New Forever by Yessi Smith Page B

he’d had several affairs throughout their marriage and that I shouldn’t worry. I wasn’t upset about the affair, not really. It’s their life, they can screw it up as they see fit. I was upset that they’d killed a sixteen year old girl!”
    I still feel the outrage from that day. It never really leaves me and is always within arm’s reach. I smooth Hayley’s hair back to calm myself as much as her. She wraps her arms around my stomach before she leans away from me to look back at me.
    “What does this have to do with you?” she asks cautiously.
    “Don’t you get it?” I ask, still feeling the bitterness from that day. “I didn’t see what was going on. My dad had an affair with a sixteen year old girl and promised her forever while my mom sat back and did nothing. They broke her.”
    “I get that, Max.” Hayley takes my face into her hands and forces me to look at her. I lick my lips, nervous about what else she’ll say. “But what does what they did, have to do with you?”
    “I didn’t do anything to help her,” I say quietly, shame and guilt smothering me in a thick emotional blanket. “She’s dead and I didn’t do a damn thing to help her.”
    “Neither did I.” She looks back at me bravely before she crawls to me and rests her head on my shoulder. “I was her twin sister and I couldn’t save her. You didn’t know about your dad and her, so how could you have done anything?”
    “I should’ve seen it.”
    “The should have’s and the could have’s will drive you to an early grave. You didn’t. I didn’t. But we aren’t to blame.”
    I kiss the top of Hayley’s head before I leave the bed and start to pace the room. How do I make her understand? I’ve carried this crux for so many years because my parents were unwilling to carry it themselves. Shame and disappointment drape their familiar arms around me and I welcome them as intimately as if they were lovers.
    My dad had once been my hero. Strict and unrelenting in his principles, but caring and affectionate with me, his only son. I’d worshipped him the way only a son can and was left deeply disappointed by his infidelity and nonchalance. Within a few minutes, he was no longer the hero of my story, but the villain of someone else’s. It took me seventeen years to see him for who he was and, while painful, I knew I could never look at him the same.
    He was no longer a man of value nor one I recognized. So I fled from him, from the man I once wanted to become and promised myself I’d be my own man. The kind of man that owned up to his mistakes, or in this case, the mistakes of another.
    One day, when I looked in the mirror, I’d be proud of who I was, even if I couldn’t be proud of who I came from. Because I’d have paid their debt in full.
    Hayley has lived through a hell no one should experience because no one did anything when a young girl’s life was in shambles. No one noticed. No one cared. So I care for them. And I’ll go the remainder of my life caring and suffering because of it, because someone should.
    “You and Hannah look so alike, I don’t know how I didn’t recognize you, but I didn’t. The picture you showed me, it was the same one I found in my father’s drawer.” Understanding dawns in Hayley’s eyes so I continue, “I left my house after that and lived on the streets until I met you. I thought I could put all of that to rest, that I had paid my debt.”
    “Then I showed you her picture and it all came back.” I nod my head and turn away from her when she gets off the bed. “It was never your debt to pay.” Hayley puts both her hands on either side of my face and I breathe in her love and understanding. “Max, I don’t blame you, any more than I blame myself. Your parents made their choices and so did Hannah. We have to live with that, but there’s no reason we can’t do it together.” She pauses and looks at me, caressing my face with the same tenderness that lives inside her soul. I want