CHAPTER SEVEN #2
After officially meeting her face-to-face, I'd gone out of my way to catch glimpses of her throughout the years.
I was nothing but a kid in her eyes. I mean, of course I was, but that didn't make it feel any less like an insult when she smiled at me in the way adults did and spoke to me in that unintentionally condescending way.
Like she didn't outright hate me, but didn't want me around her all the same.
Still, a momentary glimpse of her was enough to welcome the smallest stream of sunlight to reach the shadowy corners of my mind.
“What are you up to over there?” Dad asked, tearing me away from my thoughts of Meg, her curly blonde hair, and her sky-blue eyes.
“Huh?” I asked, glancing at him.
“You've been quiet all night. What's going on?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. I mean …” I gave my head a quick shake.
“He's being a grumpy teenager,” Mom said playfully. “We tortured him today by making him have fun.”
My nose wrinkled as I turned in the recliner to face her with an exasperated expression. “What are you even talking about? I'm fine.”
They infuriated me with their jabs. They thought they were funny. They thought they were being cool, like one of my friends or something. But all they did was make me not want to be around them. Not all the time, but … sometimes.
“He doesn't sound fine,” Mom mumbled to Dad, her lips tipping into a teasing smile.
“No, definitely doesn't sound fine at all,” he mumbled back.
“Oh my God,” I groaned, pushing out of the recliner and hurrying toward the stairs. “You guys are insufferable sometimes—you know that?”
“Ooh, we're insufferable, babe—you hear that?” Dad said with a taunting, albeit good-natured laugh.
But, God, it didn't feel good-natured.
It felt horrible.
Like they didn't take me seriously.
Like they didn't care.
***
“Hey.”
I turned my head away from the TV to see Dad standing just inside my room.
Sometimes, even all these years later, it surprised me how big he was. Like now, when his tall, muscular body fit almost perfectly in the confines of the open doorway.
Every now and then, I'd fantasize about what it'd be like if I grew to be as tall as him.
Especially when people looked at Miles and made comments like, “He's going to be tall, like his daddy.”
But that was never going to happen to me.
Soldier wasn't my dad.
Not really anyway.
“Hi,” I muttered in reply.
“You okay?” he asked, his hands gripping the top of the doorframe.
I chewed at the corner of my bottom lip, considering my options.
I could send him away. Brush him off. Lie again and say that I was fine.
Or … I could talk to him.
He always made it easy to be honest and open, more so than Mom sometimes. Maybe it was a guy thing. Maybe it was that he had been my friend before he was my dad. I didn’t know. But whatever it was, it called to me now, and I lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.
“I dunno,” I muttered as an opener, knowing he'd take the bait.
“You wanna talk?”
So predictable.
I almost smirked, but instead, I muttered, “Sure.”
Dad stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Then he took a seat on the edge of my bed and asked, “What's goin' on?”
“Just … thinking a lot.”
“About?”
I wasn't sure how I wanted to word it, not sure what the right thing to say was, and I continued to gnaw at my bottom lip, digging through the recesses of my mind.
“Is it a, uh … a girl thing?” he asked warily.
I lifted my eyes to him and frowned. “What?”
“You know,” he said with a shrug, “you're at that age where you're probably wanting to date and shit, so … we … I just thought that maybe—”
“It's not a girl thing,” I insisted, incredulous and almost, almost, horrified that he'd even think it was.
His brow crumpled. “No?”
“No!”
“So, this isn't … you, like … needing the talk or something?”
“What the hell, Dad?” I groaned, rolling my eyes away from his face to stare at the glowing TV screen. “I don't need the freakin' talk.”
He grunted. “Oh … okay. Then … what's up?”
I screwed my lips up, twisting them to the side, before I asked, “Do you know how I was … how I was born?”
The words were fired from my mouth with enough force for Dad to lean back a couple of inches, startled by the abrupt, unexpected question.
“How you were born?” he repeated, speaking slowly. “Noah, dude, I'm sorry. But you just said you didn't need the—”
“No,” I interrupted harshly, thrusting my hands out before clapping them over my face. “I mean”—with a groan, I dropped my palms to my stomach—“how did I … how was I …”
God, how the fuck was I supposed to ask this question?
I clamped my lips shut and gave my head a shake. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
Dad was quiet for a moment. His eyes were on my face, and though I wouldn't look at him and show him just how embarrassed I was, I could feel him. His stare, boring a hole through the side of my face to burrow deep into my skull. His thoughts, grinding like gears inside his mind. And, see, the thing about him was, he was smart. People wouldn’t expect it because of the whole prison thing—they liked to pass judgment like that—but he understood things.
And it didn't take long for him to understand me and what I was trying to say.
In a low, hushed voice, he asked, “Are you asking if your … conception … was, um … wanted?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Yeah, I guess that's what I'm asking.”
