The door was stuck again.

The lock had been broken for years. My dad and I had lost the keys ages ago, but it had never been a problem. A well-aimed shove was all it took.

I tried a fourth time and finally the door gave in.

The thing had followed me home. I should have thrown some rocks at it and yelled for it to go back into the forest. It worked with raccoons.

Home smelled like the usual home scent, which was male sweat with a hint of mold. The entire outer wall of the living-kitchen was perpetually damp. We didn't exactly know what it was leaking, but it was definitely leaking something. And from there, the mold.

The little prince stepped foot inside the house as if he were facing the scene of a violent crime. He scrutinized the patchy carpet covering the floor and the piles of abandoned clothes here and there. He turned his head to glance at the kitchen invaded by dirty dishes and half-eaten takeaways.

It wasn't difficult to figure out what he was thinking with that poorly concealed expression of disgust.

"Um... I'll make a phone call." He spoke so quietly that I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly.

I ignored him and made my way to the tiny cubicle that was my room. I threw myself onto the bed and then onto the window sill, where I kept my second most precious possession, after the guitar held hostage at the pawn shop.

My stereo and my CDs were the only things in order in that house. I grabbed one at random and shoved it into the player.

You wonder why you got holes in your shoes
You wonder why they got more money than you
You wonder why you got nothin' to lose
It makes no sense, don't try to figure it out
You gotta . . . walk on down
Walk on down
Walk on down

I let out a sigh of relief. The world still made sense with Aerosmith blasting the walls of my room.

I let myself be rocked with my head on the pillow and my hands in the air keeping time. A joint was what I needed, but Simon hadn't given me any more.

Without getting up, I dug into the top drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a damp cigarette. I brought it to my lips, it was all crumpled and who knows how long it had been waiting in my nightstand for someone to smoke it properly.

I lit it. The click of the lighter gave me an absolute sense of normalcy. It was my life, it was all okay. It was all normal.

There wasn't a clone of mine in the living room.

The first track ended and before the second one started, I could hear a voice from beyond the door.

"No, he's just locked in his room, I think. He's listening to music."

The little rat was spying.

"I don't think he wants to talk to you right now, he seemed very upset."

Upset... tsk. I wasn't upset. I was perfectly at peace with the universe.

"NO! Don't... don't come here! I'll bring him back, okay? As soon as he calms down. You stay there."

No one was going to take me anywhere. But we agreed on the two dandies staying well away from me.

"Yes, I know the flight leaves tonight. See you later."

The flight leaves tonight? Would I get rid of them so quickly? Suddenly the world seemed a bit brighter.

The new song started with its booming bass and drums. Everything was fine.

A slow knocking accompanied the rhythm of the music. Everything was not fine.

"May I come in?"

"No."

The door opened slightly. The face I had worn all my life peeped in with an expression I had never had in a single moment of my existence.

"Can we talk?"

I turned in bed to give him my back. From the window, I could see the high-rise buildings housing thousands of other families in the distance. Their tattered clothes lazily dried in the sun. It was a peaceful sight, one that had accompanied me since childhood.

The guy reached out to turn off the music.

"So, you want to die?" I stubbornly stared at the window, so I didn't know what face he made in that moment, but from the heaviness of that silence, I felt like I had made him wet himself properly.

"So, this is where you've been all this time?" He asked in a thin voice. "Why did you come back here?"

"It's my home, where else should I go?"

"I know, but... this place must be... full of painful memories for you."

I turned to finally look at him, maybe that way I would understand what the hell he was talking about.

"Listen, I don't pretend to understand what you're feeling right now. I just want you to know that... we're here. We're finally here, and we'll never allow anyone to hurt you again."

"Huh?"

"I know these words might mean nothing to you, coming sixteen years late but..." His eyes filled with tears and, if possible, he hunched over even more "...I'm sorry for... what happened to you. For what you went through. I can't even imagine... what... what was done to you."

Oh, good god, we were on the sixth floor, I couldn't jump out the window...

He was crying, damn it. I had a guy with my face crying in my room.

