AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Maybe you’re right.”
“And if we could get Harper—”
“She’s busy,” I said, cutting him off.
“I know we shouldn't bother her right now, but I think she might be one of the only ones who can get through to him.”
“One of the only ones? Who else?”
“Well Dad, maybe. But that’s probably a lost cause.”
“Is it?”
“Hasn’t the complete lack of contact shown that?”
“Well, maybe if he knew one of his sons needed help.”
“Of all the people to have faith in Dad, Aiden, I’m surprised it would be you.”
“I don’t have faith in Dad, but I know how Jackson has always looked up to him. I think if we have an intervention, we should invite him.”
Nate was quiet for a long time. “What if he doesn’t come?”
“Well, at least we tried then,” I said.
The idea of speaking to my father again after four years filled me with dread, but I knew that someone needed to get through to Jackson. Someone needed to knock some sense into him. And the one person who could always do that was Dad.
“I’ll talk to Kat and Mom,” Nate said. “I can call Dad too, if you’d prefer.”
“No, I think I need to do this.” After everything we’d been through, part of me hoped getting closure from our father would help me to move on, as well. He might never acknowledge how he fucked me up, but seeing that he hadn’t broken me, well, that might be the best I could hope for.
I got off the phone with Nathan and stared at my dad’s number for a long time. I remembered the last time we spoke, after he and Mom had an argument, when she was kicking him out. I told him what I thought of him.
“You’re an asshole, Dad,” I said, as I stared at him, falling over drunk on the front porch. “You always have been, and always will be. You’ve let this family down for the last time.”
I had closed that door and never saw him again. I had thought I might not ever speak to him again either, but after everything my family had been through, I knew Jackson needed to heal. He needed closure more than any of us.
I pressed the call button and waited as it rang several times. I thought it might go to voicemail but finally, my dad’s gruff voice answered.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“It’s Aiden, Dad,” I said.
“Aiden?” I noted the surprise in his voice.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“I have things to do, so make it quick.”
“I want to talk to you about Jackson. He’s developed a drinking problem, and we are worried about him. You know I wouldn’t be speaking to you if I wasn’t genuinely concerned about him. He hasn’t been the same since the scandal and—”
“Sounds like he needs some therapy.”
“No, he needs his dad,” I said. “The family is getting together to talk to him, and we’d appreciate it if you could be there.”
“I’m not interested in talking to Jackson about his daddy issues. He’s a big boy, he can get over it himself,” my father said. “Meredith and I are in Tahiti at the moment, so I have to let you go.”
“What if I told you I had inside information on who leaked the photos?”
