wyatt, pale as a sheet in his desk chair, one hand to his chest.
"That was brutal," she said, "you okay?"
"I'll be okay when he's dead," Wyatt said.
***
Something Wyatt had never told Scarlett, or anyone really, was that she wasn't, in fact, his first time, like he'd led her to believe. That was also Amelia. It had happened late at night, and had been unplanned. In fact, it hadn't even been on a date night. Wyatt happened to have Amelia over while his folks were out for the night, and she had been helping him with a science project. Sitting in his bedroom as they worked on it, Wyatt couldn't stop feeling so lucky for how smart his girlfriend was. Amelia stepped away from the table the project was atop of and put her hands on her hips, smiling.
"There we go," she said, "now that's a guaranteed A+."
"You're amazing," Wyatt said.
"I know," Amelia said, the both of them laughing. Wyatt was sitting on the bed, watching, as Amelia turned and faced him. Wyatt smiled at her, as the early evening moonlight peeked through the shuttered blinds and splashed across her face. She was so beautiful, and Wyatt had no idea why she was in love with him, but he was so grateful for it.
"What did you tell your parents about having to go out?" he asked.
"Just that I had to help a friend with a school project," Amelia repled, shrugging, "Seeing as I'm a good student, they don't question that, plus it's the truth."
"What, that we're working on a project or that I'm a friend? Cause I'd sincerely thought we'd moved past the friend phase," Wyatt said, making Amelia laugh as Wyatt scrambled off the side of the bed and reached under, saying, "by the way, I got you something!"
After a moment, Wyatt climbed back up onto the bed and held out a large case for Amelia. She took it, looking confused, and set it on a nearby desk, opening it, then gasping, a hand over her mouth. She slowly turned and looked back at him.
"I remember, months ago, you were talking about this specific kind of paint you can only get in France, so I looked into it, had my mom mail order some," Wyatt said, "I guess, now that you've helped me with this, it'd be a perfect time to give it to you, though I was gonna give it to you no matter what, so. I just wanted to do something nice for you."
Amelia had never had much luck with guys. She also hadn't really been interested, but the few times she'd been, it hadn't exactly gone well. The thing was, too, that she never expected to be with a jock. Okay, sure, Wyatt was only a jock by proxy of playing Baseball for their school team, and mostly because his dad made him, but he was, in fact, a popular jock, and yet he wasn't ashamed in the slightest to be dating who many considered the weirdest most socially unpopular girl in their school. Amelia pulled her glasses off her face, set them down on the desk, and then tied her messy frizzy hair up into a bun before walking to the bed, pushing Wyatt onto his back and climbing on top of him, surprising him.
"What, uh, hey now, this could be considered assault," Wyatt said, chuckling, and Amelia smirked.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, and he blushed, shaking his head; she bit her lip, then leaned in and kissed him as he reached over and shut off the bedside lamp. That first time was special. So many peoples first times are often awful, things they try to forget, but Wyatt and Amelia were lucky. They were really truly happy to be with one another, and afterwards, lying in the bed beside a sleeping Wyatt, Amelia couldn't believe what they'd done, not that she was regretful but just in the sense that they'd actually done it. She stood up and walked back to the desk, looking at the paints again, then glancing back over her shoulder at Wyatt, smiling to herself. This boy...this boy was such a good person. She felt so lucky. She wanted to spend her life with him. He had stolen her heart completely.
And just as easily he'd be the one to break it.
***
"He sounds awful," Celia said.
Celia and Wyatt had taken off from the office and driven up to pick up Celia's son from school. They then took him to a playground, and sat on the hood of Wyatt's car, watching him play with the other kids. Wyatt inhaled his joint then handed it to Celia, who partook. Wyatt exhaled and shook his head.
"He's a monster," Wyatt said, "an absolute monster. All he cares about is his empire of shit. He was so abusive to my mother, never physically - though it came close at times - but definitely psychologically, mentally, emotionally. If I hadn't had my girlfriend in high school...I don't know how I would've survived. She was a safe place for me in the midst of his bullshit."
"Scarlett seems very sweet and-"
"No, not Scarlett," Wyatt said, interrupting Celia, "the girlfriend I had before her. This girl, Amelia. She was the absolute sweetest girl, a totally different breed of person. There was just...no bad in her. I genuinely think I didn't become my dad because of her influence, because it would've been so easy to fall in line under his thumb. But she made me realize it was okay to be empathetic. To be what a man should be. Whenever my dad was awful, I would remind myself that not having his love didn't matter, because this amazing girl loved me instead, for who I actually was, not for who he wanted me to be."
