Part 7

Shame.
All Ric felt when he thought about his past was shame. How had he ever expected himself to change if he kept waiting for the right moment, but treated people like he did in the meantime?

"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?!" Owen shouted, spitting for every word.
"You are nothing but a weak loser! You caused your mother's death, and now you are escaping from your life by roaming the streets?! What will people think of me as a father?!!"

What if he ever became like Owen had been?
The thought had been haunting him ever since he came up with his great plan of revenge, and still he didn't have any answers.
So scared of one day losing his temper and taking it out on the people he loved... He knew what Macca had done to Cassie, and he never ever wanted to be like that. He would rather die.

"You have to believe in yourself," Flynn Saunders almost whispered, "you are not a weak loser!"
Dalby didn't look at him, he just moved uncomfortably in his chair.
"I killed my old man," he muttered, "Doesn't exactly make me a saint..."
Flynn sighed.
"I'm not justifying murder," he said, "but Owen killed you just as much as you killed him."
Dalby looked up, completely forgetting about his last, poor pieces of tough image.
Eyecontact for a few seconds.
"He tortured you, and tried to kill you piece by piece from the inside, every single day, Dalby!"
"He was right, I have no control, I'm helpless. I killed my own dad."
"Every single day," Flynn repeated, "every single day he told you you were worthless. But if you just have a little faith in yourself, you will see that you can be everything you want to be..."

Ric rolled over. One of his two dads had to have been right, but who?
Again it all came down to one final question; can people ever really change?
He sighed and rolled over again. It was impossible to go to sleep, the thoughts were rolling through his head like some old movie about values and moral.

He had given up sleeping a long time ago, but all the thinking and wondering was exhausting, and at the break of dawn Ric finally fell asleep, trapped in a long series of confusing dreams.

As silently as possible not to wake him up Sally walked up to the half open door and looked in to the room.
He was finally sleeping, but she knew he hadn't been sleeping for a long time.
She had heard him all night, walking around in the house, pacing in the hall and sighing heavily on the stairs.
She was worried about him. It looked like no one, except for herself missed Flynn as much as Ric did. It was almost like he lost his guiding light and no longer knew where he belonged or who he was.
All this talk about Owen... Sally hadn't realised the scars from the past hadn't healed yet, but obviously they were still there – and hurting.

Sally let Ric sleep. No doubt he was going through a tough period, and after a night awake and wandering around with God knew what thoughts and worried filling his head he deserved to sleep.
"Come in!" Sally called out when someone knocked on the door, and Mattie entered.
"Hi, is Ric here?" she asked.
Sally put down her cup of coffee and checked her watch.
"Yeah, he's still asleep I think, but I'm sure he won't mind you waking him up."
She smiled, and nodded as Mattie thanked and left the kitchen, heading for her boyfriend's room.

"Mmmuhhrrrmm," Ric muttered, half asleep as Mattie crawled up next to him in the bed.
"Hi, sleepy," she said, smiling at him.
Ric opened his eyes.
"Hi, what are you doing here this early?" he muttered, and yawned.
Mattie giggled.
"It's almost noon," she said, "haven't you slept at all this night?"
Ric wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her on the forehead.
"Not much," he said, "I have only slept a few lousy hours."
"What have you been doing all night?"
He didn't answer, and it only took a few seconds before Mattie understood.
"Don't tell me you're still thinking about your da- Owen?!" she said, looking at him with an almost desperate expression.
"Yeeeeahh... A bit..." Ric admitted, "and Flynn."

Mattie just stroke her boyfriend's hair for a long time. It had been pretty tough hearing about how scared and confused Owen had made him.
Somehow this Ric reminded her of herself when she had bulimia.
The feeling of not being good enough, not belonging, it was horrible!
And yet ha had managed to go through all those painful memories and sort it out somehow. Just because he was Ric Dalby, and he was a fighter. He didn't give up, he saw connections between contrasts, and where the fine line between love and hate went no matter what he did.
She admired him so much for that.

"You know it's okay to cry, right?" she asked him after just laying there in his arms for a long time. She knew it would be okay to ask that now after all he had shared with her.
Ric smiled.
"I'm okay," he said, "Because I think Owen was right."
Mattie frowned.
"Owen was right?" she asked, "How?"
He smiled again.
"I was weak," he said, "because I didn't believe in myself at all."
"Oh, I see," Mattie said. To be honest she wasn't really sure how to respond to all this. She could only imagine what kind of memories he had, and she would probably never be able to understand everything.
"You know, about that you said about being like your father," she said, desperately trying to say something that could help, "You're not going to be anything like him."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do!"
He kissed her again.
"No, you don't," he said, "But as long as I believe in the person I want to be, and think I am there's really nothing more I can do."
Mattie sighed. He was right, as usual.

Ric had no idea what the dream had been about. He didn't usually remember his dreams afterwards, and it could have been about anything.
But no matter what it was about, whether it was meaningful stuff and old memories or purple bears and race-cars it had made him realise the truth.
He couldn't hide from the life, scared of making mistakes. That time was over.
Even though Flynn was gone the memories were still there, and so was the guiding light.

"What do you want to do today?" Ric asked when they hadn't spoken for a while again.
"I don't know, what do you want to do?" Mattie replied, expecting him to say that he wanted to lay in bed all day and think.
But Ric wasn't keen on wasting more time on what was already gone and in the past. The real memories, and the good parts would stay with him no matter how long ago it happened anyway.
"I wanna go to the beach," he simply said.
"Really?" Mattie sounded just as excited and surprised as she was.
"Yeah," Ric replied, "Definitely."
Just before they got out of bed he looked at her once again and brought up something that hadn't been mentioned since it happened.
"You remember what you said about there always being light at the end of the tunnel?" he asked.
Mattie looked confused.
"Yeah, sure," she muttered.
"You were right," Ric replied, and he couldn't help smiling. "There's always light at the end of the tunnel."
And without another word he got out of bed, still smiling, to get ready for a day at the beach. A day with no worries, just teenage fun with his girlfriend.
"Yeah," he thought to himself as he grabbed his shorts, "There's always light at the end of the tunnel. You just sometimes have to walk a bit to get to it."