To Hell and Back - Kenny x Reader

Can't Spell Dead Without Dad

Many painful deaths and lonely trips to Heaven and Hell later, it was the end of the last day of my junior year of high school. I was walking home and came back to another screaming match between my mother and my father. This was the norm. I waved to our neighbor, Mr. Harvey, and asked "How long?"

"All day, dear," he replied sullenly. I mouthed a 'sorry' and headed inside.

The arguing was nothing new. My mom was a junkie and my dad had worked for years to try to get her clean, but nothing worked.

The gun though, that was new.

I had only just set foot in the door, and could immediately tell what had happened earlier today. My mom had a crazed look in her eyes and was dripping in withdrawal sweat, which could only mean that my dad had found and trashed her stash again. The handgun in her shaking hands was pointed directly at my dad.

He looked over at me from across the living room as I stepped through the front door. He got halfway through mouthing 'it's okay' when the soundwave from the gunshot blasted through my skull.

I screamed and watched my father fall to the floor. I ran to his side and dropped to my knees, just in time to see the light leave his eyes and the blood gush from his chest. "Dad, oh my god, oh my god!"

I put my hands on his chest to try to stop the bleeding, but he wasn't breathing, and it was no longer gushing out in rhythmic spurts. He was gone.

"What did you fucking do?!" I turned around to face my mother, who stood there looking like a deer in headlights.

I blacked out at that point. All that I can remember after that are the police lights, my mother's smashed up face, and my knuckles hurting from being busted open and bloody.

Mr. Harvey was talking to the police and had explained to me at the hospital that he heard the gunshot and rushed right over, where he watched me beat my mother within an inch of her life, screaming and crying at the top of my lungs. The police and ambulance arrived shortly after, and declared my father dead on scene. My mother was treated at the same hospital they took me to, and naturally, I did not go visit her before she was transported to the county jail to face the murder charge.

I stopped looking over the edge of the Plateau after that day, out of fear that I'd see my dad down in the flames.

I stayed in a foster home in Greeley for the next two months until it was time for me to testify at my mom's trial. If the court couldn't find placement for me after testimony, though, I was stuck there until I aged out.

I died once while living at the foster home, and woke back up in my bed at home for the first time since the day of my dad's death. I stepped out of my bedroom window and slid down the shingles of the roof, hopping down onto the trash bin and making it to the ground in a swift, silent dance. I had done this many times before to sneak out, but that night, my only thought was that I couldn't handle being back in the living room after what had happened. I awkwardly knocked on Mr. Harvey's door and made up a lame excuse that I had forgotten something important in my old room and needed a ride back to the foster home. Mr. Harvey kindly obliged but I was in very big trouble for leaving the foster home without permission that night.

My mom's trial was a fast one due to the nature of her crime and her existing criminal record. I felt bad for her public defender, because we all knew the best they could hope for was a decent plea deal. Early on, I was permitted to testify virtually so I didn't have to be present in the courtroom with my mother, but I declined their offer.

A very handsome sheriff's deputy escorted me into the courtroom when it was time for my testimony. I looked over the jury and gave a soft smile, while thinking to myself that I'm about to make their job very easy.

I was certain to stare my mother in the eyes as I gave a perfectly detailed account of how she murdered my father right in front of me. I was pleased to see that her face was scarred from my fists that day. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I was glad to see the results stuck around.

She cried as she listened to me speak, so I made sure to include in my testimony that every time my dad tried to get her clean, she put on the waterworks about how she can't. Drugs were always more important than her family.

The prosecutor asked me a few follow-up questions, and then turned it over to the public defender, who asked me, "Do you believe that she can change?"

At that moment, I felt a darkness cloud my heart. I knew they were trying to tug on my heartstrings, but she had sworn changes to me for my entire life, and this tactic was familiar. "She can change whatever she wants, but it will never change the fact that she murdered my dad. She irrevocably changed my life the day she ended his, and that is the only change that I am concerned with today."

My testimony concluded and the deputy walked me back out to the front of the courthouse. He rubbed my shoulder and leaned down to tell me, "you were very brave." I longed for the day when I no longer had to be brave.

Cameras flashed at me as he walked me to his patrol car to take me back to the foster home. A microphone was shoved in my face. "A comment, please, Ms. Y/l/n?!"

"Am I allowed?" I asked the deputy.

He shrugged. "If you want to, but you're a minor, they can't legally ask you anything or publish any of these pictures without your consent."

I turned to the cameras, giving them a thumbs-up to keep rolling, and then to the reporter. "You get one question, so make it good."

The reporter, a bombshell blonde, paused for a moment before stepping next to me and into the frame of the camera. "We are live outside the Denver County Criminal Court. Ms. Y/l/n, you've just exited the courthouse after giving your testimony against your mother for killing your father in front of you. Tell us, why do you think she did it?"

I looked directly into the camera. "Because my dad never gave up on his hope of getting her clean. The only way for her to stop him from taking away her drugs again was to stop him. She made her choice and we all have to live with it... or die trying, I guess." I gave a half-smile and walked out of frame, back towards the squad car. The deputy opened the passenger door for me and I sat inside, sliding down in my seat to avoid the still-hungry cameras. I had nothing more to feed them.

The deputy dropped me back off at the foster home with a simple "take care now." 

I would sure try to.