Текст книги "Crashed"
Автор книги: K. Bromberg
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 31 страниц)
CHAPTER 20
“I’m so proud of you, buddy.” I look into Zander’s eyes and fight my own tears. I want him to see the depth of feelings I have for him and for what he just did. For giving the district attorney all they needed to press formal charges against a man that’s disappeared like the wind. To sit at a table full of scary grown-ups and explain, in a voice you just found again, how your father murdered your mother—how he attacked her from behind, stabbed her repeatedly and then waited for her to die while you hid behind the couch because you were supposed to be in bed. Now that, is a courageous kid. I squeeze him tight in my arms, more for me than for him, and wish I could take away the memory from him.
“How’d you get so brave?” I ask him.
I don’t expect an answer, but when he responds it stops me in my tracks.
“The superheroes helped me,” he says with a shrug. I force a swallow down my throat burning with so much emotion I can’t speak. I look into the eyes of a little boy that I love with all my heart, and I can’t help but see pieces of the grown man who owns it too. My heart twists for both, and even though I am filled with such an incredible sense of pride, it’s tinged with a bit of sadness because I know Colton would want to know what Zander did today. The imaginary barriers he vaulted over that most adults could never fathom.
But I can’t tell him.
It’s been four days since I left his house.
Four days without speaking.
Four days for him, for us to get our individual shit together.
And four days of absolute chaos for me in more ways than one: The House, my emotions, the media frenzy over a possible baby, missing Colton.
I tell Zander I’ll put his beloved stuffed dog in his bedroom and tell him to go play tag with the rest of the boys. Go be a kid, play, laugh, and forget the images that haunt him—if that’s even possible.
I go through the motions of getting dinner together, while the familiar and comforting sounds of the boys outside help me cope.
I miss Colton. We’ve been together every day for over a month and I’m used to his presence, his smile, the sound of his voice. I’m hurt he hasn’t called but at the same time I don’t expect him to. Other than texting to make sure I’d gotten home okay and the song I Am Human, I haven’t heard from him. He has a lot to figure out, a lot to come to terms with. And God yes, I want to be there by his side, helping him figure it all out, but it’s not my situation to figure out. Plain and simple.
I can’t count how many times I’ve picked up the phone to call him—to hear his voice, to see how he’s doing, to just say hi—but I can’t. I know better than anyone that until Colton lets me back in to his barricaded heart, a call won’t do any good.
I frost the cake I’d made earlier as a little reward for Zander’s bravery today, when my phone rings. I look over at the screen and push ignore. It’s an unknown number and most likely a journalist wanting to pay me handsomely for my side of Tawny’s story. She’s told the press that I am the mistress who broke up her, the pregnant victim, and the love of her life … Colton.
The only blessing is that the paparazzi have not discovered The House yet. But I know it’s not long until they do, and I’m still trying to figure out what do I do then?
And for some reason, the story Tawny’s painted makes me laugh. I don’t believe the inside scoop on Page Six that says she and Colton have rekindled their love affair. I was in Colton’s house. I know how much he despises her and everything she represents. That’s not why I’m sad.
I just miss him. Everything about him.
The funny thing is, this time around, I’m not worried he’s going to turn to another. We’ve passed that hurdle and quite frankly adding another woman to the mix would just complicate his life further. No, it’s not him turning to another woman I worry about, it’s him not turning to me.
Voices break through my thoughts as I cut the potatoes up for dinner. I catch Connor saying, “The douche bag’s here again.”
“We could always egg him.” That one was Shane.
What in the heck are they talking about?
“Hey, guys?” I call out to them as I wipe my hands off and head out to the living room. “Who’s here again?”
Shane tilts his head toward our front window. “That guy,” he says, pointing. “He thinks he’s so incognito parked over there.”
“Like we can’t see him,” Connor interjects. “And don’t know he’s a photographer. Camera’s a dead giveaway, dude.”
I’m immediately pulling the curtains back, looking down the street. Before I even spot the car, I know what I’m going to see. The dark blue sedan is parked a couple of houses down partially hidden by another car. I had completely forgotten about it.
At least this lone paparazzo is greedy and keeping my whereabouts quiet so he can get all the monetary gain for himself. For that I can be grateful. But it also means that if he’s figured it out, others will soon follow wanting to get the scoop from the home-wrecker I am purported to be.
