I Know the End.

Chapter Two ♰
Letters, Polaroids & Sketches

  𝕸att had to be in the station early that morning, which meant he didn't have the time to make Sydney breakfast. Not that she ever ate it, anyway—she thought he didn't noticed, but he did. He'd been meaning to rummage through Christine's old cook books to try and find something Sydney would actually like and eat, but it turned out Matt wasn't like Chris. She was that kind of sacrificial mother—who would've cut open a vein in her arm just to bleed out whatever Sydney wanted. Matt didn't have whatever Chris had to be such a good parent. He had whatever his father had—addictions, rage, indifference.

  Before cancer took his mother, she had warned him about the burden of fatherhood. If you're born into a house with an angry man, you'll always live in a house with an angry man.

  Matt rarely got angry with Sydney. Not to her, at least. He didn't feel like he was deserving of grudges or hurt when he had been absent for sixteen years of her life. When he got mad with her, he bottled it all up. Sometimes they'd fight over what they'd watch on the TV or pizza toppings or if she could go to a party—but Sydney had been dealt the ultimate card. Vindication. So he'd have to gulp down the anger like pills and let her have her way. Because what right did he have to be her dad when he was never a father?

  So.

  Matt had to go to work early—Hopper called him in all frantic and irate, as he tended to be, talking about a missing boy. Matt left a messy note and a creased wad of notes from his wallet on the table for Sydney then went on his way.

  She'd never admit it but Sydney's heart sunk at the emptiness in the kitchen when she woke up. Without Matt, the place was hollowed out. No music to fill the cobwebbed crevices or stench of eggs to pervade the hall. Sydney found his post-it and probably spent a good two minutes just trying to figure out what it said.