7 Reasons Why

chapter 4

When papa came back , he simply knew something was wrong even before I told him anything .
"You don't look right . Do you think I could help? " , he had said .
You must be thinking he is so caring . Such a lovely father and yet in the beginning I had talked about him in such an ignorant fashion . Well what if I say this was all fake ! All the concern he'd shown was fake ....
To this day I wonder , what if he was the 'swag person' ?....I did want to tell him about all that but again I sis not want to give him unnecessary concern . He had other things to worry about that were more than enough . Really , more than enough .
I have mentioned earlier probably that papa was into business but not what he dealt in . Even I didn't know until for the first time I went through some of the documents that his study was scattered with . He never really allowed me to touch anything in there . I thought it wouldn't be nice if I'd try . I often offered to clean up his table at least but he had flatly refused so I gave up .
He knew I was getting addicted to drinks and drugs . I went smoking at least once every month . Drinking -I can put it to once a week (during this time) or maybe twice .
He should've stopped me given the fact that he had warned me against reckless drinking. But he didn't . In fact he was helping me to get more addicted or else why do you think he never complained when his drinks bottles randomly disappeared from the wooden shelves where he generally kept them .
Obviously i had no idea then . I thought it was just because he himself got drunk at times so he couldn't really force me to stop after all children follow their parents' footsteps . Talking about those times - he would be so terribly drunk that he wouldn't be in his senses at all and if I happened to appear in his room then , he himself would offer me a bottle which I took very cheerfully . After all even I had a nack for drinking . And then we both father and daughter would go on drinking peg after peg until we both lay dead drunk on his couch . Wish I'd known where these bottles came from . I wouldn't touch them .
The last few months I was with him , he used to leave bottles here and there . Before I found out the truth , I thought it waa mere carelessness on his part but no . It was a very well planned plot on his part . I also found opium and heroin among the drinks on the shelves . I was worried he had started to smoke . But you see he never smoked . They were all kept for me and I'd take them . He knew I was smoking . He knew everything all throughout . He just wanted me to get more and more addicted and be indifferent to whatever else waa going on which I was . I hardly cared . Everyday I simply walked to school knowing it would just be some more of the horrible hours spent in the 'Azkaban' of my life . You will know how terrible that place is if you have read Harry Potter . And the rest of the day I would hang out with Elina literally doing nothing .
Just think how you would feel if you had no mother and only a step father you thought was the best person in the whole world and the next day he is lebelled as one of the most inhuman jerks of the planet -and you find enough proof to believe it !
Won't you be shocked ? At least I was.
One fine day the local police walked into the house . I was at school . Papa was in his study which was on the first floor to the right of the staircase leading upwards . He came out to find only to his utter shock that it was the police who came , three of them and they were armed .
He probably expected them as in the last few days he always seemed to be upset over something and agitated too . Whenever I enquired about what was wtong and whether I could help in any way , he just told me off .
He broke into a run and from his study he produced a revolver. How and from where it came , I've no idea . The cops rushed upstairs but before they could reach his study , he leaped out to the corridor in the left . He ran but the cops conducted a marvellous chase . When the passage took a turn to the right , papa turned but the police couldn't proceed . He momentarily peeped out from behind the turning and fired from his revolver . What did he think then ? His chances were like one in ten . He backed out into the balcony in the immediate left and while he retreated , he kept firing and jumped from the first floor . He fell with a thud . He did not wait to caress the bruises he got neither did he look back to check if he was being followed . Well , he was definitely being followed . He rushed to the driveway , tossed his revolver into his buggati and drove out into the heavy traffic of the highway hoping that the cops would lose him but it obviously did bot work out as in the traffic even he got stuck . When it cleared up a bit , he drove as fast as possible but he forgot one thing . The car wasn't bullet proof . No matter how fast he drove , bullets would get him anyway . The cops folliwed shouting repeated warnings . When he did not pay heed , they started firing . He could have countered . He had a revolver ready in the car too . He reached for it when the windshield shattered from bullet shots .
He was playing video games with his buggati on a crowded road . One moment's distraction could be fatal . That's what happened . He drove into a car in the front . He hardly had time to pull the break or turn the wheel . It cost him a few seconds to pull the car out and drive on and time was what he needed the most then . It was jsut no use trying . The cops fired . Bullets hit him at the back of his head and it cracked open ! He was dead .
How would you feel , tell me ? If you have just a step father for family and one fine day you come home from school only to find that he is dead - killed by the police when he attempted to flee . His crime? He was involved in illegal trade of deinks and drugs like flakka , marijuana , bath salts , heroin and many others . It doesn't stop there. He funded certain Dark Web activities . Obviously he got a profitable lumpsum in return . Now I cannot provide precise details about these 'activities' . I hardly know what they were . But I found a list of names who were probably victims of torture and rape . There was no way I could have found out more from the documents I found in papa's study or from the police statement , I found many papers which had notes printed in foreign languages that I had never laid my eyes on so they didn't help much . I gathered he had his own brand under which he sold illegal drugs and that added up to a very small portion of his income .
I can't really explain how I felt that day . I should say I felt nothing . My inside felt null and void . I wasn't crying it laughing. I felt no emotions . I lay awake all night in bed . I was just too shocked to feel anything . You may say I should've been disgusted but I wasn't . That doesn't mean I supported him or something .
I can't really give a precise note of my feelings . I really don't know how to put it . I was completely confused and puzzled .
He seemed to care for me so much and yet he went around physically abusing innocent children , younger or of my age . Did he even care ? Was it all a joke ? A dream ? Or was it just a pinch of moral obligation he felt to attend on me just because he had married my mother . Either he did care or he was a very good actor . That peraon - that ideal father was now an ideal criminal !
Before we continue I must say this is going to be intense . Anybody who found this chapter very awdward , especially for you I must say it just gets worse the more you proceed . It's worst than Hannah Baker's . It just doesn't get any better . If you think you can't tolerate it , you're free to leave . You have been warned .