Fuck! I knew The House’s anonymity was too good to be true.
“C’mon guys. Time to—”
“That’s so cool that you’re gonna be famous!” Connor says as he starts walking down the hall.
I start to correct him when Shane does it for me, with a playful shove to his shoulder. “No she’s not, dickweed! Colton’s the one who’s famous. Don’t you know anything?”
“Hey! Clean it up!” I shout after them.
* * *
“Thanks for picking me up.”
“Not a problem,” Haddie says as she guns the motor when the light turns green. “It was kind of fun teasing the photographers, although I don’t think any of them believed me when I said you were hiding away inside the house.”
I groan. It’s taken a while to get used to photographers milling about the house, but now I fear that the few I’m used to will turn into a whole yard full. “Dare I ask?”
Haddie looks over at me and just flashes her devil-may-care grin. “Nope, you may not because we’re not thinking about it … or Colton … or me … absofuckinglutely nothing of any significance.”
“We’re not?” I look over at her and can’t help but smile, can’t help but be happy she was available to pick me up from work to try and keep the vultures at bay.
“Nope!” she says as the tires squeal on a turn. “We’re gonna find a dark corner and drown our sorrows, and then we’re going to find a wicked hot beat to dance to until we can’t remember shit!”
I laugh with her, the idea sounding like Heaven. A moment to escape from the thoughts constantly running through my head and the heaviness in my heart. “What’s going on with you? What sorrows are you drowning?” And for a minute I’m sad we’ve been so busy over the past few weeks that I don’t know the answer to the question, when before I would never have had to ask.
She shrugs and is unusually quiet for a beat before she speaks. “Just some stuff with Lexy.” I’m about to ask what she’s talking about, because she and her sister are so close, but she beats me to the punch. “We’re not talking about anything that needs to be talked about, remember?”
“Sounds good!” I tell her as music springs to life in the car and we both start singing along.
* * *
I set my glass down with a clink, realizing my lips are a little bit numb. No, make that a lot numb. I watch Haddie smirk at the man across the bar and then turn her focus back on me, her smirk spreading into a full out grin. “He looks kinda like Stone,” she says with a shrug, and I’m glad my drink is empty or else I would have spit it out.
I don’t know why it’s so funny, because it really isn’t, but my head starts playing connect the dots with memories. Stone makes me think of Ace and Ace makes me think of Colton and the thought of Colton just makes me want … him. Everything about him.
“Uh-uh-uh,” Haddie says realizing what I’m thinking about. “Another round,” she says to the bartender. “Don’t think about him. You promised, Ry. No boys. No sadness. No penis perturbance allowed.”
“You’re right,” I tell her with a laugh, hoping she believes me even though I know I’m not being very convincing. “No penis perturbance allowed.” The waiter slides new glasses in front of us. “Thank you,” I murmur as I concentrate on stirring the ice with my straw instead of thinking of Colton and wondering what he’s doing, where his head is at. And I fail miserably. “I told him about Stone the other day.”
I’m surprised Haddie can hear me. My voice is so soft, but I know she does because she slaps her hand on the bar. “I knew you couldn’t do it!” she shouts, garnering the attention of the people around us. “I knew that no matter how much you’ve had to drink we’d end up there.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, twisting my lips. “I really am.” I focus back on my drink, upset over letting my friend down.
“Hey,” she says, rubbing a hand up my arm. “I can’t imagine … I’m sorry … I was just trying to shake the dick dominance and embrace our inner slut for a bit.” I arch an eyebrow at her smirk and just shake my head.
“Inner slut embraced,” I say, resting my head on her shoulder but not really feeling like it.
“So have you talked to him?” She asks.
“I thought we weren’t talking about dick dominating, penis perturbing men named Colton or Stone.” I snicker.
“Well,” she draws the word out. “Yours is damn hard not to talk about when he looks like that with his sexy swagger, come-fuck-me eyes, and all around holy hotness. Shit, the only reason to kick a man like him out of bed would be to fuck him on the floor.”
I start laughing, really laughing until all of a sudden the laughter has tears welling in my eyes and causes my lower lip to tremble. I hiccup back the sob and I immediately curse the alcohol—it has to be the alcohol’s fault—that I am suddenly sad and missing him like crazy.
