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I have been a prisoner to fear for so long. Fear of disappointing him, fear of hearing his harsh words and tone like I’m one of his cadets who has just screwed up. Fear of any minor imperfection, anything less than excellence.
I feel sick.
“Do what? What are you talking about?”
The Major General is many things, but stupid is not one of them. It infuriates me all the more that he’s going to play dumb now, treat me as if I am dumb. “You know exactly what. You and Mom have made me feel stupid for the last time. How could you?”
He pauses, “He told you.”
“He told me everything,” I lie. I know there’s more. The letters prove it.
“I only want what’s best for you, you know that.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re lying. You and Mom are nothing but filthy, manipulative liars! For six years, you watched me suffer for nothing!”
“You will watch your tone, Emily Walker,” he barks. “It wasn’t for nothing, Cole had good reasons for leaving. I have good reasons for wanting him to stay away from you. That’s the end of it.”
I leap up from my bed, my fists balled. So help me, if he were in front of me, I would pummel my fists into his face. “The end of it? Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t get to decide…”
“I am your father, and you will talk to me with the respect I deserve!” There is no longer any ‘Dad’ on this call, I know. There is only the Major General present now.
“Respect is earned, DAD, and you don’t deserve any of it! You or Mom, I hate you both!”
“You will not hate your mother over this. It isn’t her fault. You hate me if you need to, not her,” his voice drops an octave.
“Why? What the hell are you talking about? What is wrong with both of you?” My whole body is shaking, I don’t know if I’m going to throw up or explode.
“You should come home,” he huffs, and I can picture him in his uniform, hands on his hips, issuing commands. “We’ll talk all of this through.”
“I am home. This is my home.”
“Your home is with your mother and I. You’ve graduated, and it’s time to come back now. We’ll work all of this out.”
I laugh, maniacally, “I don’t have a home with you. I’m a grown woman, for starters. I don’t even know where you might be living this month. Are you still in Delaware, or have you uprooted everyone yet again?”
“Don’t be such a child.”
The words ‘fuck you’ hover over my tongue, but something deep inside of me won’t let them come out. Years of conditioning, I’m sure. “I’m not coming back home, ever. You and Mom are dead to me,” I say instead.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll come there, then. I can get some time off in the next month or two, I’m sure.”
“Oh, how nice of you to prioritize me in the next month or two, Daddy. It’s really all you can do, given the fact that you’ve ruined my life.” I have never called the Major General ‘Daddy’ in all of my years, but it seemed especially hurtful, and I want him to hurt right now, hurt as much as I do.
“No one has ruined your life except that degenerate boy,” the loathing in his voice makes my skin crawl.
At that moment, I wish I had no self-respect at all. I wish I was the kind of person who would use Cole because I would run right back to him just to piss off my father at this point.
I’d marry him and get knocked up just to spite him. Have a million goddamn Ballentine babies and ram them down his throat.
They’re utterly ridiculous thoughts, and I know it. They’re born of panic and rage and the insatiable need for revenge. But I’m not impulsive or stupid, no matter how much they all want me to feel like it.
I won’t let them manipulate me anymore.
And I never used Cole, never.
“You will not contact him, or me, ever again. Do you understand me, DAD?”
He chuffs, like I’m nothing. Like I’m silly, frivolous, stupid. “On what planet do you think you live? You don’t issue commands to me.”
