Chapter 14

"Sean?"

Elizabeth lay cuddled up after a very passionate and fulfilling bout of making love. "Yes, love?"

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving? It's just around the corner."

"I don't know," Sean answered. "I was thinking maybe getting a turkey, inviting Vanessa and Eric, and having a nice dinner with you guys. Why?"

"What about your family?" Elizabeth asked. "I was wondering about when I could meet them. Thanksgiving is a family holiday."

"I don't plan on introducing my family to you."

"Why not?" Elizabeth was now sitting up, a curious and annoyed expression on her face. "I think I'm ready to meet them."

"Calm down, Elizabeth," Sean said and held her hand. "Fact of the matter is that I don't think I'm not ready to introduce you to them. I haven't seen them in a couple of years. They," Sean didn't quite know how to fit the words to how he felt, the emotions were buried so deep. "They embarrass me. I've never mentioned them because, well, I'm ashamed of them. You're going to want to get more comfortable because this is a long story." Elizabeth nodded and lay back down in his arms. "I told you about how my mother died when I was seven. But I left a lot blank as to what happened afterward. In brief my family fell apart. My father tried dealing with his grief and I think it was because of that that he let my sister go out so often. Maybe he just didn't know what to do about her now that my mom was gone or maybe the sight of her reminded him of our mother. Whatever the reason, he just let her go out and wasn't a control factor on what friends were acceptable. Well, she didn't hang out with the right crowd. It wasn't long before she was definitely hanging out with the wrong crowd and had run away. She had gotten into drugs and who knows what else. All this before she even went to high school.

"My dad remarried and at the time I thought his second wife was fine. She brought her own daughter as an addition to the family and I thought she was okay to play with. I knew them for about half a year before my dad got hitched. It was a crazy few years after that with my dad still searching for my sister and then eventually finding her. During that time when things were finally starting to become more normal, if being within the quota of dysfunctional can be considered normal that is, that I started to understand him. Then there came the inheritance. My grandmother died and my sister, father, and I got a lot of money; hundreds of thousands each to be exact. My dad used it to build a business and my sister got her fingers into it quick and pretty much blew it on her boyfriend and addiction to marijuana. I just sat on it. I sat and watched as the money corrupted the household. My father was ever the salt of the earth kind of man but my step-mom, she was a different story. She dug her claws in and spoiled my step-sister rotten. Fights broke out and once again my family was sent spinning into oblivion once again. I kidded you not when I said that I led a very lonely life. I doubt there are that many high schoolers in the upper middle class that could really understand what I was going through, they either had the money all their lives and were used to it or they were dirt poor and would simply resent me. That money and my family nearly drove me insane. I've never told anyone this before but it nearly drove me to the point of suicide when I was twelve." At the telling of that Elizabeth squeezed Sean's hand comfortingly. "Those were some dark days for me. Some of it hasn't gone away. That's why I was driven towards martial arts. It was an outlet. The drawing too." Sean pointed at the mural wall across from the bed. "See that raven? That was my deepest despair, my darkest pain. Those depths that have haunted me for years, for a while I could almost feel a mental shift in me where it took over. Towards the end it became my loneliness." He pointed again at a different part of the wall, to the phoenix that Elizabeth fingered the first day she saw the walls, blazing brightly, beautifully. "And that. That phoenix became you. My hope, my last shot at salvation. That bird has been the only thing keeping me going for the past ten years. The dream of finding you has been the only thing keeping me going for the past decade of my life." Sean took a deep cleansing breath after remembering those dark years, reminding himself that those times were past. "So when Cheryl said that I didn't need you I kid you not when I say that I was about to slap her. She will never know that only thing that stopped me was because of my need to find you.

"And then my father died of a heart attack," Sean chuckled sadly. "Can't say that I blame him. I thought about something along those lines years before him. Then the family really did fall apart. My father was the only reason I ever wanted to go home during my first couple of years in college. Since I was already eighteen I filed for financial independence and moved out. I've never wanted to go back. There's nothing back there for me but painful memories. I don't ever plan on meeting them ever again. Once, they tried contacting me and could you believe they were asking for money? Apparently they blew all of it after my father died. A good chunk of his share of my grandmother's money that was given to him he gave to me. I..." Sean couldn't say another word and broke down with grief. Elizabeth held him to her, whispering soft comforts while he cried like the lost boy that he still kept hidden, even from himself. "I was the only reason that he kept living. He said as much in his will. My empire of money is built on death. Now you know why I've never spent it. I hate that money. It has caused me nothing but pain. But I can't give it away. It's all I have of my parents. I never really knew my mother and my father never believed too strongly in anything so I can't donate it. I don't think it would be right. Besides, I think he believed I was a worthy caretaker of it. Perhaps, perhaps one day I will know what to do with it. But until then I'll hold on to it and only use it when I have to. The Jag was the first time that I've splurged. It has to do with being with you. I can maybe put down the pain now that I have some happiness in my life." Sean had calmed by then. "Anyways, after that one encounter with my family about a year back I changed my address and phone number. I even considered going to a different college. I pretty much disappeared, partially from the pain but also from disgust. No, I'm not going to introduce you to my family. I don't think I could take it. They aren't a part of my life anymore."