Chapter Fourteen #2
Dad pauses, taking another long drag of his cigarette and looking me up and down in a way that’s designed to make me feel small.
“This is Silas?” he says at last, pointing with the cigarette.
I nod. “This is Silas. My boyfriend.”
I wince internally at how childish the word boyfriend sounds, but it’s too late to take it back. Partner? Whatever. None of them could ever sum up exactly how monumentally important Silas is to me, so why try?
“Hello,” Silas says; quiet behind me.
Silas and I are both braced for whatever he’s going to say next, but he continues to look at us instead, relaxed as all get out, drinking his fucking Gatorade.
“Alright,” he says, and I feel my jaw drop a little. “Is that all you came here to say?”
I freeze, losing the thread of what this is all supposed to be about.
Is that all I came here to say? He’s not being a homophobic dick, which I guess is a plus. But internally, I’m screaming for something I can’t really identify.
Say something, Dad.
Say anything.
Fucking care about me, even if it’s just to be angry.
I sniff, even though it’s a dry sound, and feel myself settle into a calm, uncaring facade.
“Yep, that’s it. So if you have anything shitty to say, now’s the chance to get it off your chest.”
Dad shrugs. He’s the picture of someone who couldn’t give two shits and is bored by this whole conversation, and I feel my gut cramp in response.
“I don’t care who you fuck,” he adds, flicking ash toward a battered old McDonalds ashtray my great uncle stole a million years ago. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
A flush of adrenaline hits me from out of nowhere, and I feel the room spinning. I ignore it, because if I let this man get to me when he’s not even trying, I really will be pathetic beyond all measure.
“Fine,” I spit. “As long as we’re not going to have a problem.”
Another lazy shrug, and he eyes me up and down casually.
“Ain’t no problem. But next time you want to have a temper tantrum you can keep me out of it. Don’t think I won’t teach you a lesson if you keep giving me attitude like this. I’ll still give you the belt, grown or not.”
I bristle, because it fucking irks the shit out of me when he talks to me like a little kid.
“Bitch please, I out-matured you in the fifth grade. Don’t act like you’ve ever been sober enough to give me the fucking belt.”
Silas, who has been a silent, stable presence behind me this whole time, squeezes my hip.
“Cade,” he whispers in my ear, a clear warning to calm my shit down.
It’s intimate, though. His warm breath on my ear, his chest pressed to my back, and the way Dad’s watching us while he does it is making me itchy. I feel exposed, even though his expression is relatively impassive. Like seeing his son get manhandled is no big deal.
The tension stretches out, until we’re interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open.
Mom is standing in the doorway, taking in the scene with an appraising eye.
“Cade,” she says. “Silas. What are you boys doing here?”
I want to spit back something pissy, but Silas squeezes me again in warning.
Fuck me. I don’t know why I agreed to this. I don’t know what Silas was hoping to achieve.
“What?” I ask him, turning around. “Seriously, what? Why are we here, if you don’t want me to fight with them?
Fighting is the only thing they understand.
Did you think I was just going to come here and come out to him and we’d all cry and hug or something?
I genuinely don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish here.
Every interaction I’ve had with this man in my life has pissed me off at best, and added a scar to my collection at worst. This was never going to be any different. ”
A small, petty part of me was hoping the spiteful words would land, but Silas looks as placid as ever.
“I thought you could talk,” he says, his voice hushed. “Maybe tell everyone what you’re so angry about.”
That makes me laugh. It’s a loud, braying sound that disturbs the tension filling the trailer, and everyone stares at me slightly wide-eyed.
“I’m not fucking angry,” I say, very aware that the venom in my voice says otherwise, but unwilling to lose any conversational ground right now.
“What could I possibly be angry about? He doesn’t even care.
We came, and we did the thing, and he knows now, and he doesn’t fucking care. It’s all fine. Let’s go.”
