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“Come on now.”
“Yes. Yes,” I say before finally putting one knee to the ground. A soft laugh comes from her and my eyes snap up to hers. She bites her lower lip before shaking her head like she can’t believe what’s happening.
When I put my other knee on the ground in total defeat, she walks towards me.
“I can’t believe you just did that.” She laughs, before patting my head like I’m a sweet little boy, and then she’s gone.
“Hey,” I yell after her, “what about your apology?” She turns her head, already a few feet away from me.
“You on your knees is more than enough.” Her laugh echoes through the street as she continues to walk away.
“Fuck.” I chuckle, running my hand through my hair. I shake my head at how ridiculous this situation is.
I turn around and walk towards my house for a shower before I go to work. A place I learnt to love because it’s where I truly got to know my father and where we bonded for the first time all those years ago. And as I walk inside my house, I realise I still have a smile on my face out of pure amusement.
Chapter Ten
Chester
14 years old
My hands form fists, and I grit my teeth when my dad pushes the button to close the lift’s doors. I shake my head, trying to understand why he thinks it’s a good idea to show me around his office for the first time ever, after the fight he had with Mum this morning. It’s not going to cure anything. It actually does the opposite. It makes me even angrier because it shows me, once again, that Dad prioritises work over his own family.
The lift travels up to the top floor of my dad’s office, but he still doesn’t address how ugly this morning was. The things they said to each other were vile and cruel. They yelled. They screamed, while I stood there, waiting to have breakfast. Now, I can barely look at him without feeling the need to yell at him too.
“Why did you call her that?” I break the silence in the lift. My fists clench and unclench; I’m incapable of calming down. I’m enraged, and that feeling consumes me, making every breath stilted.
I scoff when he doesn’t respond.
“Answer me,” I demand, and my voice trembles with anger. Dad turns his head over his shoulder and frowns.
“Chester?” he asks with his eyebrows dipping low and his mouth slightly open as if he has no idea why I’m so angry because, to him, it’s normal, but I still wish they’d become a happy, loving couple.
“Why did you call her that?” I repeat, trying to understand why he dared to call my mother a bitch.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you did.”
“I did,” he confesses and winces slightly. “I’m sorry you heard it.”
He can apologise to me, but never to Mum. But she doesn’t apologise either. They just wait for a new argument to start and creatively invent a litany of differing insults.
And I have to listen every single time.
“Nothing I’m not used to,” I whisper, hating how bitter I sound as my dad, Arthur, looks over his shoulder once more. Concern is reflected in his eyes, indicating that this stoic man does, indeed, possess some form of pain for the things happening at home.
“I’m sorry, Chester. I’m a failure as a father.” His honesty is a shock to my system and I’m taken aback by his words. I don’t dare to agree, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I do, because he is.
He’s never home. I barely know him, and when I finally get the opportunity to talk to him because he’s home for once, all my parents do is fight. They yell and scream until one of them escapes the toxic scene.
It has been like that for fourteen years now. I don’t remember a time when they were happy or in love. It seems like, from the beginning, that was always missing in their marriage.
“I wasn’t meant to be a family man.” What bullshit. I definitely don’t want to hear his excuses as to why he’s failing.
“But you have a family.”
“I’ll regret not being what you need until the day I die, Chester.” The lift opens, and with a sad smile, he turns around and walks out.
