Rex...

"Come on, mate...let's get you to the hospital." Aidan pats me on the back with a knowing smile. He's my best mate, so he knows exactly where I need to be right now. No questions asked, he just knows.

"How is she?" My voice sounds rough, overwrought. Intense questioning by the police, a night in the cells and worrying myself sick over Angel is taking its weary toll on me.

"Angel is stable, she had a good night apparently."

As I slowly get into the car, my aching head hangs low with an aggravated sigh. "I should have been with her." I talk with a carefully controlled tone because my anger is still festering away inside of me.

Placing both his hands on the steering wheel, Aidan turns his head to look at me before starting up the car. "Angel is going to be alright, Rex." He isn't smiling but there's hope warmly sitting in his narrowed blue eyes.

Sighing again, my unsure reply quickly follows. "I hope so." I have so much restrained anger still within me. I am angry at myself for so many things. I should have known what my father was doing. I should have stopped it before it even began. I should have just let the police come and arrest his pathetic ass, rather than beating him to pulp. That was what I should have done, but my fury wanted him carried out of Angel's. My fury had me claiming that I had acted in self defence. My fury was very wrong. It cost me being with Angel when she needed me the most. Once again, I have let her down. "Has she woken up at all?" My sad question fills the space in the quiet car.

Shaking his head sadly, Aidan answers me. "Not really. She's out of it. The doctors wanted to keep her heavily sedated because they were worried about the swellings on her nose and forehead. They gave her a CT scan and said that her nose is broken and that she has some frontal lobe swelling to her brain."

His words make my stomach harden with fear. "Jesus, Aidan." My anger is resurfacing as I rub both my palms on my cheeks. "But she's stable, right?"

Aidan nods, turning the ignition. "She's in safe hands. The doctors are taking good care of her and her family are with her." Concentrating on his driving, he cautiously continues. "You should know, Rex... everyone knows the truth." For just a split second, my friend shoots me a worried look before focusing back on the road ahead of him.

My shoulders drop and my lips press tight with disappointment. "How?" I guess I always knew that the truth wouldn't forever remain buried, but I'd like to know who dug it back up.

"Faith."

Staring out the window, relief rolls over in my stomach. I thought it may have been my mother who had decided to tell everyone. "I thought it was my mum." I admit out loud.

Aidan is quick to explain. "Faith was in a right state. When her parents arrived, they were obviously asking some very awkward questions. It was a good job you called us because I think Faith would have fell apart if she had been on her own until her family arrived. Angela looked after her until they did."

Thankful to both Angela and Aidan, I tell him just how grateful I really am. "It means a lot that you were both there for Angel and Faith when I couldn't be." Regret weighs heavily down on me. I have fucked up so much in so many ways.

My friend exhales a noisy breath. "I just wish you had told me the truth, mate. I knew that something bad must have been going on for your mum not to be coming to your wedding. Why did you let us think that it was because she couldn't forgive Angel for walking out on you?" Again, Aidan shoots me a quick and concerned look.

Lowering my head, I bitterly smile. "It was far easier for everyone to think that." I depressingly state. And it really was. The truth is just so vile and twisted, I didn't want anyone to know about it. Angel is close with her sister, which is why she probably decided to confide in her. Me? I just couldn't face telling Aidan all about what happened between Angel and my father, just because I didn't want to have to face it ever again.

I chose to forget about it.

I chose not to think about it.

That was my choice, and now, it's become my mistake.

Maybe if the truth had been known, maybe Angel would have been more protected? If those close to us had known the truth, they would have been more aware, and that could have kept Angel safer.

I should have put my foot down and told Angel that the truth needed to be told. But she was so sad and ashamed about it all, I just went along with her need to keep it a secret. I went along with it because it meant I could finally move forward in my life. I went along with keeping the truth from everyone, because I loved Angel. For her, I would do absolutely anything. But that anything has come at a high and painful price. And for that, I shoulder all of the blame. I was stupid and naïve to ever believe that what happened between Angel and my father would stay forever buried deep within the darkest depths of deceit.

A secret as big as that, would always find a way to surface itself again.

It was just too big a lie.

Too big to forever conceal.

And now the dismal truth is unfortunately free. It's now free to cause even more damage. My mother didn't cope well when she found out the truth, so I am a little concerned about how Angel's family will cope with it. I know I can trust Aidan and Angela with the burdening knowledge of it all, so hopefully the truth will somewhat be contained. But I can't worry about all of that just now. All that matters is that I get to the hospital to see Angel. I just need to be with her. Everything else can just wait.