Celia smiled and patted him on the back.
"You are a good man, Wyatt," Celia said, "I don't think anyone could ever argue otherwise."
"That's the thing, people could argue otherwise," Wyatt said, "I'm a perfectly curated lie. I've done awful things. But they've all been under the guise of good intentions. I'm just as bad as Calvin was, I'm just better at hiding it."
"No, Wyatt," Celia said, feeling truly bad that he believed this sentiment; Celia put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look at her as she said, "Wyatt, listen to me, what Calvin was going to do would've been unforgiveable. Up to a point his decisions were understandable from his grief and pain, not justifiable but understandable...but what he was planning? That wouldn't have been okay. You. are NOT. Calvin."
Wyatt smiled weakly and nodded, taking another long drag on the joint before handing it back to Celia.
"So what happened to this amazing girlfriend?" Celia asked, and Wyatt sighed.
"I did something bad," Wyatt said, "...all because of my dad."
***
"I'm sorry," Wyatt said, his voice hoarse from crying, "...I'm sorry. I can't...I can't take it anymore. He's threatening to take everything away from me. Threatening to not help me with college, to...to not let me have the business. I need those things."
"More than you need me?" Amelia asked, her voice also broken from screaming and crying. The two had been arguing for hours, and now were just sitting on his back patio, near the pool. His folks were once again out for the night, trying to fix their marriage - ironic, Wyatt thought, taking relationship advice from a man who can't keep his own marriage afloat - and Wyatt had invited Amelia over after his fathers ultimatum.
"I'm not...I'm not good enough to do it on my own," Wyatt whispered, "I need his help. His resources."
"Bullshit you're not," Amelia said, "bullshit bullshit bullshit. You're so capable, dude. And I'll be with you. We can do it together."
Wyatt broke and started crying again. The pressure had finally made him crack. He didn't want to end things with Amelia, he loved her so much, but his father terrified him more than he loved her, at least in the moment. Amelia sighed and looked at the pool, trying not to cry again herself.
"...so that's it?" she asked, and he nodded.
"i'm sorry," he whispered.
"...it was supposed to be you, you know," Amelia said, sniffling, wiping at her eyes as he looked up at her, hating himself for making her cry as she added, "the future was supposed to be you. now i just don't want it. good luck with your father."
Amelia hopped down from her seat and walked briskly to the fence, pulling the gate open and exiting. He would see her around school for a bit, but avoid her best he could. His father would start treating him better because he'd listened. A few weeks later he would start dating Scarlett, a cheerleader, someone his father vastly approved of because of her conventional beauty and overt femininity. And a few weeks after that, Amelia would leave school, and soon the state entirely. So when Celia told Wyatt of the lives he'd saved by taking Calvin out, it didn't make a difference to him, because he'd already ruined the life of the only person he'd never wanted to hurt.
And there was no forgiving that.
She and Wyatt were sitting in his bedroom, Wyatt on the floor leaning against his bed while Amelia was up in the nook of the large, round window overlooking his mothers garden. Wyatt was sipping from a can of soda as he looked through his collection of baseball cards, sorting them, organizing. Something he often did when he felt stressed. Amelia was sketching in her notebook, eating a cracker mix from a nearby bowl as she did.
"He scares the hell out of me," Wyatt replied, "I'm not sure if he knows he's intimidating or he does and he uses it to his advantage, but...god knows I'd never want my kids to be scared of me."
"I don't think it'd be a problem for me because I can't envision myself ever having kids," Amelia said, "I don't think I'd be a very good mother."
Wyatt grimaced. He wanted to be a dad someday, but he also wanted to be with Amelia, without forcing her to give up her autonomy. He wasn't sure how to reconcile this. He thought, maybe, with time, she'd come around, but...but what if she didn't? Would this lead to resentment? He wanted his future wife to be his best friend, not his enemy. Wyatt looked up towards her, diverting his attention away from his cards and to Amelia, smiling as he did. She looked ethereal, like a pixie, with her small face, her curly bangs falling halfway over her eyes, her small frame fitting perfectly into the windowsill as if it were custom made for her body.
