I continue down the hallway until it opens to a cavernous space, where I find my mother on the couch sipping from a glass. Her hair is down from its updo earlier, with my father sitting opposite her, sans suit jacket, taking up space in the chair, his hand around yet another glass of scotch. The look of disdain is evident on his face.
“Yeah, just leaving,” I sigh, ignoring the imploring looks from my father. His deep stare almost cuts into the side of my face. A mask of indifference slips onto mine.My armor is ready for battle.
“Oh honey, come sit. I feel like we haven’t gotten to talk much tonight. I want to know how school is. And is Averystill here? What are you wearing?” my mother asks excitedly.
I linger in the doorway, playing with the rings on my fingers as the anger rises yet again.As if it was my fault that we barely spoke tonight.The party took all their attention and I was thrown to the side again. The hours I’ve been missing are empty from their minds, as if we spoke only minutes ago. The fact that they didn’t call to check on me speaks volumes.
“I spilled on myself,” I answer wearily, trying to keep the anger from my voice. The flames of frustration rise higher the longer I stand here opposite them. My parents are completely unaware of their actions, or how their lack of concern for my absence in the last few hours feels like a mirror for the last twenty-three years of my life. I let the angry little kid in me come forward as he begs his parents to see him, to give a fuck. That sad little boy with a crushing loneliness—his lifetime companion—who was abandoned by two people he saw every single day.
“Sit, Kane,” my father demands with his low but powerful voice, the tone made to leave no room for argument as he commands me the way he does his boardroom.
“No,” I say, my tone cutting. The anger seeps into my pores and takes over my body from the inside. The fire rages within me, ready to be released.
I study my father, or the person who claims to be one, because his actions have never shown him to be. This man who was supposed to play catch with me after work. The one who was supposed to be at my football games, cheering from the sidelines. The same man who was supposed to teach me about sex, the one I was supposed to run to with my first crush. The man I was supposed to be able to cometo for advice on how to fix how badly I fucked up with the love of my life.
Instead, I got a man who was always disappointed, who showed no emotions unless he was berating me. The man who saw a seven-year-old cry about a bruised knee and told me if I was this pathetic, how was I ever supposed to make it in the world? The very same father who saw my tears as an inconvenience. The emotions of a fragile kid being too much to deal with.
I tug on my shirt and push my hair back. “I’m leaving.”
My father slams his glass down on the table with force, some of it spilling over the side. “I said?—”
My mother flinches with his tone.
“No!” I yell, my hands flying out in front of me, cutting my father off in a move I have never done before. “I’m done. I’m done with you two. I don’t care anymore. Cut me off. I don’t need your money anymore. I have my trust. Nothing is worth this anymore. So don’t pretend to care now. Don’t pretend that I owe you my time when I have been here all night, and this is the first time you can be bothered to talk to me about just me,” I lash out, my chest rising and falling with pants.
The surprise at my abnormal outburst is clear across my parents’ faces. I turn around, and my legs eat up the distance until I’ve reached the grand entrance. When I hear my mother’s heels clicking against the marble floor, the sound gets louder as she hurries after me.
“Kane, wait, what? Where is all this coming from?” my mother begs to my back, stopping a few feet from me. The sound of my father’s steps slow as well. Disbelief courses through me as they chase after me. I keep my back turned and let out a few breaths as I comb through my thoughts, letting the black edges of panic recede a bit from my vision.
I turn to the two people who were supposed to love me unconditionally yet only loved me when it was convenient for them, if their behavior is what can even be considered love. Parents who have never made me feel that just being me was enough. The two people who were supposed to acceptme, not the mold they wanted me to fit.
My mother’s appearance is frazzled for her, her hair pushed back a bit as if she ran her hands through it too many times, the edges sticking out in all directions. Even my father’s normally stern features seem to soften slightly with confusion. Neither of them speaks as they stare at me.