**

I just wasn't prepared to see Angel in the hospital. She looked so small and so vulnerable; swamped with starch sheets, wires, medical equipment and cannulas. Her face was so painfully swollen and so savagely battered, I just lost it. At the very guilty sight of her, I just broke down and cried. "I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry." Was all I kept saying over and over, still too afraid to touch her. I knew I was where I should be. I just didn't think I deserved to be.

"None of this is your fault, Rex." Faith had tried to console me. She tried to make me feel better. But every single time my eyes looked at Angel lying on that hospital bed, I just knew different. And even after being here for a little over an hour, I still come to that same sickening conclusion. Sat beside Angel, listening to her peaceful breathing, I feel anything but peaceful. I'm at war with myself. I want to be here. I need to be here...but my want and my need is torturously killing me. The blame and the guilt that I feel, prevents me from reaching out and taking Angel's small hand into mine.

I don't deserve to hold her hand.

I don't deserve to feel better.

The only thing I do deserve is the numb and nauseating ache that's roaming around inside of me.

With my head down, I don't even look to see who has just come into the room. My guilt has me shutting myself off from everyone. All I know is that I am here beside Angel. Although I don't rightly deserve to be here, my legs refuse to let me be anywhere else. So I sit here, in a bubble of numb misery. "I got you a coffee." A quiet and kind voice tries reaching me inside my miserable bubble. Forcing myself to look up at the person from where the gentle voice came from, I am met with a concerned smile. "You drink, I'll talk." Alan Lee firmly says as he hands me the hot coffee.

"Thanks." I solemnly thank him with a depressing hollowness in my chest.

Standing beside me but turning his body to look at Angel, he starts quietly talking. "I just wanted to thank you."

My gaze shifts from the floor and very much onto him. "For what?" I confusingly ask. What could Angel's father possibly want to thank me for? I numbly wonder.

"For beating the shit out of your father." Is his curt reply.

Watching him stand tall with a set jaw and a high chin, I answer Angel's father in the only way I know how. "Anytime." Once again, I prefer to stare down at the floor with sagging shoulders and a bent neck.

Alan stands nearer, determined to talk to me even though I am listening in the most depressing of ways. "Faith and your friends are worried about you. They think you're blaming yourself."

I reply as I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "I am blaming myself." I still won't look at him, my sad focus remains firmly on the hospital floor.

Alan places his hand on my slumped shoulder, squeezing it slightly. "You're wrong, Rex. You had no way of knowing that your father would do this."

My head angrily lifts, turning to glare at Alan Lee. "No, you're wrong! I heard him threaten Angel. I knew he had rattled her, but I did nothing about it. So you see, I do blame myself. Your daughter is in that bed because of me." My voice is deep with despair and wrathful anger but my eyes are filling with hopeless and regretful tears. "She's here because of me."

Again, Alan squeezes my shoulder. "None of us agree with you, Rex." He then lets go of me, to stroke the hair of his fragile and beaten daughter. "It looks bad, but Angel is going to be okay. The doctors have just spoken with myself and Diane, the swelling on the brain is thankfully decreasing. They are going to lower her sedation but keep her under close observation. They are really pleased with how well she is doing."

There's a lightness to what he says, but it doesn't change how I feel. "She's a fighter, that's for sure." A twinge of relief allows my positive remark to slip from out of my grim mouth, but my guilt still overpowers the relief that has tethered itself to me.

Alan affectionately stares down at Angel, sweeping her matted hair away from her bruised forehead. "She certainly is." Looking sideways at me, he then says something else. "And she loves you. She loves you whilst she sleeps and she will still love you when she wakes up." My sore eyes fill with many more stinging tears as they rest upon the love of my thoroughly miserable life. "You can touch her, Rex...she won't break." Alan is trying to reassure me. He's trying to drag me out of my despairing pit that I have willingly fallen into. "She needs you." His three words are so softly spoken and so warmly given, I finally stand. As I take the tense few steps nearer to the bed, I still can't seem to shake off the bleakness of the blame that I deeply feel. "Just love her in the way that you have been." Then Alan smiles and leaves my unworthy self all alone with his beloved daughter. For that, I have the utmost of respect and gratitude.