And then I sat up, when I suddenly understood what the hell he was saying.

"Oh, my god... what have you understood?! Oh, for Christ’s sake... NO! My father is... he's an asshole, okay? But he's not... holy god... he's not a pedophile."

And that lady... who kept asking me about my relationship with my father. Holy Christ, is that what people thought about?

I needed to wash my mouth out with soap. I needed to scrub my brain with an iron sponge.

"R-really?" He stammered, cheeks streaked with tears and those stupid wide-eyed looks. "Then why did he kidnap you?"

I stood up, overcome with sudden energy. "How should I know! Try to figure out why that lunatic of a father of mine does what he does!"

"But then... you don't... you call him father?"

"He's my father, how the hell else should I call him?"

My clone collapsed onto my bed and started staring at his feet. He seemed to have just been hit by a mystical revelation.

"Oh. But I thought that... we all thought that..."

"Your mother screwed him, didn't she tell you what kind of guy he was?"

His cheeks turned bright red. He looked at me forcefully. "She... she always told me she had a single encounter with him, never got to know him. When she found out she was pregnant, she went to tell him, just out of courtesy, she didn't really believe he wanted anything to do with us, she was ready to do it all on her own. I don't know the details, but it seems he turned out to be unfit for the role of a parent, so he lost custody. That's what I've been told, but I always thought they didn't have the courage to tell me the whole truth. I always thought that Mom... wasn't... consenting during the act. How else could she have ended up pregnant by a man like that?"

Well, my father was a handsome guy, and according to him, he had some pretty good pecs back in the day, that's how he got her into bed.

"Alright, newsflash: my father isn't a member of the rapists' club and doesn't even hang out in the subcategory of pedophiles. I'm fine, my life is going great, and now that we've established this, you and the other two pricks can go back to the land of maple and boring sports."

The guy looked around completely lost. "What do you mean? We came to take you home."

I embraced my miserable room with my gaze: "Mission accomplished. I've reached the threshold of my abode unscathed."

"Not this house! Your real home!"

I blinked stupidly and for a second thought I was the idiot between the two.

I burst out laughing. "You want me to go with you to Vancouver? To do what? Do you want to comb me too like one of the Brady Bunch?"

"Thomas..."

"My name is Drake. Drake Fulmer."

"Drake." The guy got up from the bed. His timid voice became firm, and his eyes scrutinized me carefully: "I'm sure no one will force you to do anything you don't want to. I understand if you're not ready to deal with us. I am ready, but I've waited sixteen years to meet you. We've all waited, even when the police came to tell us to give up hope. They thought that if they ever found you, they would only find your body. For sixteen years, we didn't know if you were alive or dead, we didn't know if you were in a situation where death would be... preferable. And now you're here, and you're… okay.”

His words made me shiver. I hadn't even stopped to think about what had happened from their point of view. The whole situation was a real mess.

"Mum never stopped believing that you were alive. I know you don't know her, I know you can't understand what she's been through. But I want you to know that right now, you have the power to hurt her. You can refuse to come with us, no one will force you, but you need to be aware of the effect your refusal will have on her. She doesn't deserve it. Only you can give her the peace she needs."

He was looking at me with wounded puppy eyes. Bringing up the mommy card was a low blow, really.

I crossed my arms over my chest and gritted my teeth.

"And... anyway, by the end of September we'll be legal adults, you can leave and go wherever you want if you hate us but, at least until then, stay. I beg you."

September. Eight months. Could I sacrifice myself for eight months to sort out my asshole of a father's mess? After all, Vancouver wasn't that far away. And once I turned eighteen... I don't know. I'd come back here, I'd take Phil and Simon, and we'd start traveling America with instruments on our backs. By then, I would have figured out what the hell to do with my life and the weepy lady could put her mind at ease.

"There are conditions."

He lit up like a spring violet: "What conditions?"

I reached out innocently. "I need a hundred and fifty dollars. And don't give me that look. It's obvious you're rolling in cash."

"I don't have... a hundred and fifty dollars in cash..."

"Do you have a credit card?"

"Yes..."

"Good. Then follow me."