AN: Alright guys, here is the chapter you have been waiting for. I'm not going to bore you with my usual I love you guys and your awesome reviews stuff (though the statement still stands : ) hehe), so you guys just read and review!
Chapter 9: To the Sons of Man
The night was calm and still. The eerie quiet that surrounded Zach as he walked home chilled him to the core. After his conversation with Donna, he felt hollow and angry. The hollow feeling came from all the new mysteries popping up that he was still completely oblivious to, and he was angry because he was tired of all of this shit. He just wanted a little bit of clarity.
Zach walked into his dark house, the front door squeaking as he closed it, reminding him of the nagging responsibility squeezing at his heart. He made his way up the staircase of his home, heading towards the light that was coming out of his dad's office. A big part of him wanted to just forget about everything and run away to his room. Confrontation was so hard to deal with. It would be easier to just forget any of this ever happened and pretend to not care so much. However, Zach knew that he couldn't live that way. All the apathy in the world couldn't stop him from exploding now. Finding out his mother was a whore and doesn't give a damn about him, realizing his dad never talks to him, and nobody wanting to tell him anything whenever he simply asks was beginning to piss him off. In fact, he was far blown.
He found his dad crouched over his desk filling out some paper work, most likely for the stores. Zach watched as his dad read and scribbled on the blinding white sheets. He swallowed his nerves and cleared his passages while getting his dad's attention.
Hyde turned and looked at his son. His eyebrows were knitted together in the same way they always were when he wanted to talk about something important. Hyde set down his pen and gave the teenager his full attention.
"I-," Zach's voice was soft. He wanted to have confidence, but he had never had experience in something like this before. Besides, his dad could be quite intimidating sometimes. "I want to ask you something."
"Alright." Hyde said, very interested in Zach's new attitude for today. Yesterday, he was refusing to speak and blew up on him when he did. Tonight, he stood before him with shadows across his eyes and was finally opening up. "What is it that you want to ask me?"
Zach thought for a second exactly how he wanted his question to be worded. Should I just ask right away about Jackie and see if he admits, or tell him what I already know? Wanting to have the most ammo going in, Zach decided to take his dad off guard. "Aunt Donna says you loved that Jackie woman."
Hyde's skin rippled as slight panic took over his body. He wasn't expecting this kind of response at all. All of his old habits of wanting to clam up washed over him. Deny, deny, deny. It's what he lived his life by. The confused look on Zach's face begging for answers shifted his instincts though. Hyde finally took notice that he was stalling.
"Um, well, when did she say this?" Hyde asked as he tried looking back up at his son again.
Zach could tell his dad was trying to veer away from the subject. He had rarely ever seen his dad in a vulnerable position, and this moment truly shocked him. He was the one getting under his dad's skin. This knowledge made him feel powerful yet also terrified. His dad had always been his rock. His recent attitude about him had chipped away at that foundation, but the worried look in his dad's blue eyes made him completely rethink his assumptions.
"At dinner yesterday." Hyde just nodded and didn't say anything else. Zach knew he would have to push harder.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Is it true?"
Hyde had no idea why Zach wanted to know any of this. He didn't have a clue that this could somehow be linked to Zach's problems with his mother or with him. He did however have to swallow ever bit of his pride left. He and his son had been buddies ever since he was little, and only recently did that started to change. Hyde hated that he was slowly losing Zach. Even though he wasn't sure of what this kind of conversation would lead to, Hyde figured that it wouldn't hurt much just to tell.
"Yeah, I did." His voice was low, and he wouldn't look Zach directly in the eyes.
"Well, what made you guys break up?" Zach asked, pushing a little further.
Hyde laughed a little. "That's a really long story Zach."
"Well I want to know." Zach's voice grew a little more forceful, on the brink of demanding. Hyde peered up at his son and saw that he meant what he said.
"Why do you want to know, Zach?"
Zach shook his head in disappointment. "Why can't you just tell me? I asked Aunt Donna, and she told me that only you could tell me."
Hyde nodded his head as if considering it. "Huh. She said that?"
"Yeah." Zach felt his impatience start to play tricks with his Zen. "I don't see why everyone has to be so damn secretive about everything."
Bells went off in Hyde's head. There was the magic word once again. Was this his failure as a parent? He just didn't tell Zach enough things about himself?
"You really want to know?" Hyde asked, as he put down his walls and leaned back in his office chair.
"Yes."
"Well," Hyde blew out a huge breath of air, wondering where to begin. "Um, I guess I should just tell you that we dated for like two years, and a little while after she graduated high school she began pushing me to tell her that I wanted to get married." Hyde paused to look at Zach who stood listening intently to his story.
Hyde crossed his arms defensively across his chest. "I told her that I didn't know if I wanted to or not, and eventually that just became too much for her. She broke up with me and we stayed apart for a while."