Get a grip, Thomas! It’s been one frickin’ week. Man up. My internal pep talk fails because one day or ten days, it doesn’t matter. I miss him like crazy. Whatever the opposite of pussy whipped is, I’ve got it bad.
“And she finally lets it out,” Haddie says, putting her arm around my shoulders and pulling me into her side.
“Shut up!” I tell her but don’t mean it.
I mean I’m sitting in a bar on a Friday night with my best friend and I should be having a great time, but all I can think about is Colton. Is he okay? Has he taken the paternity test yet? Is he going to call me? Why hasn’t he called me? Is he thinking about me like I am him?
“So I’m gonna throw this out there because we both know that even though we’re sitting here together, Colton is figuratively between us. And as much as the idea might excite him …”
I finally give her the laugh she’s been working for. “Ugh! I hate this.”
“Then why don’t you call him?”
And therein lies the million dollar question.
“This whole thing with Tawny fucked him up. It’s dredging up shit from his past and as much as I want to be there—to call him—I won’t take the brunt of it. I called Becks to check on him, make sure he’s okay.” I shrug. “He said he did and that Colton’s still kind of fucked up. I want to talk to him,” I admit as she smooths a hand up my arm, “but I need to give him the space he asked for. He’ll call me when he gets his shit together.”
“Hmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that phrase before?” she teases and I just shrug.
“A very wise woman said it, I believe.”
“Very wise indeed,” she laughs, rolling her eyes and clinking her glass to mine. “And being as I am that woman, may I offer you another tidbit of advice?”
“A Haddie-ism?”
“Yes, a Haddie-ism. I like that term.” She nods her head in approval as she takes another sip of her drink and smiles again at the guy across the bar. “I asked you once before if you thought Colton was worth it … and now that you have more time invested in it, do you still feel that way? Do you see the possibility of a future with him?”
“I love him, Had.” The answer is off of my tongue in a split second. No hesitation, no doubt, complete conviction.
She stares at me a second and I can tell that beneath the surface she is gauging my reaction, trying to figure out the whole picture and a little surprised at my all in response. “Do you love him because he’s the first guy since Max or because he’s the one you choose? Not because you want to fix him, because we both know you like the damaged souls, but because you choose the him he is now and the him he’ll be five years from now?”
I don’t answer her, not because I don’t know the answer, but because I can’t form the words over the lump that’s strangling them in my throat. And she can see my answer, knows the person I am enough to know how I feel.
“And if the baby is his?”
I find my voice. “Geez … you’re really hitting with the hard questions tonight. I thought tonight was supposed to be thinking about absofuckinglutely nothing? I thought there was a Haddie-ism in here somewhere?” And it’s not like I haven’t asked myself these questions, but hearing her say them makes it all seem so real.
Because sometimes baggage can be a powerful thing and love just isn’t enough to overcome it.
“I’m getting there,” she says, pushing my drink toward me. “But this is important because my bestie is hurting so take a drink and answer the question.”
I take a sip and can’t fight my resigned smile. “It’s not if the baby’s his that’s the problem … it’s his reaction that scares me.” And for the first time, I’m actually admitting aloud what I fear the most. “What if he is the father and he can’t handle it? How can I love a man that can’t love his own child regardless of who the mother is? Writing a check to buy her off and acting as if a child doesn’t exist? What if that’s the option he chooses? How could I spend the night in the bed of a man who writes his own child off and then go to work in a houseful of boys who had the very same thing happened to them? What kind of hypocrite would that make me?”
And there. It’s out there. My biggest fear, I’m in love with a man that will walk away from his own child. That I’ll have to walk away from the man I love because he can’t face his own demons, can’t accept the fact that he can be the man his child would need him to be. Compromising choices, preferences, and wants to be in a relationship are one thing, compromising who you are—the things ingrained in you, your beliefs, and your morals—are non-negotiable.
I sigh and just shake my head. “What happens then, Haddie? What if that’s the choice he makes?”
“Well...” she reaches out and squeezes my hand “...there are no answers yet so it’s a moot point right now. Secondly, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt … he was shocked, upset, pissed off the other day when she blindsided him … but he’s a good person. Look how he is with the boys.”
“I know, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see how he reacted when—”
“You know what I say?” she says, cutting me off and raising the two shots of tequila that have been sitting untouched on the bar in front of us. I look at her, trying to figure out why all of a sudden she wants to toast mid-heart to heart talk, but I raise my shot glass. “I say, never look down on a man unless he’s between your legs.”
