I see past your walls

Part 130

He was late, unbelievably late. So late that the constant ringing on his phone made sense. He didn't want to pick up, even though he knew who was on the other end, even though he knew the caller was filled with worry. Each ring felt like a reproach, echoing the minutes slipping away and the increasing tension awaiting him at home. He wasn't mad at the caller; he had no beef with them. Anger, fury, or resentment. No, all he felt was a deep-rooted disappointment. A disappointment that crept into his heart like a venomous snake, silent, deadly, and unbeknownst to him. He hadn't understood the feeling before today, but now he knew, and the door swung open. It was like an explosion had been set off, and now he could no longer ignore or close the door. He sighed deeply, finally fed up with the constant calling. He stopped his bike abruptly and slid it to the side of the road. Luckily, it was late in the evening, so no cars were behind him. He fished for his phone with an annoyed hand, his black biker gloves making it a tad more difficult in leather pants. Eventually, he had the phone in his hand, and the screen lit up, illuminating his face in the cloudy night. A heaviness was in the air, and a particular dampness indicated rain threatened to fall down any moment. One deep breath and it was clear the air smelled of rain. Yet, it didn't make him want to hurry home.

He glanced at his red phone; his mom's caller ID indicated she was trying to get a hold of him. He contemplated if he should pick up this time, but he decided to let her wait. She did deserve that, after failing to protect him. He sighed again and, with one hand, held the power button until the phone shut down. He then let it slide back into his pocket, pleased it was finally silent. If he had been a better son, he would have at least texted her, but she deserved to be worried. At least he thought she deserved it. His mother, beautiful, strong-willed, and a killer at her job, was someone he always admired, and he thought they shared a deep bond. She understood him; in all his difficulties with communication, she reached him. He hadn't had that ease with building a connection with his father; truth be told, he never tried to do it after a certain point. The turning point when he understood that he would never try anymore was when he lost Luka. His father had expected him to get over her quickly; that was the alpha thing to do. He had let him grieve for sure, but was a month's grieving really long enough for a child who had experienced death for the first time? His father argued that that was the amount of time he had taken to mourn the loss of his mother when she passed in his preteen. He hadn't gotten more than that and didn't need more. So, his son wouldn't need longer either. A friend wasn't as important as a mother.

Keith exhaled deeply, his body slumping forward as he leaned into the handlebars of his motorcycle. The sturdy metal of the handlebars pressed against his gloved palms, the leather of his biker gloves providing a barrier against the cold, unyielding surface. With a deliberate motion, he leaned further, allowing his upper body to surrender to the comforting support of the handlebars. The pressure against his chest intensified, a constant reminder of his physical and emotional weight. Yet, amidst the chaos of his thoughts, there was a strange comfort in this sensation—a grounding force tethering him to the present moment.

The second time he started to feel like he could not ever love his father as he did his mother was when Shiro came out as gay and stated he would no longer go along with their father's marriage wishes. He would find and choose his own partner; if not, he would leave. Their father hadn't taken the statement as truth and discarded it as a childish tantrum. He had been wrong, and the whole family had been close to losing Shiro. Not losing him in the way that he would die, but Shiro had almost signed an exclusive contract overseas and would have moved to the other side of the world. He vowed to cut contact with them, or more their father.

Their father had yielded and let Shiro choose his own path. Keith had thought he had cast away the phony notion of arranged marriage, but damn how wrong he had been. Now that Shiro was out of the race, their father had chosen him as the new betting horse. The whole thing had been so unexpected it felt like a train hit him in the face. Unexpected, unseen, and mind-shattering. He was so baffled he couldn't be angry; this was their father's personality. A sly businessman. A screwed individual, a sly fox. A man who sometimes seemed incapable of human emotions. Then, like a switch, he would shower them with affection and make promises of change. He never upheld any of those promises, and Keith would rather have their father away on business most of the year. It felt better that way. But it wasn't his father he was disappointed in; no, that he had stopped being many years ago. It was his mother that had disappointed him. He thought she would shield him, protect him like she always did. She was the voice of reason their dad sometimes listened to. She was the one who could change his perspective, make him take a losing deal, as he would call it. But she had let him down; she hadn't stopped her husband, her mate, and the father of her child.