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ETIENNE
If I could kill the man, I would.
How Jenna tolerated Jeffery, I didn’t know.
What I did know was that if he spouted off like that again, I might very well murder him for real.
The look on Matilda’s face as Jeffery had said that to her… I’d never forget it.
“What do you think of this fish?” Conrad held the fish out to Matilda.
She reached out and touched it’s belly, just like she had with every single one that Conrad had held out to her, and said, “That one doesn’t feel as slimy. I think maybe that’s because it’s a bass and not a catfish.”
“Probably.” He looked at her. “Though, shouldn’t you know that if you’re a veterinarian?”
She smiled. “Fish weren’t my favorite part of school. To be honest, that was just a very small part of schooling. We focused more on domestic animals. Though, there are special classes we could take if we wanted to go into that part of it.”
“Interesting,” Conrad released the fish, then looked at me. “I’m two ahead of you. Better get on it.”
I smirked at him as I watched my bobber dance in the pond.
Once upon a time, this pond had been my sanctuary.
Then my parents gave the house to Jenna and Jeffery as a wedding present, and I couldn’t stand to be here anymore. Jeffery was just that unlikable.
“My dad’s an asshole, you know.” Conrad looked over at Matilda. “He thinks that we’re stupid. We’re not. We’re just different.”
I felt my heart lighten.
I didn’t know how many times I’d said that to the boy, but it was good to hear that he’d finally taken it to heart. That he was now recreating what I said, and helping someone else with it.
Someone that I was suspecting was going to mean a whole lot to me if I played my cards right…
“I know,” she promised. “It’s just… sometimes, people can say exactly what you’re thinking, and your mind likes to play tricks on you. Hear it enough, and then you start to wonder if it’s actually true.”
“My brother-in-law makes an art out of making people miserable,” I admitted. “I remember the first time I met him. He didn’t know who I was at the time. I was dressed much like this, in a bar, where I was meeting him for the first time. My sister chose the bar because it was close to my work. Not because she liked the place, but she knew it was convenient for me seeing as I worked twelve-to-fourteen-hour days at the time. I’d just gotten done with work, was in dusty, drywall-covered pants, boots and a t-shirt. It was in my hair and in my eyes. In the creases of my face. Hell, you named a place, that’s where it was. I was that dirty.” I lifted my fishing pole slightly, then reeled some of the slack in. “Anyway, I’d just gotten my beer, took a seat, and was nursing it when he walked in without my sister. He walked right up to the bar, looked at it as if it grossed him out, then refused to touch it as he ordered a fuckin’ pussy drink. He turns around with his glass of wine in his hand, then lays eyes on me.”
“Are you sure he didn’t know who you were?” she asked, yanking her pole so hard that whatever fish might’ve been on the line was no more. Likely, she’d ripped the poor things’ lips right off. She rebaited her hook while I looked on with amusement.
“Not at first,” I admitted. “I was dirty. So the resemblance wasn’t apparent. Anyway, I wasn’t the only one in there that looked like shit. Where I’m from, you have a bunch of blue-collar workers. That night, I can remember a mechanic—covered in grease—there. A rancher that was covered in dust and shit, fresh from a cattle drive. A swamp tour guide, fresh from an all-day tour, covered in sweat and sun.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t the only one in there that looked rough. But his eyes zeroed in on me, and it was as if he’d decided to make me his target. To allow his superiority to lord over me as if he were better than me just because he was clean, and I wasn’t.”
“Dad was a complete dick to him,” Conrad offered. “Mom tells this story all the time, because she likes to point out that he’s a pretentious prick to people he perceives as beneath him.”
That actually surprised me.
My little Jenna, a.k.a. Genocide, definitely wasn’t my biggest fan. She wasn’t anyone’s biggest fan. She was in a perpetually bad mood, and took that out on the world around her. I wasn’t sure why, or how, or who had caused her to be a little shit, but regardless, she was.
“What did he do?” She yanked again, this time successfully hooking her fish.
