"April…" Punk knocked at her room door, after running up the stairs after her, in hopes to try and say something, just to make things a little better, knowing there wasn't a chance, nothing he could say would make this situation ok.
"AJ… please, just let me explain… let me explain and then I'll leave you alone." He said, tapping at the door every few seconds. He knew his wife got vulnerable, he knew she felt alone and small whenever she was hurt by him, he didn't want her to go off the deep end, not when their son was so close to being born.
He tapped and he knocked, calling her name until she finally opened the door, standing hugging a teddy that she had obviously held close since she was a child, her glasses on her nose, her cheeks and eyes red and puffy from her constant crying, her pyjamas on her, her bump looking cute as ever as she held the teddy close against it.
"What?" She looked up at him, not understanding how someone she thought loved her, could lie about something so serious, so devastating.
"Please, let me explain… let me tell you my bit and then… I'll leave you alone." He said.
"Ok." AJ said bluntly, walking away to sit back on her bed, holding the precious teddy to her body, crushing Punk even more, knowing how upset she was without even asking her.
He walked into her room and shut the door over, slowly walking towards her and sitting down at the bottom of her bed while she sat at the top, curled up with her teddy, tears spilling from her eyes without her even noticing.
"Please, don't cry." He said, putting his head down in shame, devastated with himself that he had made someone so important in his life, cry. Someone he loved like no other.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She said sarcastically as she glared at him, playing with the fluff on the bear, running it through her fingers, "He bought me this…" She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"April…" Punk rested his hand on her leg as he sighed.
"Don't touch me." She said immediately, shooing his hand away as he removed it and put it by his side to her request.
"I know that… whatever I say, won't change what I done, but… you know how much I love you, I love you so much and I know, I should have told you, I should have told you when we met, that I was in the hospital… not just because I lost my job. I just… I'd never seen someone so perfect and, I thought if I'd told you, I'd scare you, I'd scare you away…" He looked at her as she refused to look at him.
"Why didn't you just get him help?" She asked him, "You left him… in the cold, t-to… to die." Her voice became a high pitched squeak, still not believing it. She didn't believe Phil could do anything that was unkind, but she'd never ever expect him to do such a despicable, unforgiving thing, because that's what it was, unforgiving, she wouldn't forgive him for this.
"My mind was messed up. I got fired and… I stopped by at a bar, I drowned my sorrows in the alcohol, broke every moral and belief I'd ever grew up with and then foolishly drove back on the road." Punk said, "I was a mess, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, everything had built up and then… out of no where, he just stepped out onto the road… I tried to break but it was too sudden." He said, "I stopped the car and got out, took his pulse and he… he was still alive, I thought… if I call 911, I'll get put to jail for at least a few years." He said.
"Oh, poor you." She growled at him, "I can't believe you left him there." She said, taking a tissue from the box beside her bed, drying her wet face as she proceeded to give him the royalty of her listening skills.
"Neither can I. If I could relive that day, I would have dialled 911 and got him help straight away. I… there was so much running through my mind, everything in my life was going horribly and then this happens. I figured that hopefully, if I got back in my car and drove away, someone would spot him on the side of the road, he was moving and breathing, I didn't think he was injured to the extent of dying." Punk said.
"D-Did you speak to him? Did he say anything?" AJ asked, having a right to know what her father's last words were, never expecting them to be to her future husband, the future father of her son.
"He… he asked me to help him." Punk clasped his hands, a tear rolling down his cheek as he heard AJ gasp through her tears, covering her mouth at the coldness of him, to just leave him.
"And what did you say?" She asked him.
"I told him… I said I was sorry, and that… that help would come. I believed it would." He said.
"But it didn't. He was left, in the cold, all night, to die. It didn't cross your mind that he could have had a wife, and children?" She shrieked.
"Nothing was crossing my mind. I was so confused, I just… I got back in my car and just put my foot down. I ended up waking up in a empty parking lot the next morning. I must have parked and fell asleep." He said, "I went home, showered and just kept telling myself… he got help, the guy got help. Someone surely stopped by and helped him." He ran his hands through his hair, "But I wasn't convinced… I drove back to the road that it happened and… it was closed off, tape around where he was lying when I left him, men in white suits… I knew what had happened, my brain just refused to believe it." He said.
"So you didn't phone for help, because you didn't want to get put in prison for drinking under alcohol." She said as he nodded, "That is perhaps the most selfish thing that I've ever heard anyone do." She said as he looked down at the ground, watching him nod.
"I know it is." He agreed with her.
"That's why you went crazy. Wasn't it?" She asked a question she already knew the answer to.
"Yeah. I got nightmares, I felt like I should have died instead of that innocent guy, thought about killing myself a few times, tried going to different therapies… but, the last option was the hospital." He said, "That only began to work when I met you." He said.
"And because I told you that my dad left me, you never thought anything of it." She told herself as he nodded, knowing that that part was all down to her mother for not telling her.
"You have every right to shut me out, to hate me, to never want to see me again… but I love you so much. I can't lose you completely. I never left him there to hurt anyone." He said truthfully.
"I've heard enough from you tonight." She said, "How do you think our son would feel… if he grew up thinking that you had left us, when really, some scum bag had hit you with his car and left you to die on the side of the road. How do you think our son would feel, Phil?" She looked at him through heartbroken eyes, watching him run his hand over his face.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He said as she stood up and folded her arms, leaving the teddy on the bed and taking her glasses off, putting them on the nightstand, watching him stand up to and face her.