"I hate playing baseball," Wyatt finally said, "my dad's the one who pushed me into sports. I mean, it's good exercise, helps you learn how to work with a team, sure, but it just...it isn't something I wanted. And then these cards...they were his, and he got me to start collecting, and I don't even like that. I feel like I'm nothing but an extension of his interests and not my own person."
"There's living vicariously through your kids and then there's whatever the fuck it is he's doing," Amelia said, making Wyatt laugh, which in turn made her smile. Wyatt stood up and walked to the window, climbing up onto the small built in wall bench in front of it. Amelia looked up from her notebook at him as he reached out and put a hand on her face. She shut her eyes and put her hand over his, enjoying his touch. Wyatt then leaned in and kissed her, and she happily kissed him back. Amelia had never felt this kind of love before.
And she never would again.
***
"You know, we could just cram a bunch of stuff into an underutilized piece of foreign bread and call it a specialty food and start our own business," Wyatt said, biting into his lunch, "people will try anything once. Look at folks who use cocaine."
"An odd jump to make but you're not entirely wrong," Celia replied, laughing.
Celia had come to his place of business to check up on him, have some lunch. Wyatt looked better than he had at the funeral, that was for sure, but he was still pretty not with it, wearing sunglasses indoors, not matching his clothes as well as he used to. Celia could tell Calvin's death had hit him really hard, harder than he'd likely ever admit. Wyatt picked up his root beer and took a long drink, then wiped his mouth on the arm of his suit before leaning back in his chair and burping. Celia smirked.
"So..." Celia started, "...things seem to have...quieted down, for the time being."
"Remarkable how that happens when you don't have someone constantly stirring the pot, isn't it?" Wyatt asked, "...still, I'd like to find out who was behind it all. Not the person who sent Ricky, we know that. We know that was Grudin's wife. I mean with Wattson. With the trade ring. That's the loose end that's eating at me."
"We'll figure it out, don't worry," Celia said, "in the meantime, just-"
"In the meantime," Wyatt interrupted, "I'm not able to just do anything. I can't focus, I can barely sleep, I've been drinking more. I don't...I don't like who I'm becoming. I know getting Calvin out of the picture was a necessity, hell, a prerequisite, even, but that doesn't make it easier to swallow. If anything, it makes it harder to SHIT."
Celia gave Wyatt a confused, but mildly bemused look until she noticed he was looking at his office door, now open, his father standing in its frame smiling at them.
"Hello," Rufus said, "I didn't realize you had company."
"I'm Celia Moss," Celia said, reaching out her hand to shake, which he politely did, adding, "I'm just someone Wyatt went to high school with."
Rufus then entered the room, and, standing between Celia and Wyatt, looked down at her.
"Would you mind giving us a few minutes?" Rufus asked, "I need to speak to my son about the business."
Celia glanced at Wyatt, who looked nervous as hell, but she couldn't really say no. Instead, she gathered her things, what was left of her lunch, her purse, her jacket, and headed outside the office. Leaning against the wall and continuing to eat gave her perfect earshot of the conversation going on inside. Rufus had sat down in the chair she had been seated in and crossed his legs.
"You don't seem particularly pleased to see me," Rufus said.
"I'm sorry I didn't throw you a ticker tape parade for coming into your old job," Wyatt said sternly, making his father smirk. He'd always appreciated his sons sense of snark, albeit generally moreso when it wasn't directed at him, which he found rather disrespectful.
"I don't know what Scarlett was talking about. You seem okay to me," Rufus said, which got Wyatt's attention. He looked up now.
"...Scarlett called you?" he asked.
"Everyone is worried about you, Wyatt. You look like hell, her words not mine though I certainly won't debate them, and she says you've been drinking more. As your father, it's my duty to ensure you're doing okay," Rufus said and Wyatt scoffed.
"No, it's your duty to ensure I'm still capable of running the business, which I am," Wyatt said.
"You think I don't care about my own sons well being?" Rufus asked, sounding genuinely hurt, which made Wyatt feel remorse. Wyatt sighed and shrugged.
"I...I don't know, dad, I just...I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of stress and-"
"The you go to a doctor. You get on medication. You don't do whatever this is," Rufus said, his tone now changing, colder, more direct, catching Celia off guard, but certainly not Wyatt, who was more than prepared for this having grown up with it.