I take a moment to take it all in. My eyes roam this house, the marble floors that lead up to the staircase to my room. The heavy feeling, still present, that I felt when we moved in. They trace over the opposite wings that made the distance between me and them almost poetic. Me on one side and them on the other—a metaphor for how our lives have been since I was born.
I steel my spine and look at them. “Am I ever going to be enough for you?” I whisper, my voice cracking on the last word. Devastation immediately washes over my mother’s features. She takes a small step toward me, but my body instantly retreats a step back. She notices and stops her advance. Her hands come up to her face, but I don’t let myself look at my father. I can’t bear to see his reaction to me ripping my soul to shreds right in front of them.
“Of course you are. What makes you say that?” my mother worries.
I laugh sardonically, the sound ripping out of me. I glance at my father, the tightening of his eyes clear. Yet he hasn’t spoken a word.
“Am I? Because every time I come back, I’m reminded that I am constantly a disappointment to him.” I gesture tomy father. “Nothing I do is enough because it’s not what he wants. I’m finding who I am in this world without you both. I’m forging my own path, and that still isn’t enough for you. Fuck the family business. I never wanted it. I appreciate everything it has given me, but that was never my dream,” I pant, looking back to my mother. “There were so many things I wanted, but most of all, I wanted you both to give a shit. I wanted a mother who stood up for me instead of letting a little kid take the brunt of his anger. I wanted a mother who left the first time he cheated. Ineededa mother to hold me when I cried at night because our driver was the only one who showed up to my flag football games, both of you off doing everything but being my fucking parents.”
By the time I finish, tears stream down my face. I let them fall, not bothering to wipe them away. It’s time I finally see what they’ve done to me.
I’m not some lost little kid anymore who is too scared to get smacked around. I’m someone who has been broken down by life, who has given everything for the people in front of me to really see me. To see me for who I am despite what they did to me.
Most people think abuse can only be seen from the outside, but the real damage happens on the inside. The way you’re slowly infected with it until it invades every aspect of who you are. When you’ve been so emotionally neglected your whole life, you’re not even sure what emotions you possess anymore.
Parents who made it so impossible for me to stop the one good thing I ever had from walking away from me. Those words she so desperately needed from me, I couldn’t find them. The chaos in my head was always too much against the emotions battling me. They laid the foundation that has cracked. I’m just now going through and repairingall the gaps, watching as slowly each piece becomes whole in my mind.
“You wonder why you never see me, yet where are you? When do you text me just to ask how I am? Where are the phone calls? You ask where I am—where the fuck have you been my entire life?” I demand, slowly breaking apart, unable to hold back. “Where the fuck were you when my world was falling apart, losing the love of my life and I don’t even know why? I’ve had to pull myself off the ground and fix myself. You want to point the finger at me for the state of our relationships when you should look into a fucking mirror. When you’re both alone in the big fucking house surrounded by all this shit that was always more important to you than me and wondering where the fuck I am, it won’t be anywhere near you.” I stare at my father as I sneer this, a look of genuine hurt streaking across his face.
I push myself through the tears. “Thank you for showing me exactly what not to do when I have kids one day. Thank you for showing me what type of parent I don’t want to be. My kids will never feel the way you two have made me feel. I had great memories of us, but they’re so tainted by all the bad that it’s as if they were never there. I’m done being a disappointment to you. I have someone I’ve never had to beg to love me. A person who has seen every version of me and still wants me.Wantedme. And I’m going to do what it takes to get her back, because when someone loves you in the way you’ve craved your entire life, you don’t let that go. Fuck if I won’t get on my hands and knees begging for a sliver of her attention again until I bleed,” I profess to my father.
The house is silent, except for the faint sound of the large grandfather clock ticking in the background and our three breaths mingling. The anger slowly recedes until thenumbness creeps in. I take another long look at my parents, feeling nothing as I stare back at the two people who have disappointed me more than I could ever have disappointed them, and turn to walk out. I let the words linger between us, feeling the finality in them.
I get into my truck and throw it into drive. The roads pass me by, but I’m not really seeing them, driving on autopilot.
