Chapter 6 I Already Hate You
I ALREADY HATE YOU
Indigo by Sam Barber Ft. Avery Anna · The Scientist by Coldplay
Holden
She was right. I have never regretted doing anything in my life, and the one thing I wish I could take back would lead to the same place—sitting in my car in the parking lot of the senior center I refused to go in a few weeks ago.
I was wondering if she would be at the shop again today. I couldn’t get her voice out of my head, and I wanted to take her up on the offer of advice.
Not a bar, my ass.
Anyone who makes drinks for others could one hundred percent be a therapist. I believe it firmly, even if my actual therapist thinks I’m wrong.
I don’t know why I didn’t listen to her but to the stranger with the pretty eyes and the wholesome soul.
Even if I don’t know her, I can tell. She oozes peace, calm, and happiness—her kind eyes and the way she talks to others, like whatever they’re saying is the most important thing in the world and she wouldn’t have it any other way makes it clear to see.
And maybe knowing she genuinely thinks I should give him a chance, even without having all the information, even without knowing me, gave me the push I needed to come here.
Now, if I can go inside and see him, that would be great.
Time passes—painfully slow, as it always does in every undesirable task. It drags from deep within, making me want to scream.
I shake it off and walk into the stale-smelling assisted senior facility.
“Good afternoon. How can I help you?” the person at the front desk asks.
“Um, yes, I’m here to see Jerry.”
“Which Jerry, hun?”
“Um, Jerry Clay.”
“Oh.” She looks surprised as she types something in her computer, the keys clacking and her brows furrowing deeper. “Do you have an ID?”
“Here.”
“Holden Clay.” She inspects it, nodding solemnly.
“What?”
“Nothing. We didn’t know Clay had kids.”
Two but one isn’t here anymore. Not that it matters to him. He was happy to forget he had kids until now that he’s dying—alone.
“We all have our secrets, don’t we?”
“He’ll be happy to see you. He’s been kind of down lately.”
I wonder why.
“Come with me.”
I follow her down the white walls of the hall. It’s quiet, which is not how I would’ve expected the top rated senior living in the area to be. I would think they’d have lively rooms, board game parties, lavish lunches. Instead, it feels like I’m walking into the ICU.
“It’s nap time, so I don’t know if he’ll be up, but we’ll see.”
That makes more sense.
She knocks on a beige door, and a croaky voice comes from the other side.
“Someone’s here to see you,” she sings, pushing the door open. I can’t see him, but I hear him loud and clear.
“Who’s here to see me? I don’t have anyone.” His voice is like wailing winds, cutting through me just the same. An ounce of guilt hits me, but when he sees me, or rather, I see him, it dissipates.
He looks exactly as I remember, just older.
His face is full of wrinkles creasing his dry skin.
He sits in a chair by a large window with a view of the expanding fields leading to the state park, but his eyes aren’t on the tree.
They are saucer sized, dark whiskey matching mine, straight on me.
It takes him a second to realize who I am.
I don’t know if it’s because he has only seen me once since I was twelve years old, and the grief of that day took over my body until I was unrecognizable, nothing like I am today.
I see it, the moment recognition hits. His shoulders sag, and he looks straight at the floor before whispering, “You came.”
“I’m Karen. Let me know if you need anything,” the woman says before walking out of the room.
It’s incredible how memory works, because just standing here, looking at him, takes me back to the night he told me he was my father. The father I thought was dead for almost twenty years.
The mere act of smelling his room causes a visceral reaction in my body, and memories of alcohol-induced vomit, loud snores that rumbled through the house, and the tears falling from my mother’s eyes inundate me.
I hold the door frame, taking the strength I need before walking deeper into his room and letting other memories assault me.
“Come in, son,” he whispers.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Holden…” he murmurs instead. “Please come in.”
It’s not until now that he looks back up, eyes full of torment and something that, coming from someone else, I would categorize as regret. From him, I’m not sure. From him, it could be manipulation. It could be anything, honestly, and I hate that I can’t trust my instincts when it comes to him.
The minute I’m around him, I’m that young boy again, afraid of what state his father would be in.
Would there be laughter? Would there be anger?
Mom was trying, and he was always gone. But when he was home, nobody knew what version of Jerry we would get.