Hyde took another pause in his story. Slowly he began connecting the puzzle pieces together. The next part of this story would make him look like a total ass, and worst than that, Sam was about to come into the picture.
"Okay, well, then what happened." Zach's voice became a little more hopeful as he egged his dad on to continue.
Hyde shook his head and let out a nervous breath. "Um, let's just say, I totally screwed things up after that."
Zach's hopeful feeling dropped to the floor. "No dad. What happened after that?"
Hyde starred up in Zach's blue eyes. He had no idea how his son was going to react to the information he was about to reveal to him. He just hoped he didn't push himself farther away.
"Well, uh, she got this job offer in Chicago for some kind of tv position, and she told me that she wouldn't go if I told her that I could see a future with us in it."
"And what did you say?"
"Um, I didn't really get to say anything."
Zach crinkled his eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Hyde shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Well she gave me a while to think about it, and when the time came that she gave me to tell her, Grandma Kitty gave me this note that she wrote saying she just left without hearing the answer because she knew what it would be."
"Well did she?"
Hyde's heart twisted in his chest. Remembering the pain of that day still felt fresh. "No. I was going to tell her yes."
Silence fell on father and son. Hyde already felt exhausted for telling Zach this much already, and Zach still was confused.
"I don't see how you're the bad guy."
Hyde gave a cynical chuckle. "Well, you haven't let me finish."
Zach rested his body against the wall preparing himself for the rest of the story.
"Well it turns out that she didn't really leave, she was actually at her house for a couple of days hiding out."
Zach shook his head. "This is getting really confusing and messed up."
"I'm not even to the half of it yet."
Zach rolled his eyes and let his dad continue.
"So, I found her in the basement one day and she once again asked me for my answer, but I was so angry that she lied to me that I told her to 'have a nice trip'."
"Ouch." Zach said.
"Yeah," Hyde began squeezing his right fist with his left hand as he approached the part of the story wear unforgivable blows where given by both parties.
"So she went to Chicago, and after a few days I gave in and went after her. I was sort of going to purpose." Hyde's stomach tied in a knot at he remembered in exact detail what happened next. "Well, when I got there I found her in her hotel room with your Uncle Kelso in a towel."
Zach's eyes bugged out of his head. "Uncle Kelso?"
"Yeah, well, they dated a long time before we ever got together."
Zach cringed at the thought. In his mind he already decided that Jackie must be crazy.
"Well uh," Zach noticed a considerable difference in his father's voice. The whole time he mostly was just telling the story in a very clear, dry pattern, trying his best not to show too much emotion. However, now Zach could hear the remorse dripping from his father's words. "I didn't give her time to explain. I just left and headed for Vegas."
The word 'Vegas' strung a painful nerve in Zach's spine. A black curtain slowly began dropping on him. It was as if his body was anticipating the next words, but his mind just hadn't caught up yet.
"I stayed there for a while. I came home and Jackie told me nothing happened. Kelso was just hitting on her like always, and nothing happened at all. Before we could really talk past that, uh…." Hyde's voice trailed off as his eyes darted back and forth trying to decide on how to word the next phrase. Zach's heart impulsively began to beat rapidly, yet he was still clueless as too why. "Well, Sam, your mom, sort of walked through the door then."
The blood drained from Zach's head. His face turned cold with shock as his brain just stuttered inside his head. "What?"
"Apparently, I married her during one drunken night in Vegas."
Zach's ears were filled with the sound of his heart thumping. "I don't understand."
"I married her, and well, I knew things could never be fixed between me and Jackie so I stayed with her." Zach zoned in on the regret that his dad's words choked on.
"Do you regret it?" Zach's heart no longer raced. It sat still in his chest, hoping his dad would just say the right words.
"Yes." His dad whispered, completely ashamed with himself. Tight cords constricted Zach's chest and the pain of his father's words slapped him across the face. Hyde looked up and saw the intensity plastered in his son's eyes and immediately stood up and walked over to him. He realized the interpretation of his words that his son took. He gripped his shoulders hard and spoke with hurried words.
"Listen to me Zach. I don't regret you for a second. I regret that I hurt the only girl that I ever loved because I thought I couldn't make her happy with just being me. I regret hiding myself, and not telling her more that I loved her." Hyde's own words, emotions, and openness began to scare him but he just kept on. The sake of his son was more important. "But I wouldn't take it back, just because of you."
Zach's bitter pain clogged his ears, though he heard every word of his father's speech. All of the news just became too suffocating for him. He had to get out. He had to go someplace to think. He had to be anywhere but here.
"I- I gotta go." Zach pulled himself away from his father's grasp and ran out of the house as fast as his feet could take him.
AN2: Go ahead. I know you want to press the pretty purple button. It's a calling : ).
