I was all smiles the whole ride back to South Creek. I didn't care that I was walking into dangerous territory with my dad and all the shit associated with my house. All I could think about was Estella and our night and morning together.

I didn't know when I transitioned from seeing her as the annoying girl I was forced to tolerate to the girl who could make me feel better than anyone else. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to be with her, but I knew for a fact that I wanted her around.

Yeah, there was Brice—Ximena wasn't even an issue—but I couldn't just sit by and let Estella be with him. It was complicated, but I knew my and Brice's friendship could handle it. We always bounced back from conflicts, so I wasn't going to think about it too much.

I jammed out to my favorite rock playlist, even singing along to it. When I pulled into my driveway, my high spirits diminished slightly, but I refused to let my father win. All I had to do was make it through the door and into my room, so that was what I did.

I made it through the door, but before I could walk up the steps, my father emerged from the kitchen.

"Iago." I froze at the sound of his voice. "Dónde estabas?"

"With a friend," I replied before chuckling with no ounce of humor. "Don't worry. It wasn't one of the pijos, as you like to call them."

His expression dropped, and he approached me. "Then who?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'm your father," he said. "It does matter."

I scoffed. "Now, you wanna be a father? What about when you punched me in the face? Or when you elbowed Mama in the mouth?"

His eyes softened. "Lo siento."

"That's not enough."

"I know I'm a terrible father," he said. "I know I'm an awful person who's done nothing but disappoint my family and myself the past couple years. I know that."

I was taken aback. Was my father actually admitting his own faults?

"Everything you said is true." He sighed. "I got so angry because you're right. Your mother isn't happy, and I'm not making it easier for her. I'm not providing for her like she would like, and I'm not caring for her like I should. I drove your brothers away because I was too hard on them, just like I'm driving you away now." He looked me in the eye. "I'm sorry if I stop you from making friends the way you should—in more ways than one. I just don't want you to get hurt."

"You always say that," I pointed out. "You say people will hurt me or make me feel bad about myself. As if there's something wrong with me. As if people can't like me for me. I'm saying this now, but even I struggle to remind myself of that since you constantly tell me otherwise."

"I'm only looking out for you, mijo," he said with another step forward. "There're some people you have to stay away from. Do you and those boys have anything in common?"

"Brice and Oliver are in company," I said. "Tyler and I are harder to understand, but Brice and Oliver don't judge us for it. That's the thing. Those boys have their flaws, but they accept me, despite my flaws."

"They don't know you."

I was silent for a moment. "Maybe they should."

The boys were my closest friends, but I kept them at an arms-length. The only reason I opened up to Estella was because she encouraged me to. She was the first person, besides Sabrina trying, to care enough to push past the walls I had up. Everyone else just let me be, but maybe it was time I stopped waiting for people to persist.

"Fine," he said. "You need your boys, but you don't need that Estella girl."

"I'm not gonna have this conversation."

"Iago."

"Estella is in my life," I said, "and she's going to stay in my life as long as she wants me in hers."

My father ran a hand through his hair. "She'll make you—"

"Feel good about myself?" I finished for him. "That's a good thing."

"Iago."

"Estella and I may seem like we have nothing in common," I said, "but when it comes to culture, movies, music and things like that, we click. Yeah, she isn't Hispanic, and I'm into dance and she's into band, but we can talk for hours about so many things."

"You're a kid," he said. "There're some things you just don't understand. Children always think in the present."

"The present helps us grow," I retorted.

"Iago."

"And Estella is part of my present."

"I killed her mother!" he yelled, and we both froze.

"You what?"

This had to be a joke.

My father gulped with nervous eyes. "Her mother died in a hit and run."

"I know." I glared at him, not out of anger but hope. Hope that this wasn't going where I thought it was. "Please tell me—"

"I was the driver," he said, confirming my fears. "It was the outskirts of Creek Rowe. There weren't many cars. No cameras. I didn't know why she was running there in the first place. I had just started working at the steel factory. It was long hours with harsh conditions. It was late at night, and I was exhausted. I don't know if I fell asleep and the car swerved, but she came out of nowhere." His eyes moistened. "How does a woman just come out of nowhere?"

I couldn't even close my mouth because of how shocked I was. No. This wasn't true. "Papa," I muttered, barely audible. "How—"

He curled his lips into his mouth before continuing. "I don't know, mijo. All I know is I panicked, and I left her there." He rubbed at his forehead as his gaze dropped to the floor. "I didn't call the ambulance because I was afraid. We were barely getting by. Both your brothers were still at home, and you were young. Our family couldn't afford me going to jail."