Dad finally contributes to the conversation by sighing loudly and flicking more ash off his cigarette.
“You’ve always been such a drama queen. Always making a big deal out of nothing.
I don’t want to hear you talking about scars, because I never fucking hit you.
Nothing more than a normal spanking, at least. You can’t go ruining my reputation around town just because I’m not here and you think you’ve turned into hot shit now that you’re grown. ”
My eyes widen while my body stays stock still, and for a second I think I might genuinely stroke out.
I move all at once, pulling myself out of Silas’s grip and stomping toward Kyle, who still looks comfortable in the arm chair.
“No fucking scars? What about this?” I half-yell before pushing my hair up to show him the old, faded scar that runs along my hairline on the tight side.
“When you tried to throw a bottle at your friend who pissed you off, but you missed and hit me instead. And made me lie to the doctor and social services, and then gave me a beer afterward as a reward. I was eight.”
Dad’s eyebrows raise, but other than that he stays still.
“Or this one?” I pull up my sleeve and flash the inside of my wrist, where silvery flesh is partially covered in a tattoo.
“When I was trying to cook, but then your drunk ass tried to help and you ended up accidentally pushing me against one of the pots. When you saw, you put some butter on it and told me to be a man about it. I was thirteen.”
There’s a flicker of some kind of expression on his face, but that’s it. Other than that, he’s just staring at me.
Realization dawns on me all at once.
“You don’t…” I whip my head around to look at Silas, who genuinely looks like he’s about to cry, and then look back at Kyle. “You don’t even remember? I carry around all these shitty memories every day, and you don’t even fucking remember. You don’t even care.”
Kyle doesn’t quite wince, but almost. It’s something. Something that makes me think real, genuine words are about to come out of his mouth. I still don’t know what I want him to say, but I need him to say fucking something.
“Look, kid, that was a long time ago. It sounds like you need to let it go. None of it matters. You grew up good, got yourself a good job, and a Silas—” I have no idea if he sneers as he says it or if my anger is manifesting “—and no one here wants to hash all that shit out over and over. Being a kid sucks. It sucks for everybody. You know exactly what your mother’s childhood was like.
And don’t forget, I spent Christmas on a fucking bus one year because my parents kept trying to pass me off on each other.
It doesn’t mean anything. Grow up and forget about it, like the rest of us. ”
I’m going to fucking hit him.
It’s only the pain in my splinted fist when I try to curl it that gives me the tiniest tether to reality, and makes me think of exactly how pissed Silas will be if I fight my dad again in less than 48 hours. I focus on taking a deep breath instead, and don’t look him in the eye.
“Cade?” My mom sounds wary, and I hear her stepping up behind me. The thought of her touching me right now makes me cringe, so I take a big step to the side, away from both of them, and then turn to face Silas.
“We’re leaving. Fuck this.”
Silas doesn’t move for a few seconds, then he nods and reaches for my hand. I don’t reach back, because I can’t right now.
I don’t look at my mom. I definitely don’t look at Kyle. All I have the capacity to do right now is march my ass out the door and hope Silas follows me.
No witty one-liners to close me out, just a storm of impotent anger leaving the house and folding myself into the truck. Into the passenger seat this time, because my pride is smarting too much to care about who fucking drives. I already feel stupid for caring about it before.
My face is hot, with a familiar pressure behind the eyes, but I refuse to give into it. I can’t look Silas in the eye or touch him when he gets into the cab. All I can do is hunch in on myself and stare out the window at nothing.
“He doesn’t even remember,” I say.
I didn’t mean to say it, it just slipped out, and my voice cracks in the process. That pressure builds, but I can’t give into it.
“Cade—” Silas starts to say, but I take a deep breath and cut him off.
“Let’s just go.”
I think I see him reach toward me out of the corner of my eye, but when I curl myself up tighter, he stops. A few seconds later, the engine rumbles and we start to pull away from the fucking trailer to go home.
Finally.