Date January 9th 2018 / Time 12:30PM / Status Not Recording
Location Blue Bottle Coffee – New York City, New York

(Continued from ‘Old Ways, New Doors)

“That’s a good girl. Now come on, let’s sit down and talk, Lucille.”

How did I get myself into this situation? I can’t believe I didn’t just leave when I had the chance. Now, here I stand – with three sets of eyes on me and probably countless more people around this little cafe wondering what in the hell I’m doing. I should be turning my back to them once again and I should be leaving this place and never looking back.

I should be.

I pull the chair out on the far side of the table, wanting to be as far away from him as possible. I only sit down when I can unstiffen my muscles enough to do so; even then.. Sitting down is almost a chore at this point.

“Good, good. Now, I had a few things that I we need to talk about, Lucille.”

His voice cuts into my flesh like a dull knife. It physically hurts to listen to him. The calmness of his voice. How can he be so damn calm knowing what he is and what he did to us? How can he be so God damned smug knowing what a bastard he really is?

I already know the answer to that. He doesn’t care.

“Lucille, your father is speaking to you.”

He clears his throat once, twice.. Three times. I feel his eyes on me, wanting.. No, expecting me to speak. I’m not sure what he wants me to say. I don’t even want to be here now, yet here I am sitting with him. I’m so absolutely disgusted with myself right now that I feel like I could puke all over this table and not think twice.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Frank, would you excuse us for a moment?”

He says with a dismissive wave of his hand, and immediately Frank gets up from the table. As much as I dislike Frank for even writing the lies of my parents; he was the only thing keeping me from being alone with them. But now he’s gone and I’m by myself, sitting across the table from Christine and Gary Johnson… The two people I hate most in the entire world.

And that’s saying a lot because I hate quite a few people.

“Talk, Lucille. I won’t ask again.”

His tone was lower, more demanding this time. Even though it’s been fifteen years, I can always tell when he’s getting frustrated. But the difference this time? I can get up and leave. I’m free. I’m not under his control anymore.

I keep telling myself that, yet my ass doesn’t leave the seat that I’m sat in. My eyes don’t leave the table in front of me as I hear him sigh again, and his fingertips tap the table impatiently. I don’t know what he expects to happen here. I don’t understand this entire situation… But maybe, maybe this is my chance to find out.

“What are you doing here?”

I ask softly, finally finding enough courage to bring my oculars up to meet his.

I have his eyes.

The sides of his eyes crinkle as he grins, staring at me without blinking. It’s like he’s peering into my soul, trying to suck it out of me – just like he sucked my will to live back then. I blink a few times, but I keep my gaze pointed upwards, even though my mind is begging me to look away.

“Well that’s simple, Lucille. We wanted to see you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Now, now.. We don’t curse.”

I scoff.

“Maybe you don’t… But I sure as hell do.”

He purses his lips and I can’t help but to feel a slight sense of satisfaction at my rebellion. The old me would have never, ever talked back to him, hell I wouldn’t have been out of my room long enough to even have had this much of a conversation with him. I wasn’t encouraged to speak as a child. I was encouraged to be small and unheard. It was either that or suffer the same fate that I had before my little sister came along.

Nothing would have stopped him anyway, but that’s not the point.

“Lucille.”

“M-My name’s not Lucille.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Don’t show weakness.  Except that’s the only thing I’m feeling right now…

“What are you here for?”

He rolls his eyes and sits back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We’re here to see that another derogatory article about you doesn’t come into light.”

My heart sinks in my chest.

“Like the first one that you lied in?”

“Please, to the general public, you’re a neglectful daughter. And we do have more stories to tell, don’t we Christine?”

He turns his head towards her, and her eyes widen in terror. I recognize that look. I’ve experienced that look. Instead of speaking she just nods her head vigorously. This satisfies him enough to turn his attention back to me.

“You know what you did to us…”

He laughs, which turns my blood into ice. The last time I heard that laugh was… Was the night I ran away. Kyra had said something to him, I couldn’t hear what from my room… and I heard that laugh and then a loud thump that shook the house, and glass breaking. A few seconds later he screamed my name and I emerged to find Kyra laying face down on the floor under a broken picture frame.

He told me to drag her to her room, and to try not to get blood everywhere or else I’d get the same treatment.

“I didn’t do anything that you didn’t deserve. Don’t you forget that.”

His voice pulls me from that memory, and his words permeate into my brain… searing through all my defenses and permanently placing itself into my thoughts…

Didn’t do anything that I didn’t deserve?!

“But that’s not the point. We’ve come across some… difficult times, and well we thought that our well to do daughter would be willing to fix some of her wrongdoings and help her parents with their finances.”

My eyebrows raise in question as he finishes his sentence as my blood melts in an instant and my veins are suddenly filled with lava. That’s what this is about? Money? They want fucking money?

“I’m sorry, but I don’t deal with abusers and enablers.”