The day would be ruined because Jerry was home and everyone was on edge.
And now what? Now he’s sorry? Now he apologizes? Now he comes back because, why? He wants me to forgive his sins? He wants me to forget I can’t trust anyone because the person I should’ve looked up to, the person who was supposed to teach me how to be a man, pretended to be dead?
But I’m here now, aren’t I? Might as well hear what he has to say.
Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see, son, he would tell me in the middle of drinking the cabinets dry on a random Monday after work. Let’s see, Jerry, what fifty percent should I believe now.
“You look good.” I lie through my teeth and stand with my back against the wall, sliding my hands in the pocket of my jeans so he can’t see how hard I’m squeezing my fists.
“I thought I taught you better than to lie to others.”
“You actually taught me to only lie to others.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“About which offense?”
He flinches, my words landing like the knife I intended them to be.
“I deserve that.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Then why are you here, Holden?”
“Well, you called and said you were dying. You called and said the last amends you needed to make were with me. And unlike you, I actually have values, Jerry. I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy to let guilt consume them because they couldn’t say their piece.”
His head bobs as he contemplates my harsh words.
“I’m sorry that’s harsh, bu—”
He raises his hand, interrupting me. “You’re right. You don’t owe me anything. And I owe you, well, the world, but I’m thankful you came today.”
I don’t reply. There’s nothing really to say that wouldn’t be pouring salt over lifelong wounds. Except they don’t feel old, certainly not to him, according to what he said in the voice message he left. Definitely not to me.
“Where do you want me to start?” he asks in a flat tone, straight to the point.
“How long?”
“How long do I have to live?”
“How long were you planning on letting me live thinking you were dead?”
He lets out a sigh. “I was respecting Brenda’s wishes.”
I shake my head. “Leave my mother’s name out of your mouth.”
He flinches, realization flashing over his face. “You don’t know, do you?”
That you’re a piece of shit? Yes, I know.
That you left us believing you were dead while she raised two kids alone? Yes, I know.
How she had nothing because you made her quit her job, her friends, her life? Yes, I know.
How much I hate you? Yes, I know.
“Son—” he clears his throat “—Holden, you need to sit down for this.”
“If you’re speaking ill of my mother, the woman you abandoned years before your supposed death every time you chose the bottle over her, then no, I don’t want to be here to hear it.” I pinch my nose. “Maybe it was a mistake, coming here. I thought you wanted to talk to me, not bitch about her.”
“Language.”
“Language?” I scoff. “You lost the right to correct anything about me.”
He coughs.
Once.
Twice.
It won’t stop.
“Jerry?”
The coughing continues, and he tries to cover it like he’s stopping the demons from coming out.
The sound tears through the room—wet and scraping, sending me into a flight or fight response. His frail frame folds inward. I watch, frozen, fingers twitching at my sides, that instinctive dread crawling up my spine like I’m twelve again, waiting for the crash that always came after the storm.
“Jerry?” I say again, and my voice cracks in a way I didn’t intend, the way it did five years ago when I got the call that they didn’t make it.
I can feel the rain on my skin when I ran outside, as if the universe would give me the answers.
As if running, crying, screaming would’ve changed the outcome.
He tries to speak, a rasp of air, but the coughing swallows him whole. His shoulders shake violently, and when his hand falls away from his mouth, I see the smear of red.
Before I can move, the door bursts open.
A nurse from the center—the same calm-sounding woman who led me in—rushes to his side. What was her name?
Karen.
That’s right.
Her expression shifts fast from professional neutrality to almost panic. “We need to get him lying on his side. Now.”
Jerry tries to wave her off, but the motion barely lifts an inch before his arm drops again. His breath shudders. His eyes—those whiskey eyes I inherited—wander around the room in confusion until they find me.
And the bottom drops out of my chest.
I see him as a human being for the first time in my adult life.
He’s not scary; he’s…scared. This is not fake. This is not a product of being out of touch with reality. He looks scared, like he knows his body is failing him, and at any moment, he won’t come back from it.
“Holden…” he wheezes, reaching a shaking hand toward me.
The nurse lowers the back of the chair, adjusting him with careful, practiced gentleness. “Jerry, keep your head back for me. Breathe deep.” She glances at me quickly, her voice low. “This isn’t good. We might need to call an ambulance.”