"That's easy for you to say, Mr. My midlife crisis was paying showgirls in Vegas to hook up with one Another," Wyatt said, making his father glare at him until he added, "at least mine is just me being a little run down and drinking more, not cheating on my wife. Not that you ever loved mom."
Rufus stood up, the chair scooting across the floor, Wyatt now regretting his words. Rufus walked around to his side of the desk, hand planted firmly atop it, as he leant down and lowered his voice to a low growl.
"You listen to me," Rufus said through his teeth, his eyes boring a hole into Wyatt's, "and you listen damn good. You may be a grown adult, but that doesn't entitle you to the right to backtalk me. I put up with this shit when you were a teenager because adolescence is a time for rebellion. I didn't like it, but I would've been wrong to quash what was a relatively normal phase of growing up. But you're a fucking grown man now, you need to get your shit together and start acting like it, do you understand me? Because you think the worst I could do is turn your wife against you? Take this business back? Dream on, boy. What I could do is so. much. worse."
Wyatt, breathing hard and fast, nodded, giving in. Rufus smiled and patted him on the face with his other hand.
"Glad we had this talk, I'll be back in in a few days, and we'll be having dinner at your place soon," Rufus said, standing up firmly and heading to the door; he tugged it open and exited, saying goodbye to Celia as he passed by. Celia entered and sat back down, looking at Wyatt, pale as a sheet in his desk chair, one hand to his chest.
"That was brutal," she said, "you okay?"
"I'll be okay when he's dead," Wyatt said.
***
Something Wyatt had never told Scarlett, or anyone really, was that she wasn't, in fact, his first time, like he'd led her to believe. That was also Amelia. It had happened late at night, and had been unplanned. In fact, it hadn't even been on a date night. Wyatt happened to have Amelia over while his folks were out for the night, and she had been helping him with a science project. Sitting in his bedroom as they worked on it, Wyatt couldn't stop feeling so lucky for how smart his girlfriend was. Amelia stepped away from the table the project was atop of and put her hands on her hips, smiling.
"There we go," she said, "now that's a guaranteed A+."
"You're amazing," Wyatt said.
"I know," Amelia said, the both of them laughing. Wyatt was sitting on the bed, watching, as Amelia turned and faced him. Wyatt smiled at her, as the early evening moonlight peeked through the shuttered blinds and splashed across her face. She was so beautiful, and Wyatt had no idea why she was in love with him, but he was so grateful for it.
"What did you tell your parents about having to go out?" he asked.
"Just that I had to help a friend with a school project," Amelia repled, shrugging, "Seeing as I'm a good student, they don't question that, plus it's the truth."
"What, that we're working on a project or that I'm a friend? Cause I'd sincerely thought we'd moved past the friend phase," Wyatt said, making Amelia laugh as Wyatt scrambled off the side of the bed and reached under, saying, "by the way, I got you something!"
After a moment, Wyatt climbed back up onto the bed and held out a large case for Amelia. She took it, looking confused, and set it on a nearby desk, opening it, then gasping, a hand over her mouth. She slowly turned and looked back at him.
"I remember, months ago, you were talking about this specific kind of paint you can only get in France, so I looked into it, had my mom mail order some," Wyatt said, "I guess, now that you've helped me with this, it'd be a perfect time to give it to you, though I was gonna give it to you no matter what, so. I just wanted to do something nice for you."
Amelia had never had much luck with guys. She also hadn't really been interested, but the few times she'd been, it hadn't exactly gone well. The thing was, too, that she never expected to be with a jock. Okay, sure, Wyatt was only a jock by proxy of playing Baseball for their school team, and mostly because his dad made him, but he was, in fact, a popular jock, and yet he wasn't ashamed in the slightest to be dating who many considered the weirdest most socially unpopular girl in their school. Amelia pulled her glasses off her face, set them down on the desk, and then tied her messy frizzy hair up into a bun before walking to the bed, pushing Wyatt onto his back and climbing on top of him, surprising him.
"What, uh, hey now, this could be considered assault," Wyatt said, chuckling, and Amelia smirked.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, and he blushed, shaking his head; she bit her lip, then leaned in and kissed him as he reached over and shut off the bedside lamp. That first time was special. So many peoples first times are often awful, things they try to forget, but Wyatt and Amelia were lucky. They were really truly happy to be with one another, and afterwards, lying in the bed beside a sleeping Wyatt, Amelia couldn't believe what they'd done, not that she was regretful but just in the sense that they'd actually done it. She stood up and walked back to the desk, looking at the paints again, then glancing back over her shoulder at Wyatt, smiling to herself. This boy...this boy was such a good person. She felt so lucky. She wanted to spend her life with him. He had stolen her heart completely.
