22. Eric #2
It had taken minutes for me to spiral after Amanda closed the door to my apartment that morning.
“Be with me,” she had said. Someone like me couldn’t be with her while she was in fucking Italy.
She’d forget about me in the blink of an eye.
So I called my advisor and found partially funded research that would let me spend a semester in Milan.
She’d be there longer, but it would give us time to figure out how to be together—while being together.
It all came down to what it always did: money I didn’t have. So, I reached for the only person I knew who was loaded and owed me something. Even if he didn’t think he did.
Robert’s hair was slicked back with so much gel that it reflected the light.
“Let me repeat this back to you so I can check my understanding.” In front of him, he saw a client in a negotiation, not his kid asking for help.
“You want me to loan you money so you can have a little love affair with Kate and Sandro’s child in Italy.
” He brought his fingers to his temples and massaged them. “You think I’m a fucking idiot?”
“I have an RA-ship with the University in Milan. It will cover most of my rent and some basic utilities, but it isn’t enough.”
“What the fuck is an RA-ship?”
“It’s a research assist—”
“You know what, I don’t fucking need to know. This is stupid, Eric. Even for you.”
“I need this—”
“You don’t need shit.” He cut me off. “You think you need this, but you’re just deluding yourself thinking that girl loves you.”
“She does love me.”
“Fantastic,” he said sarcastically. “Then she still will when she returns. Until then, I really don’t fucking care.”
My throat tightened. I couldn’t breathe right, and I clenched my fists in my sleeves to stop my hands from shaking. I stared at the glass paperweight on his desk—some gaudy crystal thing shaped like a ship—and wondered if I’d even feel better if I threw it through the window.
“I have never asked you for anything. Neither has my mom.” I swallowed.
“Ellie has asked for a lot over the years.”
I steeled my determination. “I’ve allowed you to keep on with your family and that sick bastard you’ve raised—”
The clicking of his tongue cut me off, wagging his finger. “Don’t get things confused now. You’re the bastard.”
I closed my mouth so he wouldn’t see how much that hurt.
“Whatever,” I said. “You live like you’re not even a sperm donor to me.
Every time my mom blacked out drunk because you fucked and discarded her, I kept quiet.
I dealt with it. I let you keep this facade of a happy family.
This is the only thing I will ever fucking ask of you. ”
“You do not want to threaten me. Desperation makes you look even more like your waste of a mother.” He chuckled.
“What do you even have to offer that girl to keep her interested?” My father swiveled his chair so he was sideways, then arched his brow.
“If you love her, shouldn’t you want more for her than…
you?” He let it hang there—just long enough for my self-doubt to take root.
“Do her a favor. Sandro’s been talking about how excited she is. Don’t ruin this for her.”
“Please. I swear I won’t ever ask anything else. I will sign anything. Mom will sign anything.”
“You’re really stupid if you think your mother didn’t already sign away any rights she had to my money so I’d fuck her one more time.”
I’d told myself I could handle anything he’d throw my way—anything, if it meant being with Amanda. But suddenly, my shame and insecurity multiplied, and my lack of self-worth spread through like rot, settling into every part of me.
“But I never have,” I said quietly.
My father tilted his head, chin jutting forward. “You have no grounds to stand on.” He reached for his coffee. Sipped it. Didn’t even flinch.
“Maybe. But I’ll still make enough noise to fuck up your life.”
He leaned back in his chair, spread his hands, about to give a life lesson.
“I don’t take kindly to threats.” Then he smiled.
“Just think about it. First thing this girl has asked you, and you already can’t give it to her.
Is that what you want for her? A man who’s always just shy of what she deserves? ”
By the time the blood swooshing behind my ears quietened, all I heard was that I wasn’t enough. I’d temper her happiness, then and always.
“You gotta learn your place, Eric,” he added. “It’s a hard lesson, I’m not opposed to teaching you.” My father stood up, clapped my shoulder, then tightened his hold on it when I tried to flinch away. He looked into my eyes and added, “So I won’t help you with this or anything.”
He went back to his seat, sipped coffee again and tipped his chin to the door in dismissal. Then he refocused on his computer. He was done, and so was I.
I don’t remember walking out, just feeling weightless, unmoored.
The part of me that had dared to believe in Amanda and me had just slipped out of me, poured and wasted over the cracks in his marble floor.
I vaguely remember going to my classes. I definitely remember walking into a bar the second I was able to.
I lost track of how many shots, how many drinks, how much of myself I let go.
To this day, only remember something from much later in the evening. Broken green eyes.
“So yeah…” I say, finishing the story about my father’s role that day.
Amanda’s green eyes shine with unshed tears, mourning the kid I was—the kid I regressed to when left to face my one monster alone. But deeper than that, she’s aching for what I broke, trying too hard to hold on to us.