Then, I had another feeling that’s more in tune with Aiden’s character.
He only approached me for sex after all. Now that he got what he wanted, everything was over.
Good riddance.
If I can spend the rest of senior year in peace, then I’ll consider my virginity a sacrifice.
The familiar pressure of tears builds behind my eyes.
I just wish he hadn’t lied to me and made me feel like I meant something.
Fucker.
“By the way,” Kim’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “I heard Mum and Dad talk about something super weird yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
Kim’s attention remains on the road as she speaks, “Remember when I told you that Aiden’s mother died of an accident?”
He’s the last thing I want to talk about, but I can’t help the curiosity. “What about her?”
“So Dad was saying that Alicia was suicidal, anyway, so her death wasn’t a surprise. However, Mum said that Dad doesn’t understand. Alicia wasn’t suicidal, she only wanted to save her baby.”
“She wanted to save her baby?” I echo.
“I know! Weird, right? Aiden is an only child and he was at a camp. What baby was she trying to save?” Kim’s voice drops to a whisper-yell because she doesn’t know how to whisper properly. “Unless she had a child outside of marriage. Maybe she was off to meet her lover and Uncle Jonathan sent a PI after her. There was a chase and she crashed.”
“Whoa. You watch too many Korean soap operas, Kim.”
“Most families’ problems are because of secret births. Just saying.”
Soon after we reach the school, Kim switches subject to our upcoming tests.
However, Alicia is all that occupies my thoughts.
I keep thinking about something I read in a psychological thesis the other day.
Most if not all mental issues start at childhood.
I dislike umbrella terms that gather mental health problems, but that one stuck with me. The more I think about it, the more it rings true.
A person is formed of jigsaw pieces and if you want to really know anyone, then start at the pieces that formed his childhood. They’re the base. Everything else is built on that.
Uncle Jaxon, for example, had a healthy childhood. Lawyer parents. Steady income. Football team player. He grew up into a stable, ambitious adult. It’s his parents’ expectations that set him out to be competitive.
Aunt Blair and Mum had a poor background and a violent father when he’s on the liquor. Unlike Mum, Aunt left Birmingham as soon as she was eighteen. She worked hard for a scholarship so she could leave all that rubbish behind. She never returned to Birmingham until the accident that took my parents’ lives. Her poor background pushed her to strive for perfection. Anything less is an insult to her intelligence.
No matter how much of a perfectionist she is, a bit of her childhood seeps into her adult version. She’s hotheaded and results to yelling when she doesn’t get what she wants.
Even subconsciously, she’s replicating the violence her father exerted on her.
It’s an endless vicious cycle.
I’m sure that Aiden’s behaviour has something if not everything to do with his childhood.
Starting with Alicia. She’s beginning to sound more and more like a mystery.
Stop.