ROSES HAVE THORNS

Chapter 174: Chapter 174 - Kurt Rossana [Pt1]

- Back on the isolated island -

The gentle crashing of the waves against the white sands provided a soothing atmosphere compared to the one Kurt and Diana had just left.

Diana was sitting between Kurt’s legs with her back pressed against his chest. And Kurt’s arms were wrapped securely around her, acting as a safe space for her to hide in.

After roughly twenty minutes, her breathing finally slowed, though her fingers were still restlessly fiddling and intertwining with Kurts’s hands.

"You alright, Ana?" he asked quietly.

Diana didn’t answer right away. Instead, she slowly lifted one of his hands up to her face and pressed his warm palm against her reddened cheek, tilting her head into his touch.

"I just want to stay like this for a while longer," she whispered as she looked out at the empty horizon.

"Ok. As long as you need."

They sat in a comfortable, soul-healing silence for what felt like hours, letting the ocean breeze wash away the lingering tension of the capital.

Eventually, Diana broke the quiet.

"Rosie?" she murmured as her fingers lightly traced the scars on his knuckles. "You never really told me what happened to your parents. I remember you only ever saying that they were scumbags." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"... Do you really want to know, Ana? It’s not a pretty story. At all."

Diana shifted slightly, turning her head just enough to look up at him with earnest eyes. "Yes. I want to know everything about you. I want to know the pieces that made you who you are."

Kurt stared out at the sea as a distant, melancholic look settled into his eye. He took

"Alright, I’ll tell you... To begin, everything was completely normal for the first seven years of my life. My dad was happy, attentive and always playing with me. My mom was incredibly loving and deeply caring. It was a pretty standard, quiet household."

He chuckled softly, though there was no humor in it.

"I never knew my grandparents, or any aunts, uncles, or cousins. You see, my parents eloped before I was born. My dad was an ex-gang member trying to go straight, and my mom came from a deeply religious family that completely disowned her for choosing him over what they wanted for her. Come to think of it..."

"It almost sounds like the situation we’re going through." Diana pointed out. "Well, sort of. Theirs sounds like some sort of tragic romance novel."

"Haha, yeah," Kurt laughed back gently as a wry smile touched his lips. "It played out exactly like one, too. The romantic part, for a while anyway."

"What changed? When did it all begin?"

"The signs of change started right around my sixth birthday," Kurt continued, dropping his voice into a flat narrative tone.

Diana suddenly turned her head back toward him and looked at him in surprise. "Wait! I don’t even know your birthday yet!"

"To be fair, I believe talking about birthdays and stuff usually happens on the first couple of dates. And technically, we have yet to go on our actual first date."

"And yet, we live together. How backward of us." She turned back around and squeezed his hands tightly as she played with his fingers. "Fine. We will have our official first date the exact moment the Grand Tournament is over. Deal?"

"Deal." Kurt smiled softly.

"Anyway... back to the story. It started on my sixth birthday. Me and my mom were sitting at the kitchen table, completely dressed up, waiting for my dad to come home so we could all go out for a special family dinner.

"When he finally walked through the door, he looked completely shook. Terrified, even. But the exact second his eyes locked onto us; he forced his face back to normal. It was incredibly brief, but I’ll never forget the dread that was on his face."

He paused, recalling the vivid memory.

"We went out to dinner, had a great time, and everything seemed fine for the next two months. But then, slowly, he started arriving home later and later. He’d leave for work way earlier than usual, too. He worked in heavy construction, so at the time, we just figured it was a massive new project demanding his time."

Kurt’s jaw tightened slightly.

"But over time, he became incredibly irate. Especially whenever he looked at me. Whenever I went up to talk to him or ask him to play, he’d first flinch violently, staring at me wide-eyed like he was looking at a ghost, before reluctantly forcing himself to listen to me.

"There were fleeting moments where it felt like my loving dad was back... but more often than not, he was just angry and irritated."

He felt Diana squeeze his hand a little tighter in reassurance.

"I remember asking my mom what was wrong with him. She’d just smooth my hair and tell me to be patient. She said he was just deeply stressed from work, and to be patient. So, that’s what I did. I waited.

"I only ever hung around him on his ’good’ days. And honestly, the months leading up to my next birthday actually became peaceful again. Everything seemed great. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

"Then came the day of my seventh birthday."

Diana gulped. She could clearly sense the sudden, chilling shift in his demeanor.

"Just like the year before, my mom and I sat waiting for him to come home so we could go out to celebrate," Kurt said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion now.

"But we waited. And waited. And waited. It was way past my bedtime when he finally stumbled through the front door. It was around nine-thirty."

He let out a dry, cynical breath.

"He was completely, utterly drunk. Reeking of alcohol, soaking wet from the pouring rain outside. My mom immediately snapped, scolding him for completely missing his son’s birthday. My dad just laughed, slurring his words and saying that technically, it was still my birthday, so he made it on time.

"My mom told him no, that he knew we always went out for a proper dinner, and that I had been looking forward to it all day. Which I was, in her defense. My dad started arguing back, yelling that it was just one stupid birthday, and that he’d make it up to me next year.

"That’s when the dam finally burst. My mom lost it. She started screaming at him about his disgusting behavior lately, his insane work schedule, and the horrific way he had been treating me for the past year."

Kurt’s eye narrowed as he stared blankly at the sand.

"But like I said... my dad was completely wasted. So he let his own dam burst, too. He pointed a shaking finger at my mom and accused her of being a whore. He screamed at the top of his lungs that I wasn’t his son."

Diana gasped softly, her grip on his hand becoming ironclad.

"My mom slapped him across the face, screaming how could he say something so vile about us," Kurt continued.

"But then... he pulled out a piece of paper from his wet coat. It was a DNA test. It proved that he wasn’t my biological father. My mom went completely pale, demanding to know where he had gotten such a thing, but she wouldn’t deny the results. And just like that... a horrific, bloody fight broke out."

He went silent for a moment. His free hand instinctively rose to brush against the edges of the dark eyepatch covering his right eye.

"I won’t go into the gruesome details... but that specific fight is the exact reason I no longer have a right eye – courtesy of daddy dearest.

"By the time the chaos stopped, only me and my mom were left breathing. My dad was dead on the floor. I was barely alive, fading in and out of consciousness on the blood-soaked carpet.

"She grabbed whatever she could, then me, and fled into the night. My loving mom was now a murderer. She patched up my eye herself in a filthy motel room because she was too terrified to go to a hospital and get caught.

"Once I was stable enough to move, we went straight to her side of the family to beg for refuge. But they chased her away. They shamed her for what she had done, throwing it in her face that they had warned her about eloping with a gang member. They completely cut her off.

"The following year was hell. We were constantly hopping from place to place, city to city, because surprise-surprise, she was a wanted fugitive. She’d find some under-the-table work, get paranoid, and we’d leave.

"Money soon became non-existent, and my dad’s savings completely ran out. So, one day, I gave her a suggestion. A very, incredibly stupid one in hindsight."

He let out a hollow, self-deprecating breath. "I asked her... why don’t we go find my real dad? So he can help us."