"It's not your fault," His dad said to him once. About what, you ask? It didn't matter, to Ralph at least. He knew it was a lie, not that his dad was a liar, but in that particular moment, it was just a cover up. Some way to let his guard down and spill everything out.
In reality, it was his fault. It always was, and it always will be.
But, Ralph said he knew anyways. "I know," he replied back, with a certain cadence, that, while trying to cover up how unconvinced he was, still tried to sound like he agreed.
Unfortunately, his father could somehow see right through him, "It's not your fault," He spoke again, pathetically pushing it right against his face. Like she did with him.
"I know," Ralph said once more. How many times was he going to have to convince him?
"No. You don't," His father countered. With such a loud and stern voice, one he had never heard come out of him before. "It wasn't your fault."
β¦ Was it not his fault? Sure, it wasn't like he exactly wanted it to happen. But, Ralph thought it would of happened no matter what, really. Sometimes, people are born and are meant to be used, it's just nature. And Ralph happend to be one of those people. Did it matter to go against that very nature?
"Alrightβ¦" He grimaced, making an effort to sound like he agreed. But, it didn't matter. Because somehow, parents always read their children in ways that they themselves didn't even know of.
He could see his father's eye's well up, on the verge of weeping. While his face stayed the same; barely unreadable and emotionless.
Ralph's brain kept repeating countlessly about comforting his father, but, he couldn't move a single muscle. Couldn't move his arms to wrap themselves around the man who raised him. He wanted to, he really did. But he could not bring himself to.
"Why do you think it was your fault?" The therapist asked, while they stared with great intensity, waiting for him to have some kind of answer.
But, Ralph knew there was none. At least, not any good one. And maybe that was the point. Whatever he said, they would counter it. "I don't see why it mattersβ¦" He mumbled, closing in himself whist looking away.
He thought back to the moment his parents found out. How they were crying over what happend. Well, his father was trying his hardest to hold it in, but, his mother⦠She sobbed. She kept a tight hold of him, as she cried in his shoulder.
That was really the only time he felt terrible about it. Not because of what happend exactly, but rather because he made his parents cry of all things. He just wished they got mad, or didn't care, or something instead of anguished over it.
