Permutation - 5. Chapter 5

Kayleigh’s face twisted with anger and desperation, her eyes narrowed, her body coiled with the same greed I’d once seen in George Miller, her father. But this was no longer about George; it was about the path he’d forced us down and how, somewhere along the way, Kayleigh had become a fractured reflection of the trauma she endured. She saw others only for their value to her, much like her father did. I wanted to hate her, to blame her for Tommy losing his leg and for everything that had happened—but beneath it all, what I felt most was sorrow. In this timeline, Kayleigh and I had become enemies, both trapped in a cycle of pain, even after George was safely behind bars.

Memories began flooding back, the effects of the psychedelic drug stabilizing my recall. I remembered the aftermath of Tommy’s accident. The car that hit him was driven by a lawyer, who, instead of calling 911, contacted the state police directly to avoid implicating himself; he’d been with his mistress. The state police, noticing my half-dressed state and the DVD case nearby, collected everything as evidence. Because the lawyer bypassed local police, George Miller couldn’t leverage his connections to shield himself from prosecution. With the DVD showing Tommy and me—both underage—we became state witnesses against George. Fearing exposure, George had kept no other copies of the incriminating footage at home.

As the case dragged on, my mom and I, along with Tommy, were relocated by the state for protection under a deal she negotiated with the lawyer. I stayed by Tommy’s side for a year through his physical therapy. During that time, he confided in me about a warning I’d given him—something I’d apparently told him from the future. I begged my mom to keep Tommy with us rather than letting him go to a group home. After George accepted a plea deal, implicating his powerful patrons, Tommy unofficially became part of our family. A court settlement covered his medical bills and education, with some leftover money. He tried to help my mom financially when she suffered from the Madoff scandal and subprime mortgage crisis, but it wasn’t enough.

While we dealt with George’s arrest, Kayleigh entered the child protection system, her mother presumed dead and her father incarcerated. She wasn’t implicated as a victim in his crimes; no video evidence involving her was found. However, witnessing Tommy’s accident, just as she had seen him murdered by Lenny in another timeline, scarred her. Though Tommy and I wanted her to stay with us, social services, seeing her unstable mental state, placed her in a series of group homes for antisocial behavior. For the next decade, she moved between homes, until she aged out of the system.

When Tommy and I reconnected with her in 2008, she was addicted to painkillers, earning money through prostitution. The lack of health insurance after aging out at 19 left her without access to mental health care. In one timeline, I had met a version of her with similar struggles, and I blamed my choices for her fate. Kayleigh had once meant enough to me that I’d sacrificed for her. In another life, she might have been family if I hadn’t protected Tommy from his father. Yet now, she viewed my past goodwill as malevolence, and it was tragic to see her wield the old videotape of our abuse as a weapon, unable to recognize the suffering recorded within.

“Kayleigh,” I began, gentler than I’d thought possible, “I’m sorry for not being there for you like I was for Tommy. I would have helped if I’d known how.”

Her eyes flashed, disbelieving. “Sorry?” she spat, her voice sharp, as if the word itself was foreign. “You’re sorry? That’s rich, coming from someone who kept me at arm’s length unless my dad wanted you or Tommy to touch me for one of his clients.”

Alicia’s eyes widened, but she remained composed.

Kayleigh gripped the tape harder, her knuckles turning white. “I don’t want your pathetic apology. I want money, or meds.”

She didn’t understand. She couldn’t, with all she’d been through. But I couldn’t let her hatred linger.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, softer now, “for every way I hurt you, for what we were forced to do by your father. Do you remember when we were seven, and I pushed you away? I told you I’d hurt you, that I’d destroy your family. I wanted to scare you off because I knew the kind of man your father was. I wanted to keep you out of his reach, hoping your mom would finish the divorce. She saw the type of man he was and considered leaving him. You knew that, too.”

Her eyes darkened, but she stayed silent. I knew I had to be careful with my words; though she bore responsibility for her actions, I needed to stabilize the situation.

