Chapter 6
Briggs
I get home from practice at six, fucking exhausted and wanting to just go to bed. Practice went on longer than usual because Parker decided to get an attitude with Coach, who made us all run three miles as punishment.
Parker can turn on the charm for the teachers, but he can’t keep his mouth shut on the field. He can’t keep quiet when I tell him something either. Last year, I told him I liked this girl, and he went right over and told her. She ended up going out with me, but that’s not how I wanted it to happen.
Parker’s my closest friend, so I cut him some slack for being an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut, but sometimes I wish he were the kind of friend I could tell shit to, like the shit with my dad.
I haven’t told anyone that, and keeping it inside is killing me.
I fucking hate it. If I could just tell someone, just one person, maybe I’d be able to breathe again instead of feeling like there’s a fucking vice grip around my chest, cutting off my air.
“Son, is that you?” I hear my father say as I’m going upstairs. He’s using the tone he reserves for when other people are around. The fake nice tone meant to imply he gives a shit about me.
“What do you need?” I say, gritting my teeth as I look behind him to see who he’s trying to impress, but I don’t see anyone.
“Get down here!” he whispers in his usual tone. Demanding. Threatening. Hateful.
I saunter down the stairs, sighing when I reach the bottom.
“Where the hell were you?” he asks.
“At practice,” I say, like he should already know this.
“It’s after six.”
“Yeah? It went late today.” I glance upstairs. “Are we done here? I need to go study.”
It’s a lie. I’m not studying. I’m too damn tired.
“Get cleaned up and get down here.” He glances around to make sure we’re alone. “We have guests waiting.”
“Guests? What guests?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I told you about this dinner last weekend. Are you telling me you forgot? You didn’t even write it down?”
My father is all about schedules and keeping track of shit. He hates that I’m not like that. It’s one of the million things he hates about me.
I shrug. “Guess I forgot.”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t know why I even—” He blows out a breath.
“What?” I ask, challenging him to say it. “You don’t know why you had me? It was so you could have someone to control. Wasn’t that it?”
Normally, I wouldn’t say that to him, knowing it’ll set him off, but with guests in the other room, he’ll control his temper no matter what I say.
I may pay for it later, but it was worth it.
It feels fucking awesome to call him on his shit instead of letting him pretend he’s the perfect father who’s forced to treat me like shit because I’m a horrible son.
He points upstairs. “Get up there and make yourself presentable. Suit and tie. Dinner is in twenty minutes. If you are one minute late, I’m cutting off your allowance for the week.”
Money for performance. He runs an investment firm, so it makes sense for his business, but not his personal life.
But it’s how it’s always been. If I do what he says, I get money or a car or whatever else I want.
If I don’t, he takes it away. Money is control to him, but as I got older, it stopped working.
I was sick of him telling me what to do, so I rebelled.
I didn’t follow his orders. That’s when the abuse began.
So far, it’s only been a slap to the face or shoving me against the wall, but I know he’d do worse if I really pissed him off.
I’ve tried to avoid that, but it’s not because I’m afraid of him or what he’ll do to me.
Let him punch me. I really don’t care. Playing rugby, I’m used to pain.
It’s the money that’s keeping me in line.
To me, money isn’t control. It’s freedom, something I want more than anything.
And if I just do as he says for a few more months, I’ll have it.
“You must be Briggs,” a man says, appearing next to my father. The man is old with white hair, wearing a dark gray suit with a lapel pin that looks like a company logo.
“Yes,” my father says, his sinister expression replaced with that of a proud father, smiling at his son. “Briggs Chadwick the Third. Briggs, this is Gerald Forsythe, owner of Forsythe TransAtlantic.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking his hand and giving him the Chadwick smile.
I was taught it before I could even speak.
It’s a partial smile, lips closed. It’s meant to be cordial but businesslike.
According to my father, a full smile makes you look like you’re trying too hard for the person’s approval.
The half smile keeps them guessing and gives you the upper hand.
“Briggs has just returned from rugby practice,” my father says, “but he’ll go clean up and be joining us soon.”
