I didn’t want to go back to that truck. I didn’t want to go back home. I didn’t want to go back to anything that related in any way to Springsville.
I dreamed of moving to New York City, of making my own way. I dreamed of ditching my last name, maybe even also changing my first. I dreamed of becoming a stage actress, the kind whose performance wouldn’t remain permanently on camera for the world to mock and critique.
But dreams were dreams for a reason.
I headed to the truck, keeping my head low, ostentatiously so I could better deal with the glare of the sun. I got to the driver’s side, opened the door, and sat down without ever lifting my head.
“Well?”
I sighed. I could not ignore the voice behind me. To do so would unearth a level of anger that no one should have to deal with.
Even if it came from my father.
“They’re all together.”
“What?” he snapped, the fury in his voice like a volcano threatening to erupt to the surface. “We did everything we could to drive them apart!”
I stayed silent. In these moments, it was best just to let my father rant and rave through his anger until he eventually calmed down—or just exhausted himself, like a child throwing a temper tantrum until they lacked the energy to scream any more.
“How the fuck is this happening?” he growled. “We specifically aimed for their two weakest points. And they’re uniting? I’m going to fucking kill Spike, thought he was so smart and smug for taking credit for those ideas. Fucking idiot.”
He then muttered something that he thought was silent but that I always heard very loud and clear, almost too loud and too clear.
“Wish I’d had a son I could’ve made my VP.”
I had never figured out if my father had said such a thing to antagonize me or play games with me, or if he genuinely believed I couldn’t hear him. On the one hand, well, he said such horrible things. On the other, though, he pampered and spoiled me at home so much that it almost became too much; someone who treated me like a queen and then said the same thing…
Well, let’s just say it wasn’t the only complicated part of dealing with my father.
“This is unacceptable, this is fucking unacceptable,” he said, his voice picking back up. “Lilly, my child, did you see if they had weapons?”
I gulped. I knew why he was asking this—he wanted to launch a strike against these guys at a funeral for one of their own.
My father liked to pretend that I was just a naïve pawn who had no idea what he did. When I was a child and had asked him what he did for work, he simply said he was an entrepreneur. When I got a little older and had a better understanding, he said he was a businessman who owned motorcycle repair shops.
Now, I’d learned to stop asking questions. I’d either be lied to or ignored.
But just because I’d stopped asking questions didn’t mean I’d stopped learning things. And the more I learned about my father, the more I struggled to understand how he could treat me so well and treat the world so cruelly.
Actually, it wasn’t a struggle. Sadly. He didn’t see me as someone to love; he saw me as something to be used as he saw fit. It just so happened most of the time, I served him well.
“They did,” I lied.
“Damn,” my father said. “Would’ve made a golden opportunity.”
And like this, how he spoke out loud... did he think I wouldn’t have picked up on it?
I swore my father was just deliberately dense with me. Nothing else made sense.
“Very well,” he said. “Darling, thank you for checking in on what was happening. We can head home now.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
“Good, indeed,” he said, the words sounding more than a little sinister.
He laughed to himself as we pulled out of the parking lot just as the funeral congregants had begun to spill out of the chapel. The laugh sent shivers down my spine and only further reinforced what I already knew.
My father might smile when I looked at him, but even when that happened, he was digging his claws into me, trying to use me for his own nefarious gains.
I had to get out.