And just as easily he'd be the one to break it.
***
"He sounds awful," Celia said.
Celia and Wyatt had taken off from the office and driven up to pick up Celia's son from school. They then took him to a playground, and sat on the hood of Wyatt's car, watching him play with the other kids. Wyatt inhaled his joint then handed it to Celia, who partook. Wyatt exhaled and shook his head.
"He's a monster," Wyatt said, "an absolute monster. All he cares about is his empire of shit. He was so abusive to my mother, never physically - though it came close at times - but definitely psychologically, mentally, emotionally. If I hadn't had my girlfriend in high school...I don't know how I would've survived. She was a safe place for me in the midst of his bullshit."
"Scarlett seems very sweet and-"
"No, not Scarlett," Wyatt said, interrupting Celia, "the girlfriend I had before her. This girl, Amelia. She was the absolute sweetest girl, a totally different breed of person. There was just...no bad in her. I genuinely think I didn't become my dad because of her influence, because it would've been so easy to fall in line under his thumb. But she made me realize it was okay to be empathetic. To be what a man should be. Whenever my dad was awful, I would remind myself that not having his love didn't matter, because this amazing girl loved me instead, for who I actually was, not for who he wanted me to be."
Celia smiled and patted him on the back.
"You are a good man, Wyatt," Celia said, "I don't think anyone could ever argue otherwise."
"That's the thing, people could argue otherwise," Wyatt said, "I'm a perfectly curated lie. I've done awful things. But they've all been under the guise of good intentions. I'm just as bad as Calvin was, I'm just better at hiding it."
"No, Wyatt," Celia said, feeling truly bad that he believed this sentiment; Celia put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look at her as she said, "Wyatt, listen to me, what Calvin was going to do would've been unforgiveable. Up to a point his decisions were understandable from his grief and pain, not justifiable but understandable...but what he was planning? That wouldn't have been okay. You. are NOT. Calvin."
Wyatt smiled weakly and nodded, taking another long drag on the joint before handing it back to Celia.
"So what happened to this amazing girlfriend?" Celia asked, and Wyatt sighed.
"I did something bad," Wyatt said, "...all because of my dad."
***
"I'm sorry," Wyatt said, his voice hoarse from crying, "...I'm sorry. I can't...I can't take it anymore. He's threatening to take everything away from me. Threatening to not help me with college, to...to not let me have the business. I need those things."
"More than you need me?" Amelia asked, her voice also broken from screaming and crying. The two had been arguing for hours, and now were just sitting on his back patio, near the pool. His folks were once again out for the night, trying to fix their marriage - ironic, Wyatt thought, taking relationship advice from a man who can't keep his own marriage afloat - and Wyatt had invited Amelia over after his fathers ultimatum.
"I'm not...I'm not good enough to do it on my own," Wyatt whispered, "I need his help. His resources."
"Bullshit you're not," Amelia said, "bullshit bullshit bullshit. You're so capable, dude. And I'll be with you. We can do it together."
Wyatt broke and started crying again. The pressure had finally made him crack. He didn't want to end things with Amelia, he loved her so much, but his father terrified him more than he loved her, at least in the moment. Amelia sighed and looked at the pool, trying not to cry again herself.
"...so that's it?" she asked, and he nodded.
"i'm sorry," he whispered.
"...it was supposed to be you, you know," Amelia said, sniffling, wiping at her eyes as he looked up at her, hating himself for making her cry as she added, "the future was supposed to be you. now i just don't want it. good luck with your father."
Amelia hopped down from her seat and walked briskly to the fence, pulling the gate open and exiting. He would see her around school for a bit, but avoid her best he could. His father would start treating him better because he'd listened. A few weeks later he would start dating Scarlett, a cheerleader, someone his father vastly approved of because of her conventional beauty and overt femininity. And a few weeks after that, Amelia would leave school, and soon the state entirely. So when Celia told Wyatt of the lives he'd saved by taking Calvin out, it didn't make a difference to him, because he'd already ruined the life of the only person he'd never wanted to hurt.
And there was no forgiving that.