I choke on the simple breath of air I’m drawing in. I should be used to her by now, I really should, but she continually surprises me and makes me love her that much more. When I stop laughing I look up at her. “One for luck …”
“And one for courage,” she finishes as we toss the alcohol back.
I welcome the burn, welcome the here and now with my best friend, and when I wrap my head around what the hell she’s just said, I look over at her out of the corner of my eye. “Unless he’s between your legs, huh? Is that an old family adage? One passed down from generation to generation?”
“Yep,” she says, twisting her lips, fighting the smile I know that’s coming. “Never disturb a man when he’s eating at the Y.”
“Haddie,” I laugh. “Seriously?”
“I can keep going all night long, sister!” She clinks her glass with mine again, my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard. “And here’s another one. When your best friend is sad? It’s your job to get her shitfaced and go dancing.”
“Well,” I say, sliding off of the barstool and taking a minute to let the room stop spinning, “I think that’s a fucking perfect idea!”
Haddie squares up our tab and calls for a cab as we clumsily walk to the front door. And I talk myself out of making her take me to Colton’s house because right now, I just really want Colton—in the best way, in the worst way—in all ways.
“C’mon, we’re good to go. Three hours in a bar is way too long,” she says as she puts her arm around me and helps me walk respectably to the exit.
And as we clear the bar’s door, the darkened night sky explodes into an electrifying barrage of blinding camera flashes and shouts.
“How does it feel being known as the home wrecker?”
“Don’t you have any remorse coming between Colton and Tawny?”
“Isn’t it hypocritical that you tried to make Colton abandon his baby when that’s what you do for a living?”
And they keep coming at me. One after another after another. I feel trapped as Haddie tries to guide me through the congestion of cameras and microphones and flashes and contempt.
I guess the press has found me.
CHAPTER 21
Colton
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I fight the urge to smash something. That urge driving my every fucking emotion, the one that makes me crave the sound of destruction. The sound of my fucking life imploding.
My mind pushes out the images flashing through it from the past couple of days.
Blood draws and DNA markers and goddamn paternity tests.
Tawny and her bullshit lies and crocodile tears the fucking vultures are eating up like fresh meat.
Visiting with Jack and Jim and getting so sick of looking at my life through the bottom of an empty glass, I just choose to drink straight from the goddamn bottle.
And then there is Rylee.
Motherfucking Rylee.
Little pieces of her everywhere. Sheets that still smell like her. A ponytail holder on the bathroom counter. The cans of her beloved Diet Coke lined perfectly in the refrigerator. Her Kindle on the nightstand. The strands of her hair on my shirt. Evidence that her perfection exists. Evidence that something so good—so pure—actually can want someone like me—tainted and fucked up with a capital F.
I want, need, hate that I want, hate that I need her so fucking bad, but I can’t do it. I can’t pull her into this fucking rainstorm of bullshit surrounding me, don’t want her to deal with the fucked up me that even I hate until I can wrap my head around everything. Until I can control the emotions that are ruling my actions.
Until I get a negative on the DNA match.
My mom was fucking right. Fucking right and she only knew me for eight of my thirty two years … if that doesn’t say something, I’m not sure what else does. I can’t be loved. If someone loves me—if I let someone in too much—my own demons will start in on them too. Work their way through the cracks in me and find a way to ruin them.
“Colton, are you there?”
I pull myself from my thoughts—the same goddamn ones that have been running like a hamster on the wheel through the shit in my head over the past week. “Yeah,” I reply to my publicist. “I’m here, Chase.” I push the rags on the table in front of me away, but it doesn’t matter if I throw them in the trash or set a match to the fuckers because the image of Rylee coming out of that bar is still burned in my brain. Shocked eyes, parted lips, and an all-around look of being overwhelmed from the maelstrom that hit her when she left.
And it fucking kills me! Rips me apart that my bullshit—being with me—caused that look on her face. The fear in her eyes. All I want to do is be the one with her, my arm around her, but I’m not. I can’t because I don’t have the words or actions to make it better. To make it go away. To protect her.
“This is fucking bullshit and you know it.”
