55. FIFTY-FIVE #2
My fists curl at my sides, and he spots it.
I’ve never done this before. I’ve never challenged my father ever .
The facade of his control is slipping from his fingers, so he does the one thing to get me to back down.
Stepping into my space, he holds my eyes, making my guts twist with the look only he can give.
Disapproval.
“I can guarantee you do not want to go there with me, Hunter.” His voice is a low growl, lethal and steady.
I square up to him, our faces so close we could butt foreheads. “I can guarantee that I do.”
“Someone explain what is going on,” my mom begs.
“Dad sold OAT to a drug lord. It’s pretty straightforward.” I don’t break his stare as I speak. “He sold it because he’s too afraid of everyone knowing what a corrupt, callous, bigoted fuck he is.”
The silence in the room is so thick you could cut it with a knife. And then it breaks. My dad shoves me back as hard as he can, and I trip on the foyer rug, almost falling backward. He shoves me again and again until my back is up against the door.
That's when he slaps me.
“You cross a line ,” he spits. “Did you know that your son is a homosexual?” he tells my mother. “A raging faggot!”
I want to flinch. I want to cover my face.
But I don’t. I steel myself against his hatred and feel my heart splinter.
“I would’ve overlooked it,” he says, taking a breath.
“I would have found you a wife to parade around while you continue to sin and ruin yourself.” Cracking his knuckles and looking me from head to foot, he continues, “And you would have done it, too. A wife. Children. A permanent seat at the table with powerful, straight , god-fearing men.”
“Edward, stop!” my mom demands.
“You both are the same. Mistakes. Worthless.”
I’m shaking, feeling my resolve crumble. Every fear I’ve ever had is coming to fruition right now. “I’m not worthless and I’m not a mistake,” I manage to say through a wobbly chin.
“You can’t even accept the facts like a man. Has it been screwed out of you? Did that felon suck it out of you?”
Suddenly, there’s a loud, sharp crack. My dad’s face whips to the side, and I stare in shock. My mom slapped him. Fucking slapped him. “You have become the most foul man I have ever known, Edward. Foul . How dare you say this to him? To your son?”
“He’s no son of mine, and if you don’t step away from me now, Candice, you are no wife of mine either.”
She doesn’t move. Her courage tethers around my wavering strength and grabs it. I push away from the door. “All my life, I’ve tried to be everything you’ve wanted. Everything. ”
“And you still failed,” he quips, stretching his sore jaw.
“Good!” I scream, hands raised above my head. “Good! Because it never amounted to shit anyway! So what if I’m gay? So fucking what ? It’s a single part of me, Dad. One single facet of who I am!”
“It’s wrong!” he bellows. “It’s fucking disgusting and I raised you better than this. When she left to whore her way across the country I raised you . I taught you right from wrong.”
“No, you didn’t,” I say with mild hysteria. “You taught me to lie. You taught me to save face, scheme, and manipulate to get what you want. Anything I ever wanted that didn’t fit your mold was shot down! Everything! Anything! If it wasn’t what Edward fucking Kade wanted, it was as good as trash!”
“Because everything you want is trash, son,” he says dryly.
“It always has been. I’ve tried to reshape the sad excuse of a boy into something redeemable, something worth showing to the world, and you’ve disappointed me at every turn.
And this? This one facet of you? Next thing I know, you’ll be in those ridiculous parades with fake cocks around your neck singing ABBA.
I won’t have it. I refuse. Do you have any idea what mockery is?
What that feels like? I’ll be ridiculed.
It’s not going to happen. I will not let it. ”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I growl. “Not anymore.” My heart is racing so fast, and the urge to move, to hurt, is becoming impossible to ignore.
“I already got you to discard one piece of trash, Hunter. How easy do you think it’ll be to get rid of the rest? All I had to do was say what you wanted to hear.”
That does it. I can’t just stand here and take this. Nothing I say is going to matter. Nothing I do is going to amount to anything. I knew this would happen, and though it hurts, it doesn’t surprise me. If anything at all comes from this, it’ll be saying what I’ve always needed to say.
“You should have meant it. You should have loved me anyway. And I should’ve never spent so long wanting it.” I take a deep breath, recalling a particular phrase Gray once said to me. "Get fucked, Edward. You're no father of mine. "
I push my hair back, glancing at my teary-eyed mother.
“I want a divorce,” she tells him. "A fucking divorce!"
"You can't afford a divorce." A pause. "And you'll come crawling right back home as soon as word of this gets out," he tells me.
The man has the audacity to laugh, and walk away from us. He thinks he’s won. I’m shaking by the time he’s out of my sight—already making plans to show him he's wrong. When I finally face my mom, she's wearing an expression I can't read.
“I suppose you hate me too? More?”
She shakes her head and quickly takes my hand. “I love you.”
“How? How can you love me when you’ve stayed with that?” I nod in the direction my dad left to.
“I stayed because of you, Hunter. To protect you. To make sure that if this day came, you’d have someone. He is laughing now, but he has nothing to hold over me. I’m leaving him. I’ve been planning on it for a while."
“I don’t believe you,” I tell her, trying to pull my hand away, but she doesn’t let go.
“You don’t have to. I know I have to earn your trust again, honey. But listen to me. I love you. I’ve loved you since you took your first breath, and it’s never stopped.”
“So you knew, then? About me?”
She nods. “Since you went to college.”
I hang my head, tears building faster than I can stop them. “Did he know too?”
“I’m not sure. But it doesn’t matter, sweetie. I’m here, alright?”
“I have to…go.”
She kisses my hand, and it hurts. It hurts so much because she used to kiss my hand whenever I was sick or sad. Even after all this time, after years of watching her drink herself stupid and become this shell of a person, my mom is in there. She’s here now.
“Mom,” I croak.
“Let’s go. Let’s just get out of here,” she insists before kissing my hand again.
For the first time in almost half my life, I make a little room inside my bruised heart for her. We leave the house together, hand in hand, and walk to my car.