I shoot my mother a look, and she looks away in shame. But my father, I can’t bring myself to look at him again because I see the look in his eyes in my peripheral vision…

“You take that back, you worthless little–”

“NO!”

I yell, slamming my fists down on the table in an outburst that not only shocks the two people sitting across the table from me, and the people at all the adjacent tables.. But it shocks me as well. I stand up and slam them down one more time, leaning over the table towards him.

“I will NOT pay you for the shit you did to me… Just because you–”

“Sit back down Lucille…. NOW.”

“MY NAME’S NOT LUCILLE!”

There’s a reason I don’t like that name. There’s a reason no one knows my real name. I’ve heard it so many times in my life, and nothing positive has ever come of it.

“Get out of my life! Go back to the hell hole you crawled from! I want nothing to do with you!”

“Fine… Have it your way, Little girl.”

He replies calmly as he uncrosses his arms and leans forward in the chair.

“Just remember that the next story to come out might not be so… how do I put this… Forgiving?”

It’s like all the air has been let out of my sails. I slink back down into the chair behind me, my gaze unfixed as I stare into space. Everything in front of me is just blurry shapes moving about. What did I do to deserve this? I thought I’d gotten away from this… I thought everything was going well, everything was finally going right for me.

Yet here I am again.

“H-How much do you want?”

Finally my sight comes back into focus on his evil smile.

“Oh, two and a half million should do.”

My heart catches in my throat as I hear those numbers. But what else am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to fix this unless I give them what they want? I again stand up from the chair and grab my bag from the floor… surprised that my fingers even gripped onto it… I can’t even feel them right now.

“Fine… Fine… I’ll…”

“You’ll do exactly as I tell you.”

 

Date January 11th 2018 / Time 2:32AM / Status Not Recording
Location The Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

I’ve barely slept the last two nights.. I’ve been up thumbing through all my paperwork – trying desperately to figure out where I was going to find two and a half million dollars.  I can’t just pull it out of my ass, regardless of what my piece of shit parents think.

Two and a half…

Million…

I stop and drop all the papers on the desk for the time being and I just stare down at the pile. What in the hell am I going to do?! I mean, I’m well off… enough. But as far as I can see, that amount of money will dry up all my savings… everything. But I don’t want them to keep dragging my name through the mud… I can’t handle it.

I could barely handle their memory.

I could barely handle the memories…

But I can’t handle them being here. I can’t handle knowing why they’re doing what they’re doing, and that they won’t stop playing the victim until I pay up.

Who’s to say they’ll stop once I pay?

If I can…

I might have to sell the condo.  That might be my only option.  I can’t just sit by and let this go; I can’t just ignore it.  Not anymore.  Ignoring it got me to this point, now didn’t it?  I just have to face the music, I’m going to have to give this up – all of it.  The condo, the freedom… I’m just going to have to find something else.  I’ll still be free somewhere smaller and.. cheaper.

But will I really be?

I don’t know.  Am I actually free now?  I feel like the man is lurking around my home, watching me from all corners… watching to make sure I get him the money he’s requiring of me in order to keep his lies to himself.  What if I can’t?  What if I give up everything I worked so hard to have after the divorce, and it’s not enough?  What if he does it anyway?

The thoughts are overwhelming.

My hands shake as I look around the room, stopping on the liquor cabinet.  It’s practically inviting me over there, enticing me to drink my worries away… numb the pain I feel until I can’t feel anything anymore.

I haven’t drank a drop since New Years.  Since that night with Maggie.  I thought I’d found something, someone that made the need to drink myself into oblivion just fade away into the distance.  She is every bit of that… She is every bit worth the effort of not wasting my life inside of a bottle.

Now, though?  Now that he’s back… I don’t know if I can keep my shit together.

I don’t know if I can do this alone… But I don’t think I can tell her.  I’m ashamed of where I came from.  Who wouldn’t be?  Who wouldn’t be embarrassed to be a fighter like I am, someone who’s made a life showing what fearless looks like… yet turns into a quivering little girl when the thought of her daddy comes into her mind.  I’m a fucking fraud.

I’m a fucking coward.

A coward who is about to lose everything…

But I have to tell her.  Maybe it’ll help.  Maybe getting it out in the open with someone I trust will help.  I just don’t want her to see the coward that’s underneath that confident mask that I wear every single day of my life.  I don’t want her to regret the kiss, or anything that came after it.  I don’t want our happiness to be tainted by this…

Even though mine already is.

I stare at the liquor for a few more seconds before pulling myself away.  I can’t.  It’s not going to help anything.  It’s not the answer anymore.  Instead, I pull my phone from my pocket and press a few keys.  The phone starts ringing and I put it to my ear, trying to keep myself calm by breathing deep.

I’m anything but calm right now though…

Maybe I shouldn’t do this.. not right now.  It’s late.

She’s probably–

“Oh, Hey…”

I wipe my face off and take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry for bothering you… It’s just… I-I need you.”