Chapter 7 #2
When the shuttle landed, Renn was surprised to see Elias on the landing pad, waiting for him. Nate and their friends gave him a quick goodbye and promised to catch up later. Cadets were saluting Elias as they wandered past—some staring for longer than necessary, but Renn didn’t mind for once.
“Dad! I didn’t know you would be here,” Renn exclaimed, but his smile faded when he saw his father’s grave expression.
“Is something wrong?” For a split second, he wondered if something had happened to Gran. She had taken a hard fall a few months ago, but seemed to be bouncing back quickly.
“I don’t have a lot of time, but I have a new assignment,” Elias said, monotone.
Renn’s brows furrowed, searching his father’s face for some kind of sign that he surely didn’t mean off-Earth, but when he remained emotionless—a captain first and foremost—he was sick to his stomach.
“But you said five years.” He hated how hurt his voice came out as he spoke.
“I know. But I’m needed elsewhere.”
“You promised . . .” he trailed off, words suddenly lost.
“You’re sixteen, Renn. You don’t need me here. You’ve got Nate, friends, your grandparents are still nearby . . .”
Renn scoffed. “God. You will never get it will you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re right. I don’t need you; I never have.” Elias had the gall to look hurt for once and that fueled Renn’s anger all the more. “All I ever wanted was for my father to give a shit.”
“Renn,” he said with a warning, which Renn completely and happily ignored because he simply didn’t care about his father’s feelings.
“I don’t want you here, and as you said, I don’t need you anymore,” Renn continued
“Renn. Listen to me.”
“No. If you don’t want to be here, then go.
I don’t know why I ever expected you to stay.
I don’t need your explanation about your duties and the endless lectures of what it means to be a captain.
Please, spare me.” Renn moved to push past him, but Elias grabbed onto his shoulder, pulling him back roughly.
“It’s my duty. This is what I committed to do, and I thought I had made that clear these past couple years—what it truly means to be a leader, Aldrenn.”
Renn shook his head. “And what about your commitment to me, or did that go away when Kendra died?”
Elias reeled back as if Renn slapped him, his hand closing into a fist, and for several seconds, Renn truly thought he would hit him. Renn knew he had crossed a line, but right now, he couldn't feel bad about it—he didn’t want to feel bad about it. That would come later.
The father and son stared at one another for a long time, and eventually, Elias unclenched his fist.
“It’s good to know, after all these years, you think I’m a good-for-nothing man,” Elias said softly.
“I never said you weren’t a good man, but I do think it’s possible to be a good man—a good captain, and a good father. You just don’t know how, and I don’t intend to make the same mistake.”
Elias breathed in through his nose deeply, his mouth in a tight line. Whatever was on the tip of his tongue . . . he willed it to never be spoken.
“You know, I do wonder how different it would have been if my mother was here . . .” Renn paused. The weight of his mother’s necklace suddenly became heavy. What would she want him to do or say at this moment?
He searched his father’s face, looking for any sign of the father he desperately wanted, but there was only the captain that remained.
He was incapable of being anything else.
And Renn realized that he actually felt sorry for him.
He had known, for a long time, that Elias was broken, but he had always had the hope that he could be mended—waiting for that day.
But the waiting was only causing Renn more pain and he would no longer allow his father to have this invisible hold on his heart.
“She would have been so disappointed in the father you became.” Like his father, the words lingered on his tongue. It wouldn’t bring Renn any satisfaction to hurt his father even if he had every reason to. He couldn’t bring himself to be that cruel.
“I’m heading out with a new crew first thing in the morning,” Elias said when Renn never finished his sentence. “I hope to see you at the send-off, son.”
Son.
He had to say it now, didn’t he? Renn decided once and for all that if his father’s most important title was “captain” then that’s exactly what he would give him. He stepped back and saluted him, as if he was just an ordinary cadet.
“Safe travels, Captain Anton.” He dropped his arm and walked away without another word. His father didn’t call for him to come back, didn’t move an inch as he watched his only child step out of his life forever.
When Renn returned to the dorm, Nate was asleep, which he was grateful for. He didn’t feel like talking, just needed a moment to think before he explained to his best friend what had just transpired.
He sat on the edge of the bed, burying his head in his hands, as a deep fear fell over him. Was he destined to be a replica of his father? An only child. Orphaned. Only caring about himself.
No.
He would never do what his father had done to him. He would never abandon someone he loved. And if that meant he never married or never fell in love, then so be it. He swore in that moment that he would never break someone's heart the way his father had utterly destroyed his own.