“Jess?”
“No, just, shut up, listen to me.”
I couldn’t believe I was talking to my father this way. Actually, I couldn’t believe I was talking to my father in any fashion. But here I was.
And now that I was here, there wasn’t going to be any holding back.
“Dad, just... do you know what it’s like to get used? Repeatedly? What it’s like to go into every date and every relationship hoping that this one will be different, only to realize that no, it won’t be? That every time I end up getting dumped or getting broken up with, I realize I was used for sex and nothing more?”
Maybe this was too much to hear for my father.
Tough shit.
Maybe if Phoenix had tried to have an actual dialogue with me this morning, I wouldn’t be in such a foul mood. But it wasn’t any more Phoenix’s fault than how he’d acted this morning. Everything, like it always seemed to, came back to my father.
“I feel like I can’t ever have a good relationship with a man because I don’t know how to have a relationship with any man, and damnit, Dad, it’s your fault.”
I couldn’t even think of what I was going to say now. It just all spilled out. I didn’t care if it was accurate or not. It was how I felt.
“I don’t know how to interact with this world. I know how to flirt to get tips, but I don’t know how to behave otherwise. I don’t know how to make smart judgments. I feel like all I got was a raw deal. I’m moving, again, and running away, again, because I’ve burned all my bridges here and it’s not fucking safe! And you know what it all comes back to? You treated me like shit when I was a child, Dad, and you’ve never done a goddamn thing to fix it. You’ve never apologized. I’m happy that you’re sober now, I really am, but you just deflect difficult conversations with stupid humor. You laugh and make terrible jokes without ever actually engaging with me, and you know what? I’m fucking sick of it! You never face the truth, Dad. Well, let me make you face the truth right now. You were awful. I hated you. I don’t hate you now, but I don’t like you. I can’t ever be honest with you, not until now, at least. I... I... ”
I ran out of steam. The tears that came made my words blubbery, and I just began to sob uncontrollably. I couldn’t make complete words, let alone complete sentences, but I’d made my fucking point. My father finally knew how I felt.
And for what felt like a good two minutes, I just bawled into the phone. My father didn’t say a word as I let every tear out of my body. If this was cathartic, then being cathartic hurt way fucking more than I ever would have anticipated.
It felt like I was crying not just for my current self, but the fourteen-year-old self who had run away. That little teenager had never really had the chance to stop and cry much; she was too busy trying to stay above water and keep her shit together. In the few moments that she did cry, she had to stop shortly after, either because she had a shift she had to put a pretty face on for or because an angry man was coming who wanted something from her, and it wasn’t tears.
It was small wonder, then, that the tears that fell weren’t just the tears of a sad, dumped woman, but an angry, heartbroken little girl who wanted something that the passage of time had ensured she would never have.
Finally, when my sobbing slowed down to once every few seconds instead of several per second, I heard my father’s voice. And he said three words that shocked me—but also convinced me he was starting to understand me.
“You are right.”
I almost started bawling again when I heard those words. Certainly, I was far too overcome with emotion upon hearing my father admit culpability to reply. It was the first time... aside from my father saying a few phone calls ago that I could visit him…it was really the first time he’d done anything nearing seriousness and depth in conversation.
“Jess, you’re right, and I am so, so sorry,” he said.
His voice was cracking now too. God, we both just sounded like blubbering messes.
“My single biggest regret in life... it was losing you,” he said. “In many ways, Jess, you are the reason I became sober. I was stupid and selfish and foolish back then. I never thought you’d run away. It just never entered my mind. And when you did, and I lost the one person I loved in this world...”
And back came the tears.
“I did not know if I would ever see you again. Frankly, the idea of a fourteen-year-old running out into the world on her own, without my help or even the help of a big sister, terrified me. I fought to believe I’d hear from you again, but... well, regardless, I knew I needed to get better. I told myself that if I ever crossed paths with you again, I’d be better. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was so bad to you, and I am forever sorry and apologetic for that.”
I just...
Dad...
“Why?” I choked out. “Why did it take until now for you to say that?”
My father sighed. He didn’t deserve to. For how much he had fucking hurt me…
No, he did. Now it was me who was acting like a bitch in the face of someone baring their soul to me. Small wonder, it seemed, that my father would recoil in the face of such harsh questioning.
“Because it’s scary,” he said.
Those words blunted my tears and got me to sit up. This was so unlike my father.
