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The dead deer that Dad killed.
I bent over and proceeded to throw up my breakfast and lunch, and probably some of last night’s dinner. I hated this. I hated hunting. I hated the deer for being stupid and not running fast enough. I hated Derek for being better than me. I hated Mom for not being home when Dad dragged me to the woods. I hated Dad for not liking me the way I was. I hated myself for letting him down.
Maybe I hated myself a little more than anything else.
* * *
“You shouldn’t have made him do that,” Mom scolded later at the house as I wrapped my arms around the top of the staircase. She and Dad stood in the living room pacing back and forth. They’d been fighting about me for the past hour. Mom had come home and found me crying into my pillow, and she’d embraced me tightly, telling me everything would be okay.
“It’s a damn shame that he’s like this! His brother shot his first deer when he was much younger than Jax!”
“But he’s not Jax,” she swore. “Jax is different. He’s sensitive.”
“He’s a sissy.”
“Don’t talk about my son like that,” she ordered with a very stern voice.
“Oh, so now he’s your son?” Dad shot back.
“He is when you treat him like this.” Mom’s voice cracked and she crossed her arms, looking down at the carpet. “You know what I mean, Cole.”
“No, I don’t think I do.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s funny, Derek isn’t even my son by blood, but he feels more like mine than my own damn kid.”
“Don’t say things like that. Plus, it’s different. Derek is way older than Jax. That’s not a fair comparison.”
Dad grumbled something I couldn’t hear then pushed his hands through his hair. “Unless you want to make him more of a bitch than he already is, let me handle raising the boy to be a boy. He’s a pussy because you keep babying him, Elizabeth. This is your doing.”
“I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to listen to you talk down about Jax because he doesn’t take up the same hobbies as you.”
“His head is always in a book! He cries over fucking fishing because he thinks the fish is being harmed! I mean, fuck, he cried during The Lion King last week because Mufasa fucking died! Boys don’t cry over The Lion King. He’s a weak little shit, and you’re lucky I’m here to man him up.”
“He doesn’t need to man up. He’s perfect the way he is.”
“No. He’s weak. You’re weakening him. Just watch—watch him never achieve anything because of your mothering. You’re ruining him.”
They kept fighting, and I felt awful about it. A knot settled in my stomach. I headed back to my bedroom and cried into my pillow some more.
“Stop crying, loser,” I sobbed to myself. “Just be a man.”
Mom and Dad fought more and more about me. They never fought about my older brother, maybe because he was more like Dad. Maybe it was because he was good at sports, maybe because he was strong.
Strong.
I wanted to be strong. I needed to be strong.
* * *
“You okay, sweetheart?” Mom asked, peering into my bedroom. It was already past my bedtime, but I couldn’t sleep. My head and heart hurt too much to sleep that night.
“He hates me,” I whispered.
Mom walked over to me and crawled into bed beside me. She wrapped her arms around my body and held me close to her. “Your father doesn’t hate you, Jax. He’s just…” She took a deep breath. “He was raised differently, that’s all. He thinks certain things make a person a man, but he’s wrong.”
“I’m not a man.”
“You’re right, you’re not.” She leaned forward and kissed my nose. “You’re a handsome boy who’s just learning about yourself, that’s all.”
“But I want to be strong like Dad and Derek. I want to be better than me.”
“Strong? Jax Kilter, you’re the strongest boy I know,” she promised, nuzzling her nose to mine. “You know what makes you strong?”
“What?”
“Your heartbeats. The way you love animals and don’t want anything bad to happen to them. The way you say please and thank you. The way you hold doors open for people. The way you laugh out loud when reading a funny book and reread the parts out loud so I can laugh, too. The way you share your favorite jokes with me. The way you love your mama.” She smiled. “You might be the strongest boy I’ve ever known, and one day you’re going to be the strongest man, too. Don’t let your father get to you. You’re not any less of a man just because you aren’t like him or your brother.”
I wanted to believe her, but it was hard.
“Do you know you’re my best friend, Jax?” she asked.