I hear my publicist sigh on the other end of the line. She knows I’m pissed, knows no matter what she says I’m not going to be happy unless she tells me to find the bastards that are harassing Ry, and let loose my need to destroy. “Colton, in light of Tawny’s accusations, it’s best that you do nothing. If you react, your public image—”
“I don’t give two fucks about my public image!”
“Oh believe me, I know,” she sighs. “But if you react the press eats it up and then the longer they hang around to see you screw up or lose it. That means the longer they hang around Rylee …”
Fuck all if she’s not right. But shit, what I wouldn’t give to walk outside the gates and give them my two cents worth. “One of these days, Chase,” I tell her.
“I know, I know.”
I toss my phone on the couch across from me and scrub my hands over my face, before sinking back in the couch and closing my eyes. What the hell am I going to do? And since when do I give a shit?
What the hell happened to me? I went from not giving a fuck about anything or anyone to missing Rylee and wanting to see the boys. Strings and shit. Fuck me.
A voice thanking my housekeeper, Grace, brings me back to the present from the fucking unicorns and rainbow shit that doesn’t belong in my thoughts. Shit that’s associated with pussies and whipped assholes. Shit that has no place in my head mixed with the other poison living there.
I wait a second. I know he’s there, watching me, trying to figure out my current state of mind, but doesn’t say anything. I crack open an eye and see him leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest and concern filling his eyes.
“You just gonna stand there and watch me or are you going to come in and pass judgment on me face-to-face?”
He stares at me a beat more and I swear to God I hate this feeling. I hate knowing that along with every other fucking person on the long and distinguished list, I am letting him down too. “No judgment, son,” he says as he makes his way into the room and sits on the couch across from me.
I can’t bring my eyes to meet his and thank Christ for fucking Grace or this place would be a disaster, and he’d really know how much this whole Tawny situation has fucked me up. I draw in a deep breath wishing I had a beer right now. Might as well get this party started, right? “Lay it on me, Dad, because I sure as shit know you’re not here to just say hi.”
He sits silent for a bit longer and I can’t fucking stand it. I finally look at him. He meets my gaze, gray eyes contemplating what to say as he twists his lips in thought. “Well, I can honestly say I stopped by to see how you were doing in the midst of all of this,” he says, waving his hand in the air with indifference, “but it’s pretty obvious since you’re in such a shitty mood.” He leans back in the chair and props his feet up on the coffee table and just stares. Shit, he’s making himself comfortable. “You gonna talk, son, or are we going to sit and stare at each other all night? Because I’ve got all the time in the world.” He looks at his watch and then back up to me.
Fuck! I don’t want to talk about this shit. I don’t want to talk about babies and gold digging women and little boys I miss and a woman I can’t stop thinking about. “Fuck, I don’t know.”
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that, Colton.”
“Like what? That I fucked up? Is that what you want to hear?” I goad him to react. And it feels good to push someone for a change. Everyone else has been walking around me, treating me with kid gloves this past week afraid of my temper snapping, so it feels good even if I’m going to feel like fucking shit later for doing it to my dad. “You want me to tell you I fucked Tawny and now I’m getting what I deserve because I dumped her like a hot fucking coal and now she’s coming after me saying she’s pregnant? That I don’t want a kid—will not have a kid—with her or anyone else? Ever. Because I refuse to let someone use a child as a pawn to get what they want from me. Because how the fuck can someone like me be a father to a kid when I’m just as fucked up now as I was when you found me?”
I shove up off of the couch and start pacing the room. I’m annoyed with him that he hasn’t taken the bait—hasn’t pushed back and given me the fight I’m itching for—and is just sitting there with that look of complete acceptance and understanding. Pacification. I want him to tell me he hates me, that he’s disappointed in me, that I deserve all that I’m getting right now because that is so much fucking easier for me to hold on to and believe than the opposite.
“And what does Rylee think of all of this?”
I stop and turn to look at him. What? I didn’t expect that to come out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“I asked, what does Rylee think about all of this?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes questioning me beneath arched brows.
“Fuck if I know.” I grunt and my dad shakes his head. God, I hate having to explain myself. But it’s my dad. My end game superhero, how can I not? “She was here when Tawny dropped the bomb. We got in a fight because I was taking everything out on her, being an inconsiderate ass. Bitching about a baby I don’t want when she can’t have one. I was in stellar form,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “We agreed to a few days apart to get our heads straight again. Get my shit together.”
