12. Open This Door So I Can Kick Your Ass
Open This Door So I Can Kick Your Ass
Nick
‘Ma, stop.’ I pinch the bridge of my nose and hold the phone away from my ear as my mom tries to convince me to come over to the house for my dad’s birthday.
‘Nicholas, he’s your father.’
I snort a laugh and hear her release a soft sigh. I get that it’s hard for her. I get that she lost one son and doesn’t get to see me, but she stays — she knows the kind of man my father is, and she stays. I can’t grant him the same courtesy.
‘Mama, I’m sorry, but I have no interest in celebrating his birthday.’
‘Nicky, please.’
I hate the sound of disappointment in her voice, the hurt. I love my mom. I have a lot of anger and resentment toward her, but I still love her. She clothed and fed me, bathed me, taught me to walk and feed myself, and she loves me — she and Clint are the only two people who ever did, but she could have put us in the back of her car when we were kids and got us out of there, and she chose to stay. She chose him.
‘Ma, he doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him. You need to accept that he and I are never going to have a relationship. I’m not coming.’
Ending the call before she can beg anymore, I hang my head. I feel like a piece of shit, but I’m choosing me even if she couldn’t.
I’m in a shit fuckin’ mood; the conversation with Missy this morning set me up wrong, then talking to my mom made it worse, to the point that Lynnie had to send me out back to gather myself because I was making everyone in the clinic uncomfortable. I need to get away or something, but the other vet at the clinic is heading to Bali until the New Year, so I’m stuck, dealing with my mother, my clinic, and the next-door neighbor from somewhere between heaven and hell.
I hear the bell above the clinic door. We have no appointments over the lunch period so the staff can eat. Lynnie and Cleo, my nurse, had headed to the diner to pick something up, and I know they can’t be back yet, so I head out to see who it is, then freeze in the doorway to my office.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask the question as he looks around, his expression pinched, bitter. He’s never been in here before.
‘You’re coming to dinner tonight.’ He spits and turns toward the door.
‘Nah, I’m not.’
Freezing with his hand on the door handle, my dad turns and gives me a look he’s given me a hundred times before, and I feel my pulse quicken. You’re not a little boy anymore, Nick. You’re not a little boy anymore.
‘Your mother wants you there, Nicholas, so I expect you to be there.’
‘I don’t give a rat’s ass what you expect.’ I inhale and stand taller, and I notice the fury flash across his eyes at being challenged. ‘You don’t want me there. I don’t want to be there.’
‘Your mother wants you there.’
‘Since when do you give a fuck what she wants?’ I huff out a laugh, and he takes a step toward me, but I don’t step back. I stand my ground.
‘Watch your mouth.’
‘You’re on my property. You watch yours. ’
My blood heats and I hear my pulse as it rushes past my ears. I never push him, even now that I’m an adult. I just stay in my lane, stay away, but he got me on the wrong fuckin’ day.
‘You always were a little shit — thought you were too good for this town, this family.’
‘No.’ I point my finger at him and step forward. ‘You made me feel like I was nothing. I only existed as target practice for you.’ I notice the flare of his nostrils that I dared mention the family secret outside of his house. ‘You were never a father to me. You loved Clint, and Mom is convenient for you, but I was an annoyance, always. Get the fuck out of my clinic, Dad .’
‘ Your clinic?’ He laughs and moves his gaze around the room. ‘ My mother paid for all of this.’
‘No, my inheritance paid for my education, this I did on my own.’
He knows that. He owned the shop and the apartments because they were handed down to him, but this, my clinic, was never his. My grandfather sold this part of the building off years ago, but I got it back. I did this.
‘You might as well spit on her fuckin’ grave, throwing away the family legacy for what? Puppies?’ he laughs. ‘I’m ashamed of you.’
‘Then get the fuck out.’ My voice is low and serious, a tone I have never dared to use with my father, but I’m done. I’m not a little boy anymore, and he’s an old drunk.
‘You’re coming to dinner,’ he snarls as he turns toward the door.
‘Tell mom not to set a place for me.’
To my complete surprise, instead of arguing further, he yanks open the door and storms out of the clinic, and I notice for the first time the tight fists my hands had clenched into. I need to run before I hit something. I have to get out of here.
I grab my keys and head upstairs to change, shooting off a quick text to the work group chat to tell them something came up and to cancel the afternoon appointments. Then I pull on my sneakers and head out.
It’s cold today. The lake looks dark, gloomy, and oddly tempting as I run along the bank. I want to feel angry. I want to sit in it, stew in it. I want to feel all the hurt and resentment, the confusion and rage. I was a punchbag, and my mom still is, for no reason at all. He must have loved her once, right? He loved Clint. God did he love Clint. The only time he hit my brother was when he stepped in front of me when I was five and took the hit for me. Dad cried and hugged him, apologized, and begged for forgiveness. Clint was loved, while I carry the scars of a hateful man.
The cold tightens my chest as I suck in breath after breath. The icy air stings my cheeks and hands as the cold, hard ground sends shockwaves up my shins to my knees. This doesn’t feel good, but I can’t stop.
I can’t stop any of it. I can’t stop being frustrated by Missy. I can’t stop being angry at my mom, and I can’t stop feeling like an outsider in my hometown. I can’t stop being afraid of my father, even knowing I’ll never let him put his hands on me again.
‘ Fuck .’ I yell as I break into a sprint toward the water’s edge and skid to a halt with my toes an inch from the icy shore. I lean forward, my hands above my knees as I gasp for air before dropping to the sandy beach and staring out at the rippling surface of the frigid water.
Fuck this. I’m as angry now as I was when I left the clinic. I need something else, another outlet. I need to feel more. I need to see her .
Against my better judgment, I grabbed a six-pack of beer on my way back to my apartment. Now, a few beers in, I’m feeling ready for a fight, and there’s only one person I want it with.
I nod my head along with Queens of The Stone Age as I turn the music up and up until it’s almost unbearably loud, but not tonight, not in this mood. Raising my can to my mouth I smirk at the banging on my door and ignore it.
She bangs again, so loud that I suspect she may have actually kicked it that time, and then my cell starts to ring. I ignore that too. Just a little longer, get her really riled up, I think, as I drain my can and open another.
My cell phone vibrates in my hand, and I open the message.
Missy: Turn the fucking music down, now.
And again.
Missy: Better yet, open this door so I can kick your ass.
I laugh. I can’t help it as I make my way over to the door.
‘Something wrong, Missy?’
‘Turn it down,’ she yells, fury in her eyes as she points behind me.
‘No.’
‘Nick, I swear to god. ’
‘What, you can play your music loud, but I can’t?’ I lean on the door frame and cross my arms over my chest.
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me right now.’ She glares at me, and I smile. ‘Nick, turn it down.’
‘You don’t get to give me orders.’
‘I played music two floors down, nowhere near this loud, while I was working. You asked me to keep it down, so I turned it off. You can hate me all you want, Nick, I truly don’t fucking care, but I have a five-year-old child trying to sleep and crying because your music woke him up.’
Fuck . I turn around and turn off the music immediately. I forgot about Jonah. I was so fucking angry that I forgot he even fuckin’ existed.
I come back to the door to find her opening hers.
‘Missy,’
‘Don’t,’ she snaps and turns to me. ‘I don’t know what your problem is, Nick, and I don’t care, but you mess with my son, and you’ll see a very different side of me. Know that.’
The close of her door makes my head fall forward with shame and embarrassment. I acted like a child tonight. I cried out for her attention, and I got it, and now I fuckin’ hate myself. I have to let this go. I have to let it all go.