Chapter Seventeen: Tears and Smiles

                                        

                                              

Joseph just kept holding my hand and tell me to breathe, but I felt I was crumbling.
No matter how much I hated Father—how much rage I carried, how many nights I spent trying to silence the voice in my head that sounded like him—there was still a part of me that ached. Not out of forgiveness. Not out of nostalgia. But out of something much sadder: a love that had nowhere left to go.
Buried deep inside me was a boy I had spent years trying to outgrow. A boy who still existed in quiet corners of my heart, clutching drawings with uneven lines and bold colors—drawings he made just for his dad. The same drawings he found days later, stuffed into the garbage like they meant nothing. And yet that boy kept drawing, just in case.
He left notes in the margins of books and beside coffee cups in broken French, halting Spanish, early German—languages he had just started learning because he wanted to impress him. Because maybe, maybe, a clever phrase would spark some pride. A reaction. A smile. Anything.
He memorized the weight of his father's footsteps in the hallway—the pace, the rhythm—so he could time it perfectly, so he could be standing at the door, smiling, eager, ready to be seen. The boy who stayed up too late with a flashlight, just in case he passed by. The boy who beamed when he was called "too sensitive," or mocked for being "girlish," or , "gay"—not because the words didn't hurt, but because he was paying attention. Because for a moment, he wasn't invisible.
That boy—naive, desperate, loyal, always hoping—he still lived inside me. And tonight, he shattered. Because now I knew for certain: the approval he chased didn't exist. It never did. It was a ghost I was trained to chase, and in the process, I had lost everything real.
I heard a soft inhale beside me.
"I know," Joseph said. "Trust me. I get it."
"I'm pathetic," I muttered, my voice hoarse, eyes burning with unshed tears. "Why am I even emotional about this? After everything he did... everything he didn't do. Why the hell do I still care?"
Joseph didn't flinch. He didn't rush to fill the silence with false comfort or cheap words. He just looked at me, really looked at me, like he could see the bruised places I never let anyone touch.
"You're not pathetic," he said finally, his voice low and steady. "You're grieving."
I blinked, chest tightening. Grieving?
"This isn't weakness, Thomas. This is the end of hope—for him to change. It's the death of whatever part of you was still holding out for something more. For the apology that never came. For the love he was never capable of giving. For a father you invented to survive the one you had."
I felt something split open inside me.
"And..." he added, quieter now, "it's the death of your marriage, too. You've been holding that truth at arm's length like it might bite, but it's here. It's been here for a long time."
His words didn't just land—they pierced. Sharp and unrelenting. They went straight through my chest, cracking every illusion I had so carefully constructed just to keep breathing.
I ignored the elephant in the room. Stepped around it like it wasn't pressing its full weight into every conversation, every moment we pretended to be fine. I painted it invisible. Told myself, Once we take care of Dad, everything will fall back into place. Once things calm down, we'll be okay. But deep down, I knew the truth. I had lost her. It was my fault.
 All of it. Me.
The days I spent in the hotel after the fallout were unbearable. The walls felt like they were closing in, like they knew I didn't belong there. Not anymore. The air was heavy and stale, like every breath I took was borrowed. There were moments I'd catch my reflection in the mirror and not recognize the man looking back—tired, unshaven, hollow. Like someone who had been sleepwalking through his own life and finally woke up to find everything he loved had slipped through his fingers.