“And you haven’t talked to her since?”
“What is this, Dad? Twenty fucking questions? Does it look like I have my shit figured out yet?” I snort out a derisive laugh. One step forward and then fucking twenty steps backwards. “Is Tawny still fucking pregnant? Have the test results come back yet? Yes, and a big fucking no … So no, I haven’t called her back yet. Chalk it up to just another thing for you to hold against me.”
He just stares at me. “Is that what I’m doing? Holding your shit against you? Because it looks like you’re doing a damn fine job of it yourself, son. So let me ask you the question you should be asking yourself: Why haven’t you pulled your head out of your ass and called her?”
I blow out a loud breath. Fuckin’ A. “I don’t want to go there right now, Dad.” Just go away. Let me down the next bottle of Jack while the clock ticks for the doctors to take their sweet ass time to decide if I’ve just fucked up the life of an unborn child. Because if the kid’s mine, fuck, he’s already starting off with a tainted soul and that—that’s something I can’t have on my conscience.”
“Well I do want to go there, so pull up a chair to your own pity party, Colton, because I’m not leaving until we finish talking. Understood?”
My mouth falls open, and I’m transported back to fifteen years ago and my one night in custody for drag racing. To that moment in time when he picked me up, raked me over the proverbial motherfucking coals, and told me how it was going to be from there on out. Fuck me. I’ve got chest hair and houses and shit now, but he can still make me feel like a teenager.
Anger flashes through me. I don’t need a fucking shrink right now, I need a negative fucking blood test. And Rylee wrapped around me with a soft sigh falling from her lips as I sink into her. The ultimate pleasure to bury all of this bullshit pain.
“So,” he says, pulling me back to him instead of thoughts of her. “You’re seriously going to let her go without a fight? Let her walk out of your life because of Tawny?”
“She’s not walking away!” I shout at him, upset that he would even think she would. Would she?
He just quirks an eyebrow. “Exactly.” My eyes snap up to meet his. “So quit treating her like she did. She’s not your mother.”
I want to scream at him that I fucking know she’s not. To not even put her in the same sentence as my mother, but instead I play with the seam on the couch as I search for the answer I think he wants to hear. That I’m trying to convince myself is the truth. “She doesn’t deserve this … the shit that comes with me. My past … now my possible fucking future.”
He makes a hum in his throat, and I hate it because I can’t figure out what it means. “Isn’t that up to her to decide, Colton? I mean you’re making decisions for her … shouldn’t she get a say?”
Shut up, I want to tell him. Don’t remind me what the fuck she deserves because I already know. I already fucking know! And I know because I can’t give it to her. I thought I could … thought I might be able to and now with this, I know I can’t. It’s reinforced all of the things she said … all of the things I’ll never be able to cleanse from my fucking soul.
“You say she’s not going to leave you when things get tough, son, but your actions are telling me something completely different. And yet you didn’t see her fighting for you every damn day you lay in that hospital bed. Every damn day. Never leaving. So that leads me to believe this little dilemma you have here isn’t about her at all.”
Every part of me revolts against the words he says. The words that said by anyone else would have me ready to rage, but respect has me holding back from yelling at the man who’s words are hitting a little too close to home.
“It’s about you.” The quiet resolve in his voice floats out in the room and slaps me in the face. Taunts me to take the bait, and I can’t hold back anymore.
And I don’t want to do this any more than I want to spend another night without Rylee in my bed. Looking too close causes dead ghosts to float to the goddamn surface, and I don’t have any more room for ghosts because my closet’s already full of fucking skeletons.
But the match is lit, gasoline thrown. Fire inside fucking ignited and all of the frustration and uncertainty and loneliness from the past week comes to a head, explodes inside of me. I wear a hole in the goddamn floor pacing as I try to fight it, try to rein it in, but it’s no use.
“Look at me, Dad!” I shout at him while he perches on the couch. I hold my hands out to my side, and I hate myself for the break in my voice, hate myself for the unanticipated show of weakness. “Look what she did to me!” And I don’t have to explain who she is because the contempt dripping from my voice explains enough.
I stand there arms out, blood pumping, temper raging, and he just sits there, calm as can fucking be and smirks—fucking smirks—at me. “I am, son. I look at you every day and think what an incredible person you are.”