First, I stare down at the hand that I still don't feel I deserve to touch. But Alan said I should love Angel in the way that I have been, and with everything that has happened, loving her is the only thing that I remember doing well. That alone, gives me the strength to lift her still and weak hand. As I do, I let out a long and thankful breath and then I kiss the warmth of her fingers with my lingering lips. I kiss them over and over. Kissing them somehow keeps the guilt and the blame at bay. I slowly breathe in her pale skin. I breathe in her warmth. She's alive and she's still mine. My father tried to take her from me, but he didn't succeed. So I kiss and breathe in her living fingers. I kiss and inhale them, because when I do, I feel myself coming alive. Angel does that to me. She always has. From the moment I first met her, my heart was stolen by the person she was. The blood in my veins started pumping only for the beautiful Angel Lee. In that split second, she had become my everything. She breathed life into my soul and my heart and soul was instantly all hers. I began to live and breathe only for her. I still live and breathe only for her. Which is why allowing myself to touch her again, awakens my sad soul. Her touch is awakening all of me. Only she can do that. She is doing it now and she has done it before. When Angel left me, I lost myself because I lost my life with her. So when I saw her at Aidan's birthday, I felt the spark of my former life being slowly returned to me. But I was also furiously angry, so I tried to fight that igniting spark. I tried not to love her again. I tried not to allow her to be the one that my veins pumped blood around for, but Angel was the love of my life. She was my soulmate. Which is why I had to give my heart its second chance and that is why I am kissing and holding her hand now. Because without her, I am nothing.

"Rex?" My mother's nervous voice interrupts the rebirth of my dying soul, creating a quivering echo within the room.

"Mum? What are you doing here?" I quietly ask, needing to put all of my interrupted attention back onto Angel.

"Aidan and the police called me." Mum says as she softly walks into the hospital room, then stands closely beside me. As soon as she sees Angel, she cries out with her hand quickly coming up to her shocked mouth. "Oh dear god! What has he done to her?"

Not looking at my mother, I coldly reply. "He tried to take her away from me."

Mum brings her arms right around me, cuddling me so very tight. "I'm so sorry, Rex. I'm so sorry for everything." She's crying now. Crying for Angel. Crying for me. Crying for herself.

I didn't realise just how lonely I felt, until mum walked into the room with me. Twisting in her maternal hold, I emotionally embrace her. Together, we cry for all the hurt and the pain that is slowly eating us alive. Our tears and our pain, unify my weeping mother and I. It no longer matters about what had gone on before, what matters now, is that she is here. So I hug her tight, hugging and crying in the arms of the woman who has shown me just how much she truly loves me—because she is here. "Thank you." I say on the back of a jagged sob.

Mum squeezes me harder and cries even louder. "You shouldn't be thanking me, my darling...not after the way I have acted towards you and Angel."

Drawing back slightly, I look into my mother's sorrowful eyes. "Don't." I say it with a firm but loving edge. My father's actions has infected us both, but I'll not allow his poison to further harm my already hurting mum. It's one thing for me to feel guilty and to shoulder the brutal blame, I'll not have my mother feeling it as well. "Just don't." I firmly tell her again.

Mum now wearily looks at Angel. "The doctors say she's going to be okay." Then she glances sideways at me. "You will be okay." There's a protective lilt in her gentle voice and hopeful tears glistening within her virescent eyes as she takes hold of my hand. "He will pay for what he has done. The police want to throw the book at him for what he has done to Angel." Mum soon stops, getting more emotional by the second. "I'm just glad that you didn't end up killing him. If you had, he would have won, Rex. He would have finally destroyed your life. Angel's life. My life." Her melancholic tears slide down her flushed cheeks, tear after tear after tear.

With a downhearted squint, I stare down at my beautiful girl. Beaten black and blue at the hands of my malignant father, I am just glad that I did do what I did to him. Every punishing and murderous punch, he truly deserved. At the time, I thought I had killed him. And you know what? I didn't care. And you want to know something else? I would do it again if I had the chance. And again. And again. And again.

For me, a broken tooth, extensive bruising and a few stitches here and there, are no where near enough punishment for that sick bastard. He deserves to die for all that he has done. But he has managed to survive my beating and I have to accept that. I also have to accept that justice will prevail. The police have assured me that it will. They decided to drop the assault charges against me after finding a shit load of photos of me and Angel at his flat. They also found his disgusting diary entries of what he was already doing to her and what he filthily intended on doing to her. I guess I should be grateful that the assault charge has been dropped, but every time I look at Angel, I just know I would happily do time for her. "Can we not talk about that man?" Although I quietly ask, there's an equal measure of disdain to my question. I don't want to give my father the satisfaction of being talked about. I don't even want to give him the satisfaction of being thought about. He tried to succeed in his twisted plan, but failed. I tried to succeed in killing him, but failed. That's it now. In my mind, he is dead. He no longer exists. But I am here. My mother is here. Angel is here. Her family are here. We are all here, united by his abhorrent actions. His future will be lived out behind bars, mine will be with Angel by my side. Neither he or the truth, will ever be able to hurt us again. The past no longer hangs above us like a threatening dark cloud, and it no longer holds us hostage.

Just like my father, it's nothing.