"We'll go back to Chicago on Monday, you'll stay at a hotel, I'll have the baby, we can pretend like everything is ok but you will never… ever, touch me again." She warned him, "I've lost my father, I'm not letting my son lose his, as selfish as he may be… you can have him weekends, I'll have him weekdays, we can work something out." She said, "I can't forgive you for this. I don't think I ever can." She shook her head as he looked at her painfully, his eyes teary as he dropped to his knees in front of her, not bearing to hear that he could never love her the way he used to.
"Please, don't leave me." He begged, literally, as she looked down at him, "I love you so much… I'm a good person. I know you know I am." He said, wrapping his arms around her waist, resting his cheek against her bump as he held her tightly.
AJ frowned, tears streaming down her cheek as she felt him hold on to her in such a pleading and worthless way, she felt ten foot tall, standing over him as he begged, but it wasn't what she wanted, she didn't take joy in it what so ever.
"Good people, don't leave people out in the cold to die." She said, taking his hands from around her waist, pushing them away and walking back from him a little as he stood up and nodded.
"Maybe I'm not a good man then… but I love you. I know, you know how much I love you. I can't go by a day without seeing your face, you're too important to me. I won't survive without you." He said.
"Well… you'll just have to. Just thank yourself lucky I'm even letting you near our son." She said, knowing that in her power, with the way she was feeling, with what he had done to her, she could easily have taken his right to see his son away, but she wasn't that cold, she knew he did have a heart, but it seemed that it was only for her and their son, literally.
"You can go now." She said to him as he nodded, obeying her orders, knowing the line they were on was extremely thin. In fact, perhaps the line had already broken.
"I can't tell you enough, how sorry I am. I understand if you can't forgive me. Just please… please, don't hate me." He said.
"I don't feel anything for you right now." She said as she rolled her shoulder lifelessly, "I don't think I know you." She shook her head, "Please, just leave." She begged as he eventually nodded and stumbled out of her room, shutting the door behind him and leaving her be, knowing that she would need space and a lot of it.
He just couldn't deal with how much this was hurting her, the tears in her eyes, the pain in her chest, the heartache in the tears that fell, the way she clung to that teddy like it was the only thing that could comfort her, considering the one person she took comfort in had been lying to her all this time. It was killing him. He'd never felt so ashamed and disgusted with himself, not since he actually killed her father.
He passed Fiona in the hallway, who now he could understand and accept why she hated him so much, she had the right.
"How is she?" Fiona asked, a mug of hot chocolate in her hand for her heartbroken daughter.
Punk didn't say anything. He couldn't describe the hurt that AJ was feeling, there was only one thing he could say to Fiona, "I'm really sorry for what I done." He told her, "But I'm not sorry I fell in love with your daughter." He said, "She wants me to leave her alone from now on, so… you don't need to worry." He nodded to her as she stood still with a watchful eye on him, listening to his sincere words, "If I could switch positions, if I could replace myself for your husband, I would." Punk said, not knowing how long he could hold himself up, "I'm so sorry." He said, looking down to hide the tears, his shoulders shaking up and down as he tried but failed to hold himself up any longer.
Fiona frowned, sat down the warm drink she had made for her daughter on the floor, stood back up straight and pulled the last person she ever thought, in for a hug, wrapping her arms around him as he gladly and surprisingly accepted the hug, dampening the shoulder of her top.
"You aren't a bad person." She told him, rubbing his back in circular notions, "I know how much you love April. It's the same love I had for the man you killed… you understand that… I can't forgive you." She took him by the cheeks and pulled his head from her shoulder, looking into his eyes as he nodded.
"I understand." He said.
"I can't forgive you… but I know how much my daughter loves you. The way she looks at you, the way she smiles at you, maybe somewhere, sometime, deep down in her… she might be able to forgive you one day." She said, having mixed feelings for this man now. On one hand she hated his guts, she couldn't forgive him for taking away the man she loved, but she also could sense how sorry he was and how much he strived to be a good person and of course, his love for April that was unexplainable.
"I don't know so much." Punk said, standing up straight and drying his tears.
"Just give her some time." Fiona said, bending down and taking the still warm drink in her hand, "You should feel better that she knows now." She said.
"I do… I just can't lose her." Punk shook his head.
"You won't. If you love her the way I think you do. My husband loved to see his girls happy. And maybe… he wouldn't like them anywhere near the man who left him to die, but if he could see the smile on April's face when you're around, the way you care for her and love her. I'm sure he could let it slide." She gave a faint smile to him.
She still felt physically sick to what he done and how that in all the men in the world, her daughter had landed in love with him, but he wasn't a bad man, he knew how to love, he knew how to love her daughter right.
"On you go downstairs." She said, walking on by him as he took a deep breath, trailing his feet along the floor, walking down the stairs, feeling so small and worthless, which he assumed served him right. He felt like a bad person, he was disgusted with himself, he couldn't believe the hurt and pain he was putting through his wife.
Fiona walked on down the hall, knocked on her daughters room door and walked on in, frowning upon the sight of her lying in her bed, cuddling into the teddy her father gave her, the face of an angel whose wings had just been broken.
"Are you ok?" Fiona asked, knowing the answer already, walking over and sitting the mug of hot chocolate on the bedside cabinet, watching her daughter sit up.
"Why him?" She cried, once she started, she couldn't stop, hugging into her mother who she now understand why she had been so harsh towards Punk and why she had been not herself for the past six years, she couldn't believe how strong her mother was, for holding it together for this long, for keeping it to herself.
She just couldn't stop crying, her mother's t-shirt was soaking now from the tears of both April's and Punks.
"I thought he loved me." April cried, of course at this moment in time, feeling like she wasn't loved, apart from by her mother.
"He does." Fiona whispered quietly, not to be heard through her daughters loud shrieking cries, "He does." She whispered quietly again, soothing her heartbroken daughter the best she could.
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