A/N: So last night, McDuffie answered like five billion questions on his website. I learned enough to keep things going for a while. So I found out that Harvey and Kevin's mom (still didn't get her name…) aren't together anymore. They were, but not now. So this immediately came to mind.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Kevin's POV.
Undone
I came home from school like every other day. It was every other day that was normal, not today. Today would ruin my life for the second time. I'd be like hearing I'd lost my real dad all over again.
I pushed the door open, finding the house in shambles. Not the kind of destruction that I caused, but just generally, things were out of place and a lamp was broken on the floor and a couch was flipped over. Nothing too severe.
Harvey was sitting at the breakfast bar that our little apartment had. He was perched atop one of the massive stools, in one hand a bottle of whiskey while the other contained the shot glass he was pouring the liquid into. I could see his glazed eyes and a totally destroyed expression on his face. He was broken. I could read it.
"Harvey?" I asked, almost afraid to say any words to him. I had seen him like this before. I dropped my backpack beside the door where it belonged. When he was like this before, it sometimes turned for the worse. I took one step forward when he didn't respond; he just took another shot from the glass.
I stepped forward again. How could I approach him? Where was my mom? What had happened today? Why today? Why now? Why me? Why me?
"Your mom left, Kevin," he said, voice crackling to the point of sounding like he had swallowed a cup of shattered glass instead of whiskey. "She's at a hotel for the night. Not coming back today. Maybe not tomorrow either." He poured more of the drink into the glass before dumping it into his mouth and letting it slide down his throat. "I'm keeping you here for now. She'd have to leave you at the hotel when she goes to work and I don't want you staying there by yourself. No telling what kinds of pedophiles are out there in this damn city."
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. "Harvey?"
I knew they fought. I knew they fought a lot. It wasn't nightly, but it was enough that I had been worried for a long time about how long this somewhat peaceful life would last. I was finally on the brink of recovering from everything. And now... now the whole world would crash down around me.
"Yeah, bud," he said, turning to actually face me. I could see that sadness buried deep in his eyes. I could see the depression set deep in his face. "I'm sorry, but we can't so this any longer." He gave me a halfhearted, pained smile. "Your mom and I love you, Kev, but we have to split up. It's getting too hard to keep going like this."
My whole world came undone. "Harvey..."
"Kevin, please don't make this any harder. We've been trying so hard for you."
"It's my fault," I breathed, rage suddenly bubbling in my veins and fury reigning in my mind. Me. My fault. I was ruining their lives. I was ruining everything. It was my fault. I ruined them. Forever. "It's all my fau-"
"No, don't say that," said Harvey, his eyes red and bloodshot from either crying or drinking. "It's not, I can promise you that." A thin, hopeless smirk pressed to his face. "We just can't keep doing this. It's getting too hard."
"I ruin everything..." My head was swelling with all these thoughts. All the things I had destroyed. All the destruction. All the tears shed by my carelessness. "I always ruin everything..."
He was getting up and moving towards me. As he stood in front of me, he knelt down and put one hand on my shoulder. Sure, I was eleven, but I hadn't hit that growth spurt that I needed yet. He was about at my level, give or take a little. "Kevin, it is not your fault." His voice was serious and no longer sounded like he had eaten a box of nails for breakfast. "You had nothing to do with this."
"But you tried to stay together for me," I breathed, tears finally spilling from my eyes as my heart lurched in my chest, thrumming slower and slower as all my fears came to life inside of me. "I just made it worse..."
Instead of saying anything more, Harvey just pulled me into his arms and held me like I figured my real dad would at a time like this. But I knew that if he weren't dead, he and my mom never would've split up. She always talked about him, even when Harvey was around. And Harvey never minded. He knew all along her heart was somewhere else, but her head had been in the real world trying to take care of me and she knew she needed someone to lean on. Sadly, Harvey had been the only one that would have her.
He took good care of me like any father would. He treated me good for a long time. There were some nights where booze got to his head and it ended badly, but not once did he actually say something mean to me on his own terms.
To be honest, he didn't kick me out and neither did my mom. I left. My whole world had come undone that day and I didn't want to be blamed. So I ran away from it. I didn't want to live with either of the two people whose lives I ruined.
But that day, Harvey held me and let me cry myself out. He took care of me right. He took care of me the way I figured my dad would've.
A/N: Okay, I'm not 100% happy with this one, but it's the best I could do… Review please.
~Sky