“Your father said you’re the team captain,” Forsythe says. “An athlete and a scholar. That’s very impressive.”
Not to my father. He constantly reminds me how much more he was doing when he was my age, like working for my grandfather at the firm and getting involved in civic organizations to network with people who might be potential clients.
He expects me to be doing all that and more, but I haven’t, telling him I need time to study.
He says I’m stupid if I need that much time to study, and I just let him think that, knowing it’s the only thing keeping me from having to work for him.
My father turns to Forsythe. “Let’s give Briggs some time to get cleaned up. Tell me, Gerald, are you a bourbon man?”
“I am, indeed.” He grins.
“Let me show you to my private collection. I think there’s one, or perhaps a few, you’d like to try.”
As they walk off, I race up to my room and straight to the shower.
I feel like I need to wash off after playing along with my father’s performance downstairs.
He goes from evil dictator to doting father in less than a second.
It’s disturbing and wrong, and yet I can’t do anything about it.
And in a few minutes I’ll be back downstairs, taking part in the performance and hating myself for it.
I close my eyes and tip my head back as the hot water falls over me, soothing my tired muscles, which will soon get tight again when I go downstairs. For now, I set those thoughts aside and try to breathe. I push out my chest, extend my arms, and try to get air in my lungs.
An image of Ella pops into my head. What the hell ?
I blink a few times and try to get rid of it, but it’s still there.
Ella, with her big, brown eyes and long, dark hair, staring back at me as I pinned her against the wall behind the school.
It was just her and me. I’m twice her size.
I could’ve done whatever I wanted to her.
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. As much as I hate her, it’s not who I am.
It’s not who you are. When she said that, it shocked me to the core.
She doesn’t know me, not the real me. She only knows the guy I let people see.
The one every girl wants. The one other guys wish they could be.
Ella knows me as a bully because that’s all I’ve ever been to her.
I’ve tortured her because I can. I wouldn’t call it torture.
I’d call it putting her in her place because she tends to forget she lacks power, and those who forget need to be reminded.
Ella should be kissing my damn feet the way I’ve treated her the past year. Aside from some name-calling and making fun of that rusted-out truck she drives to school, I’ve left her alone, and I would’ve continued to leave her alone if it weren’t for this valedictorian shit.
Why can’t she just do what I asked? I’m sure she’s already been accepted to college, and I’m sure she’ll get scholarships to pay for it, so what the hell’s her problem?
It’s not like she needs to do this for her parents.
Her mom’s dead, and I’m sure her dad doesn’t care.
He’s one of those fathers who loves his kid no matter what.
Ella could flunk out of school and he’d still love her.
I ram my fist against the stone shower wall, cringing at the pain it leaves behind. I try to take a deep breath, but can’t. It’s like someone’s squeezing my chest, taking all the air out.
My phone dings from the counter. I wipe the steam off the glass shower door and see the text is from my dad, telling me to hurry up.
He has these client dinners all the time but I haven’t been required to be there until just recently.
It’s because I’m about to graduate. He expects me to become more involved in the company and learn how to interact with clients.
It’s not going to happen. I’m not working for him, and I’m not taking over the company. Running an investment firm is not what I want to do. I don’t care if I could make a billion dollars a year doing it. It’s not what I want. And when I get my freedom, I’ll finally tell him that.
Ten minutes later, I’m dressed in my suit and tie, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror and realizing how much I look like my father.
I wish I didn’t, because every fucking time I look at myself, it’s like looking at him.
Maybe when I’m finally free of this place, I’ll dye my hair blond or shave it and get some tats to line my neck.
My father would hate that. Just imagining the look on his face if he saw me like that makes me smile.
My phone dings again.
Get down here! he texts. Now!
“Go fuck yourself, asshole,” I mutter as I leave the bathroom and walk through my room to the hall. I slowly go down the stairs, trying to put this off as long as possible, knowing how horrible these dinners are and just wanting it to be over.
As usual, the dinner guests are all over seventy, all men, all white. Every one of them looks the same. They’re probably even wearing the same suits from the same store and the same designer.