Chapter 1 #2
Waiting, my breath lodged in my throat, I stood stock still, silently beating the shit out of myself for being a chickenshit.
The glare darkened until I gulped, and he smirked. “Such a fucking pussy little faggot,” his finger tapped out the words as he spoke.
Five words shouldn’t have such an effect on me, especially not given the number of times I’d heard them throughout my life. I doubted he knew my sexuality. He used it to demean me. It hurt the first few hundred times. But not anymore. Well, not much anyway.
“If I didn’t know better…” he said, before turning away to walk back into the house.
On slightly unsteady legs, he stumbled into what was supposed to be a family room, only this room was devoid of family.
No photos. No warm, fuzzy memories. No love.
Only neglect, abandonment, hate, and violence, and the best furnishings that the most expensive, most elite interior designer could find.
Even those were bereft. Not a speck of color anywhere.
White on white on white. More sterile than a mental ward.
Watching him, my eyes locked on what I knew, with no evidence but the smell on his breath to back it up, I’d find across the open expanse of the open floor plan.
A half-empty, red-wax-topped bottle sat open, in stark contrast to the sparkling white marble counters in a kitchen that held plenty of liquid courage but very little sustenance.
The red wax, a morbid reminder of the blood I’d cleaned off those counters the last time my night took just this sort of turn, glowed as if under stage lights.
He only drank this stuff when the hateful motherfucker that my mother fell in love with and that he pretended didn’t exist surfaced.
To the outside world, my father was a polished California politician.
Inside our family’s gilded cage, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
With his only child, he was a mean, vindictive, controlling, child-abusing bastard who hated the world and everyone in it unless they were doing something for him.
And even then, he demanded to be treated like a god.
Failure to do so resulted in tirades that made me scurry for cover throughout my entire childhood.
All that ended today—my birthday had never been a celebration. Ever. Until today.
Eighteen years old.
Fucking finally.
And no matter what the hell the old man planned to gift me with—fists or luxury—I had everything I needed and the opportunity to get everything I’ve ever wanted.
A college withdrawal letter.
A bank account filled with the money left to me by the mother I never met.
And, saving the best for last, the promise of a naval enlistment contract with a shot at a dream I’d had for as long as I could remember.
Better yet, I got it all on my own without a damn bit of help from the senator.
As soon as I could, I planned to walk out of this house, taking only my dignity.
And my car. And now that I’ve withdrawn from college, I’ll take the cash my father dropped on my first year. Call it payment for the pain and suffering I experienced in spades thanks to the old man.
The sound of the bottle rattling against his glass, yet another sign of how far gone he was and just how bad this night could go for me, followed by…
“Fuck!”
Liquor sloshed over his hands onto the marble, and that’s when I saw it—a second bottle of bourbon, his usual brand.
The fancy ass crystal cut round bottle with the even fancier brass and cork topper.
The memory forced my fingertips to my forehead, tracing over the scar left behind by the horse and jockey that sliced open my skin after my father slung the bottle at me a decade ago.
My father ignored the mess he’d made, wiped his hands, and attempted to fill his glass a second time while muttering under his breath.
No time like the present. Things weren’t getting any better.
“I’m enlisting.”
His eyes lifted to mine in slow motion, his head remaining still, chin tilted down. The look he leveled at me chilled me to the bone.
“You want to repeat that?”
What the fuck was I thinking? He had pull. Maybe not enough to get me disqualified, but risking my dream, my escape route, was idiotic.
“I said I’m listening.”
His brow furrowed. “To what? You’re not making any sense.”
“Do you want me to clean that up and pour for you?” I asked, holding myself in check so I didn’t step forward into hoping he was drunk enough that the change in topic wouldn’t throw up any red flags.
Today was only the first meeting with the recruiter. We started the paperwork for my enlistment, but several steps remained. Which meant I needed to make nice for as long as possible. As much as I hated the thought.
“I’m sorry I missed the event.”
“Fuck it. It was a bunch of pussy ass-kissers who will vote for me anyhow.”
A scream of frustration built in my belly, swelling me up like a dead thing in a scorching sun on the verge of explosion.
Make nice flashed in my head, reminding me to let the vitriol I felt go.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to say in response, so I stood there, outside his reach with a cushion to run if needed, but not so far as to trigger his anger. And I waited.
“There’s a present for you. My assistant arranged it.”
The words, so softly spoken, they sounded ghostly, drifted toward me. The old man never looked up, so at first I thought I’d imagined them until he spoke again.
“Well…aren’t you going to ask what it is?” His gaze found mine this time over the crystal highball glass poised for a drink before his face.
So, luxury it was, at least for now.
“Sorry, um…what is it?”
The whiskey disappeared in one go. The glass met the marble just shy of breaking.
His gait was even more unsteady now than it had been when he moved through the room earlier.
He stopped in front of the hall table where his briefcase lay.
Clicks of metal echoed in the room, their only competition the sound of the surf coming through the still-open patio doors.
A thick manila folder landed on the island with a thud, skidding across the slick, white marble toward me. Without a word of explanation, he picked up the glass he’d abandoned, grabbed the bourbon bottle, and turned toward the back staircase.
A few steps up, he paused and, without turning back, said, “Welcome to adulthood.”
The gruff timbre of his voice held a melancholy note, one I heard every year for as long as I could remember, when he’d hand me whatever gift his assistant at the time bought for me.
The door to his bedroom shut, the sound echoing upstairs and down, which meant he had to have slammed the thing—hard—given how far away it was from where I stood.
Picking up the packet, I turned it over in my hands before opening the clasp and dumping its contents onto the island. I pushed things around, only reading what jumped out at me. After a few minutes, the scoff I couldn’t contain turned to rueful laughter.
“Thanks, Dad. I love you too.”
Sarcasm dripped from the words in case my father waited in the shadows for my reaction. Who was I kidding? The man never waited or worried about me once in my whole goddamn life.
My fingers pushed aside papers until I found the two that really jumped out at me.
I shock my head. In one hand he handed me my freedom, and in the other, a leash.
Setting down the photo taken of Kelly and me on the riverbank—thought you didn’t know who I was with, Dad—I hoped the sleazy asshole my father kept on retainer enjoyed the show.
An ink pen lay among the papers that tumbled out of the envelope.
Picking it up, I turned it in my hand, scoffing at the logo emblazoned on the shaft as I signed the documents granting me my freedom.
Once done, I pushed all the paperwork into a pile, climbed the stairs, and packed the shit I gave a damn about.
On my way downstairs, the old man came out of the bedroom, the ruddiness of his face more pronounced than usual.
“What you don’t take will be tossed out. So get it now,” he said, the words so slurred they sounded computer-generated.
“Fuck you,” I said.
He stood at the top of the front stairs, looking down at me from on high. At the door, I paused, looked around my childhood home, then walked out the door.