He swallowed and tipped his head to the side. “I, uh … I kinda think this is a question for your mom, bud.”
I took a deep breath and leaned my head back until it banged against the headboard. I had been afraid he'd say that. I had been afraid he wouldn't have this conversation without Mom's consent.
But I didn't want to talk to her about it.
I didn't want to make her relive things she'd rather keep in the past. The same way I didn't want to tell anyone about what had happened at Tommy's house, even though Seth had been gone for years now and was no longer there to make good on his threats.
Dad's swallow was loud, and then he sighed. “No,” he said quietly with resignation.
I lifted my head. “No?”
“You weren't. Not initially.”
Wanted. That was what he meant.
I hadn't been wanted.
Slowly, I nodded, having expected as much.
“Your mom has only talked to me about … that … whole thing a couple of times,” he went on, keeping his voice as low as he could without whispering. “But, no, she didn't want to be pregnant, and your … Seth … he definitely didn't want to be a father.”
I absorbed what he was saying, continuing to nod slowly, if only to do something.
“But she kept me,” I said, stating the obvious.
Dad released his breath. “Yeah, uh … from my understanding, she didn’t want to tell anyone. About what had happened. So, she kept it—you—a secret while she tried to figure out what to do.”
“What do you mean, what happened? You mean getting pregnant?”
He rubbed at a spot on the leg of his sweatpants, clearing his throat and furrowing his brow, like he was trying to stall. He didn't want to answer my question, not realizing that his hesitation was all the answer I needed.
I knew what Seth had done to my mom.
I hadn't realized it back then. Hadn't wanted to put a word to it. But I thought about it now, and I knew, from Dad's lack of reply, that I'd been a product of such a vile, hateful thing.
Rape.
Dad coughed, injecting a little life into the deafening silence.
“You know, the thing was, she was ashamed. She thought she was the one to do something wrong for getting mixed up with him in the first place.” He was breathing heavily, like speaking of this was as difficult for him as it must've been for Mom to tell him.
“You asked me a long time ago how I had gotten this scar.” He pointed at his cheek, and I nodded.
“I had stopped him the first time he tried to do something, so he gave me this.”
I felt sick, uncomfortable in my own skin. Like my very existence was something to hide and be ashamed of, and the only answer was to rip myself apart, piece by piece, limb by limb, so nobody had to relive the horrific events of the past just by looking at me.
God, I was as disgusting as the act that had put me here.
“Noah, stop.”
I looked up and found Dad's eyes looking at me.
“Stop,” he said again, his tone firm and authoritative. “Whatever is going on in your head, stop it now. I shouldn't have said anything. I knew I shouldn't have said anything, but …”
“I have a right to know,” I fired at him, and he surprised me by nodding.
“I agree. You do, and I think you're old enough to know the truth. But I also think you're old enough to understand that you were just as much of a victim as she was.”
My gaze narrowed as I searched the room for the response I needed. “What? I was … I was … a fetus, a baby. I don't—”
“Exactly. You had nothing to do with anything that motherfucker did,” he said, emphasizing each word with a gentle jab of his finger against my chest. “And, as far as I'm concerned, you …” He released an unsteady breath, laying his hand on my knee and squeezing gently.
“If it all had to happen, you are … the best fucking thing that could've come from it.
Do you understand me? And I don't want you to think for a second that your existence is anything but a gift. Not for a second. Okay?”
I pulled my knees into my chest, allowing a few moments to pass before I reluctantly nodded. More to get him off my back than anything because I knew as well as anyone that he wouldn't let it go if I didn’t agree.
“All right,” he said, a bit skeptical, but I knew he was letting the topic rest. “What's Jay doing tonight?”
“I dunno.”
“You haven't been hanging out with him much lately.”
I offered a flippant gesture and rolled my eyes. “He's too busy with his girlfriend.”
A few weeks ago, Jay had announced during a walk through River Canyon Park that a girl in our class, Giselle, had agreed to go out with him.
I had been happy for him, for whatever it was worth.
He'd been into her for a while. But that didn't stop the faintest hint of jealousy from swirling around in my veins.
I was jealous a lot these days.
Dad's brows lifted with surprise. “Jay has a girlfriend? You didn't tell me that.”
I lifted a shoulder helplessly. “I guess I didn't think it mattered.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, nodding a bit. “Any girls you have your eye on?”
“Nah,” I replied. Nobody I could have anyway.
“You're better off,” he said, reaching out to lay a hand on my shoulder, giving me a playful shake. “Plenty of time for that shit. Be a kid while you can. Get into stupid crap, but not … too stupid.”
I smirked. “You mean, don't do anything you did, right?”
Dad rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Kid, I could write the handbook on what not to do. Don't get yourself thrown in prison, and you'll be fine.”