I shook my head, not wanting to believe this. No.

"So you just left?"

He refused to look at me. "Yes. I found out she had died from the papers. I know I had no right to, but I started gathering information about her life through her social media and other sites. That was when I found out she had a daughter around your age."

"Estella." I couldn't take it anymore, so I sat down on one of the stairs. "So you stalked the woman you killed, after she was dead. For what? Guilt?"

"Yes!" he said. "Honestly, it actually made me feel worse. When the hit and run happened, I felt terrible about it, but she was just some random woman. After all the information I learned, she became a person. She was a mother, a wife, a health enthusiast, and she was real." Tears formed in his eyes. "I killed a real person."

"Papa." I didn't know what to say, but I had to keep my own tears back because this was so unexpected.

"You have no idea what it's like to have the daughter of someone you killed suddenly be in your house," he said. "Worse yet, to have your son befriend her. Maybe even more. I don't know if it's karma or the universe telling me something, but I can't look at her."

How could I look at Estella after this?

"You have no idea how hard it's been, Iago," he said, a tear falling. "Carrying this burden for ten years. Knowing a man lost his wife and a girl lost her mother because of me. Having to sleep at night, knowing what I did. Needing to drink a couple glasses of my strongest liquor to even sleep at all." He was crying now. "No one knows it's me. Not your mother or your brothers. Definitely not the authorities or Genevieve's family." He sent me a sad smile. "Her name was Genevieve."

A tear slid down my cheek, and my whole body was numb at this point.

"No one knew, and in a way, I got away with it," he said. "But I know, and I remember it every second of every day."

It all made sense now. My father always had a temper, and he drank more than most people, but sometime when I was seven, he started to change. He became more of a hothead, and his drinking started to progress to alcoholism. He was distant and cold and sometimes verbally abusive. Around that same time, my mother started to drink, too, because of how he was acting and our financial situation. Then my parents started to drift apart from each other, and my mother's depression probably started a couple years ago. All of it built onto each other to create the fucked up dynamic that was my family.

But at least I had both of my parents. Estella didn't.

"You have to stay away from her, Iago," my father said as he helped me stand up.

"No." I refused to look at him.

"You have to," he said. "I can't live with you being so close to her. How can you live with it?"

I glared at him—this time, out of rage. "Exactly." I stepped back onto one of the stairs. "Why do I get punished for your crime? Literally."

"I'm sorry." His expression held remorse, but it wasn't good enough.

I moved higher up the stairs. "Sorry doesn't bring Estella's mother back to life. Sorry doesn't erase those ten years of suffering—not just yours, but Estella's family's. And sorry doesn't change the fact that you're once again sabotaging a relationship that could potentially be great for me. You're just doing it in a new, sickening way."

Tears were streaking down my face as I spoke. I was crying for Estella's family. I was crying for my dad, which was fucked up, but he was my dad.

I also cried for me and Estella.

"I make mistakes," he said, "and I know that."

"You keep making them," I addded, "and that's because instead of you spending most of your days sober to reflect and think, you numb it all with the alcohol. You drinking until you can no longer feel or think about anything doesn't change the fact that you killed someone."

"Do you think I want to be this way?" His tone was surprisingly calm, despite the tears in his eyes. "Do you think I like living paycheck to paycheck? Or having my wife barely talk to me? Or having all my sons hate me, to some extent? Do you think I like drinking to survive the day? No," he said with a shake of his head. "I don't like it, but I need it. I need to find some way to survive, and this is it. It's not ideal, but it's life." He moved closer to me. "In an ideal world, what I did shouldn't impact you and Estella. You didn't do it, and your relationship should be stronger than that." I clenched my fists to ease the emotions flowing through me. "But we don't live in an ideal world. I'm sorry, mijo." He grabbed my shoulders, and I finally looked at him. "I really am."

I shot daggers at him as my lips trembled. "I stand by my point. You really are the problem in this family."

"I know," he said. "I wish I wasn't. I wish I could be better. For your mom, you, your brothers, and that family."

"Gillons," I muttered. "They're the Gillons."

I busted into tears, and my father pulled me into a hug. I wanted to push him away and yell before running upstairs, but he was my dad. He killed a person, and all I could do was hold him as I cried.

"The Gillons," my father said before beginning to cry as well.

I didn't know how long we stayed like that, but afterwards, I felt numb again. I didn't understand how I was so elated earlier. Now, all I wanted to do was crawl in bed and never come out.

For the first time, I was dreading the moment I would see Estella.

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* What do you guys think about the new revelation? What's in store for Jax and Estella? Will Brice get the girl after all?

* There's a shift in the story after this