“You were only thirteen when your life changed again. You didn’t deserve what happened,” I continued. “I had hopes, and I let them blind me. I didn’t consider your feelings, and we all ended up trapped in something terrible. I never wanted any of it, and neither did Tommy, but we never talked about it. Tommy and I grew close because, together, we felt something beyond helplessness. I... love him,” I admitted, exhaling as the words left me. “I didn’t reach out to you; I didn’t try to make things right. And you… you became someone molded by the horror your father inflicted, because I failed you.”

Kayleigh looked at me, stunned, her anger momentarily frozen. She shook her head, frowning. “This is such—such a waste of time. I didn’t come here for an apology. I want what’s mine—what you owe me! After they sent me my dad’s belongings, I found a storage unit with this old VHS. This crappy tape was one of the first with all three of us, not just you and Tommy. I deserve something for that.”

“Maybe you’re owed something,” I acknowledged. “But not what you think. You deserve a chance to break free from this.” I motioned to the tape in her hand, hoping she could see what it was doing to her. “You hold onto this tape, believing it would give you control over your life, or revenge against your father.”

“You think I don’t know what’s mine?” she sneered, shaking the tape. “This—this is all I have left, after you ruined everything when Tommy got hit, and my dad was taken away.”

She glared at me, but the rage in her eyes was laced with pain, echoes of a lifetime of loss.

I sighed. “Tommy ran off because he loves me and didn’t want you to use that DVD as leverage to hurt me or my mom. Your dad admitted to us that he killed your mom. I know that must have been awful to hear. You wanted revenge, but he wasn’t a viable target anymore, so you turned on me. Tommy tried to stop you, and that’s when the car hit him. The police came after that, remember?” I continued. “They took the DVD, and Tommy and I had to testify. That’s why your father was arrested. It was over. But for you, it never ended. We didn’t know what happened to you after they took you into protective services. We could have tried harder.”

Her expression faltered, her furious gaze flickering, if only for a moment.

“They took you into state care; I know that,” I said, acknowledging her painful history. “While Tommy and I stayed together, you were moved around. I know it must’ve felt like we abandoned you. But we were kids too, trying to recover from everything.”

A heavy silence filled the room, thick with all the words left unsaid over the years. Alicia, recording everything, seemed to fade into the background, giving us space in this fragile moment.

“What did I ever have?” Kayleigh whispered, her bitterness cracking to reveal something rawer. “I lost my mother, my brother, my family, my life… while you and Tommy just went on.” Her voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it, as if years of resentment had finally broken through her hardened shell.

I shook my head. “We didn’t just go on. Tommy and I were hurt in ways that took years to heal. But we had each other. And maybe… maybe we can help you too.” I looked her in the eye, the pain in her face mirroring my own. “You were always a part of us, Kayleigh. You still could be.”

She stared at me, the weight of my words sinking in. For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of understanding, a break in the anger and pain that had defined her for so long.

“Can’t you see?” I pleaded, my voice barely above a whisper. “This tape, this threat—it won’t bring back what you lost. But you still have a choice. We can find a way out of this together. You don’t have to live as a shadow of your father’s abuse.”

For the first time, Kayleigh’s hand shook, and her grip on the tape slackened. Her gaze softened, haunted and torn. Slowly, she lowered the tape onto the receptionist’s desk. It was as if a layer of armor had peeled away, exposing the hurt she’d carried for so long.

A part of me ached to reach out, to close the distance between us, but I knew it wasn’t my choice to make. The path to healing would be hers alone to walk. But for the first time since the start of the encounter, I felt there might be a way forward for her, a path not bound by the darkness her father left behind.

The silence lingered as I watched her, waiting. Finally, she turned, still holding the tape, and walked out of the office. I didn’t stop her; I couldn’t. All I could do was hope that one day, she’d be ready to leave the pain behind.

Alicia looked at the door, then back at me, closing this emotional encounter with a shrug. “Boss, I know you had a rough childhood with that bitch. Don’t take it all personally; you did right by Tommy. The world’s messed up like that. My daddy was only a fourteen-year-old gangbanger when he forced my mama because her daddy couldn’t pay his boss protection money. It’s the world we live in, as messed up as it is. We’ve got to live on.”