Chapter 97: Letter
BANG!
A gunshot.
Ren, at fourteen, walked into the living room and saw his father seated on the chair with a gun lying loosely in his hands and a bullet hole right through his skull.
On the small coffee table were a few cans of beer and a piece of paper stained with alcohol.
"You remember this, don’t you?" Mirage asked. He watched as Ren stared at the scene with shaking eyes and heavy breaths. He could see and smell the fear off Ren. His entire plan was working.
Ren stumbled back. He tripped on nothing and hit the floor. The memories he had tried so desperately to fight against all came rushing back, like a dam had broken and all hell had been let loose.
This point in his life was the moment when he had realized he was the issue and no one wanted to stay with him. No one wanted to take care of him, to love him. His mother left him alone. His father killed himself to get away from him.
This narrative filled his mind and never left. He was a bane, a bane to everyone around him and someone who was never loved or wanted.
"Stop this, please stop it," he cried out, but Mirage was having too much fun to stop. He watched as Ren went through that horror and smiled from ear to ear, happy to see the pain he was going through.
"There is no stop. There is only facing the reality of your fear," Mirage stated.
The scenes very quickly began panning through everything that he had gone through all his life. Due to what happened, he tried to make people believe that he was good. He did everything he could to ensure that everyone deemed him someone worthy of love.
In school, he helped others with assignments and tasks, studying hard so that he could help them even more. At first, it worked and all his classmates loved him for it, but soon he started to top every class and get ahead. In his desperation to be good enough to help everyone, it turned them against him.
His classmates, fueled by jealousy, isolated him, called him names, and bullied him for being a nerd, a try-hard. His plan had failed. It had gone horribly wrong, and that threw him back into the same depression and fear he fought to leave.
He decided to pull back, to allow others to take the stand while he hid in the dark, and maybe that would cause them to love him, but it worked in the opposite way. They laughed at him, calling him names for becoming a past glory and saying they all knew he was not smart.
Every route Ren took, every attempt he made to ensure that he was good, led him to become the one abandoned.
The girl he loved, he worked hard for her at a part-time job to try and give her all that she wanted. His desperation for her love oozed out so much that she knew, and everyone else called him a simp, yet he endured through it because every now and then she would show him some minuscule amount of love, and that would cause him to believe she did.
Even that did not last long. She was only using him, as anyone would expect. When she was done, she tossed him aside, abandoned.
All the way to his work, he had lived his life trying to please others and be a good person, so much that he forgot the reason why he had started all this. It was buried deep inside him and was lost.
"This is who you are. This is your fear. This is the person that you are meant to be. After your mother left and after your father shot himself, leaving nothing else but the letter," Mirage said.
Ren, who was curled up on the ground, paused. He looked up.
"The letter," he muttered, and the scene immediately changed back to the room where his father had shot himself.
Mirage watched in confusion. What could Ren possibly want at the place of his greatest trauma?
"I never read the letter. I was scared and cried the whole night until I finally mustered the courage to call the police. After that, the letter vanished forever."
As he said that, he walked toward the table.
"No, what are you doing? Stop it!" Mirage tried to stop him from picking up the letter.
"My father’s last words. I never read them. I never got to know what it was that he was thinking in the moment he died."
Ren picked up the letter and then began reading while Mirage panicked.
(Dear Ren,
I know this letter will do very little to calm your pained heart right now, but I did what needed to be done for you.
I know you have hated your mum for so long because of how she left, but I need you to forgive her because it was more my fault than hers. I cheated on your mum, not once, not twice, and knowing her condition, I was meant to be the one to give her stability, and yet I worsened her case.
This might not be a big enough excuse for her, but I hope it does help you forgive her.
As for me, I’ve been spiraling. My addictions have gotten worse, and I am losing myself in real time. Every day I look at you, and you are the last piece of light in my life, and I know that if I stay around, I’ll ruin your life before it starts.
I had a special life insurance policy set up the moment your mum left because I knew I was a shitbag and it would come to this. When you find this letter, my lawyer, Dawson, should help you get it and help you lead a beautiful life.
Ren, I am sorry for all the pain I have caused, and I hope that you find a safe place to forgive me and know I love you.)
A tear fell, hitting the center of the paper.