A Heart as Hard as This

Chapter 1

Richelle's Perspective:

I looked at the letter, unsure what to make of it. Deep down, I'd always known this was coming. Ever since he went to that bar for the first time, things were always going to end like this.

He'd left that night, it was warm at first. He kissed my mother and I both, and rushed out to meet his friends. We'd known them for a while, they'd always come to visit and bring me gifts; I liked them. Before they caused this.

They'd made him drink. Made him down beer after beer. He'd never drank before in his life, or even if he had, it'd been sparingly. His body couldn't handle it.

He had come home smelling of it. The scent had enveloped him, trailing around the house wherever he stepped foot. My mom had cried when she smelled it, broke out into tears and yelled at him. He'd defended himself, but as he wasn't sober, we knew it wasn't true. The excuses were useless, lying words that we knew would never come out of his mouth otherwise. Everything was so wrong.

And ever since that day, he'd been different. Sneaking booze into the house, paying his friends for it in the dark corners outside at midnight. Shouting at my mother. He even got close to hitting her once.

I remembered how she flinched. She'd grimaced, cowered away from the arm he'd nearly brought down on her. I remembered her looking at me. I'd never seen her so small, so without words. She always had something to say. Not then.

The letter made sense. My mother burst out into tears reading the first sentence, but I read on, not stopping until I'd reached the last character.

I'm sorry, it said. I've left. I don't want to deal with the screaming anymore, the questioning of my life choices. I'll be fine on my own without either of you to judge me.
Maya, I loved you, and I never would've stopped had it not been for that night. But it happened, and now I can't imagine my life without it. That much is not the same for you.
Richelle, I do still love you. You are still the only light in my life, and will forever be the only thing that keeps me going. Please just always remember that.
I left because I needed to. I've seen how much my actions have hurt you both. I ask you not to look for me. You won't find me. Just let me go.
Your husband and father,
Neil

I could believe he left. I could even accept it. What I could not accept was that he did not even say goodbye.

Goodbye to me, or my mother, face to face. How could someone leave without so much as a tinge of guilt for not having a last word with someone? I knew that I would never be able to. Never.

I thought then of what my life would be like now. At dance, people would make fun of me even more. They'd already found out that my father was a drunk, and teased me every day. The people that were once my friends seemed almost terrified to even go near me, even walk up to me to say a simple "hi." I got nothing from anybody anymore.

So what would they think now? Now that he'd left my mother and I? Ran off, without so much as a goodbye. How would they react? Surely, they would tease me more. And even the A Troupers, like Emily, would find some way to make fun of me. Or worse, pity me.

In many ways, pity was worse. People sometimes believed that I'd already gone through too much. Their sympathy was worse than their resentment, they went easy on me, assumed that I was weak. I was not weak. No one should ever think I was weak.

My mother never thought I was weak. She sat there, across from me on the large chair, crying and leaning a hand on the table, mourning the loss of her husband that wasn't dead. She never tried to comfort me, knew instead that I would attempt to comfort her.

Which was exactly what I did. "Mom," I soothed, rubbing her shoulder. "It's okay. You still have me. We don't need him."

"I do. I need him," she muttered. "I love him."

I couldn't fathom how that was still true. After all that he'd done to her. I would never forgive someone like that, someone that'd done so much wrong to me. Nothing would ever make me.

Stroking her back a final time, I backed away from her, crumpling the letter in my fist. I neared the fire, and considered it a final time before tossing the letter into it.

I'd decided. No one would ever know. It would be my secret.

——————

At dance the next day, no one questioned my sadness. No one questioned that I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. They all thought I was the same as always. But if they'd dared to look at me, really stare into my eyes, they would've noticed something was different. They would've noticed that I wasn't the same; that I'd lost the first part of me.

Emily taught us, she was the only one who dared to look at me. "You okay?" she asked me quietly after class, once everyone had left.

"I'm alright." I answered. Not entirely truthful, but I knew that she could see that. There was really no point in lying to her, but if I told only a bit of TNS truth, it would cause more questions. Too many. So I lie was what I told when she questioned me.

"I just had a rough night," I explained. "I went to sleep at a later time than usual. I guess I was too into my book." I tried to laugh it off, but I could see in her eyes that she wasn't fooled. She wouldn't ask again today, but I would have to tell her the truth eventually.