AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But all that bullshit’s been about you though,” he says, looking at me pointedly.
“Which is the only reason I haven’t made the news again.”
At this, he surprises me with a small smile. “Thank fucking God for that, huh.”
“I’m —”
“Do you know what our father’s problem was?” he asks me abruptly.
“What?”
He takes another sip of his whiskey and then stares down at the glass. “Apart from alcohol.”
I’m not sure why we’re talking about this but I reply nonetheless, “Women.”
Which is true.
Our dad liked to sleep around. In addition to drinking his days away and blaming all his misfortunes on his wife and his children, that for the record, he never had a problem making.
“Christ,” he mutters. “Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Well, he had a laundry list of problems. Not your fault.”
He chuckles lightly. “Yeah, he did.”
“Why are we talking about him?”
His jaw clenches for a second as he regards the dark liquid pensively. Then, “Because I fucked up.”
My brows bunch together. “Fucked up how?”
Finally he turns to me, his face etched in determination and believe it or not, remorse. It instantly puts me on edge. Because I guess now we’re coming down to the real reason why he showed up to see me at the bar tonight.
“I hated our father,” he says in a low but fierce voice. “I hated him so fucking much that I was glad when he left. I was glad that it was going to be just us, Mom and me and all of you guys. Sure, it was a big responsibility but I would’ve gladly taken it. I did gladly take it.” Then, “Even though I started resenting a lot of it as years passed. But that’s not the point. The reason I hated our father so much wasn’t because he slept around or woke up in his own vomit more often than not. I hated him because of what he did to Mom. Physically.”
“What?”
His jaw clenches again, this time I know in anger, as he says, “He had a temper. And it was mean and it was cruel, and he liked to take it out on Mom, sometimes me. I don’t like to think about it. I don’t like to… revisit it, even in my head. But he did. And when you guys came along, I did everything that I could to shield you guys from that and I’m happy to say that you guys never saw it. Maybe Stellan here and there, even Shep, but mostly I did everything I could to run interference. And you know what, there are days when I’d feel proud about that. That I protected you guys, my family, against a monster. But apparently, I didn’t. There’s one person I didn’t protect from him, all the bullshit, and that’s you.”
There’s a buzz in my body.
The same one that I’ve felt for as long as I can remember.
The army of red ants crawling under my skin, making it tight and itchy. Making me want to scratch it, break something, wreak havoc. And if I don’t get a handle on it, it’s going to paint the world red and make me wreak havoc.
Make me vomit and split me down the middle.
Is that why?
Is that why I feel this incessant agitation? Is that why I’m always ready to burn down the world and blow it apart?
Is that why I tricked her into signing those papers and is that why I feel so unhinged and jealous any time I think about her leaving me and running into someone else’s arms?
Because of genetics, because of our piece of shit father.
Regret is swimming in my brother’s eyes as he continues, “He may not have touched you but I made sure that you felt the impact of it. I made sure that you suffered the consequences, you felt the sting, the pain. And the only pathetic excuse I have is that I put you in the same category as him. I lumped you together with him. I…” He swallows thickly. “Every time I’d get a phone call from your school or someone knocked at the door to complain about their crying kid because you punched them on the playground or their ruined rose bushes because you ran them over with your bike, I’d be reminded of how our father was. I’d be reminded of what he’d do and how there were days when we’d be terrified of him and I… I was hard on you, Ledger. I was critical of you. I judged you before you even knew what that word meant. And I thought I was doing it for your own good. I thought I was doing it so you didn’t end up like him, so you didn’t become the monster that our father was. And I guess I was so blinded by that, so fucking tunnel-visioned that I never saw all the differences between you and him.
