His facial expression froze. His entire body, in fact, remained stuck when he said that, as if without even realizing it, he’d stated some unspoken truth that had laid in the recesses of his mind for years upon years. I didn’t dare say a word.
But that didn’t mean I could not relate to it. It was quite the opposite, in fact.
Sonny pulled himself out of his statuesque stillness, but the shock on his face still remained. I could tell he regretted being so open with me, but how could he have known the words would escape like that?
I still remained quiet.
But after his gaze went downward and he started focusing intensely on his breath, I felt compelled to share—to show I knew what he meant all too well.
“I know the feeling,” I said, almost so quietly I could barely hear myself.
But Sonny heard. His gaze shifted over to me suddenly, the intensity of his beautiful yet fierce eyes telling me to say more. I gulped, made sure I chose my words as accurately as I could, and pressed on.
“My father is a banker back in the Northeast,” I said. “He’s never really been a parent, more like an instructor. I was expected to get good grades, do well in sports, basically be the best in whatever I signed up for. It was tough and hard. Even now, he still asks me if I’m working my way up in my department. I…I try and reach out to him, to get him to show an emotional side, but it’s tough. I sometimes feel like it’s there, but whatever faint glimmers I might get of it tend to go out the window in a heartbeat. And yet…”
I laughed. It wasn’t emotional for me, not like I was on the verge of tears. But it was stunning how these were things I just hadn’t given much airspace to, hadn’t opened up about until now. And I was doing it to the guy whose father had been put in a coma this morning.
If that didn’t say life was crazy now, nothing did.
“And yet, for all of that, I still try my damndest to reach out to him, to connect with him, to not disappoint him. I’m his only child, and I know how much he put into me. I know that he doesn’t know how to love or show affection. It was a hard, hard day when I gave up on the idea of him ever being able to show he cared for me. But…”
“It’s a fucked-up situation,” Sonny interjected.
I nodded.
“I know to some degree I just need to accept it and live my life for me, not anyone else. But that’s so much easier said than done. Almost painfully so.”
Sonny drew in a breath. Then he drew in another one. And then he exhaled as slowly as he could.
“My father isn’t wealthy, but he’s got resources and connections all the same,” Sonny said, his words as slow as I had ever heard. “What yours had in money, mine had in power. Mine always thought that if he led by example, he could do well enough in raising me. Of course, it didn’t help that we both got fucked by my mother’s passing from cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But I always imagined when that happened, my father would open up more. You know? Like he’d realize life was too fucking short, and he’d want to spend more time with me. Instead, it fucking seems like he got more distanced. Like he was afraid of losing me. Like…”
Sonny said nothing more, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He’d reached his limit. I knew I’d reached that point too many times to count—and to have him now in a coma and to know that it might truly be too late for that…I didn’t want to think about the day I had to say goodbye to my father. Would it be too late for us then?
I stood up from my chair, bit my lip to avoid turning into a sobbing mess, and wrapped my arms around Sonny’s shoulders. He grabbed my arms and pulled me in close, and we just stood there in silence, my arms around him, the comfort of my presence hopefully enough to show what our fathers hadn’t shown us.
Affection. Perhaps even love.
Sonny eventually patted my arm twice, and I rose up and went back to my seat. I looked across at a man who looked far less burdened than he had even two minutes ago. He wasn’t going to cry—bikers didn’t cry. But he looked light, like emotions could flow out of him a lot more freely. I gave him a gentle smile, and he did the same back to me as he took a sip of his drink.
“We don’t have to be fighting for our fathers,” I said, as much to Sonny as to myself. “We’re adults now. We don’t have to try and live up to their expectations or fight something we know to be a losing battle. We can be ourselves.”
“Yes, but we also can’t ignore it,” Sonny added. “We can’t just say we’re not going to do it and move on. This shit has a way of sticking around even when I try and fucking get rid of it.”
“So let’s be both,” I said.
Sonny arched an eyebrow at me in confusion.
“We can both move forward but also keep in mind that it’s something we won’t ever leave behind entirely. I’m not sure I can explain it well, but it’s something that I’m trying to work on. To not have my father influence me in a bad way, but to recognize that he is human, he did affect me accordingly, and I have to live with that.”
I thought for a split second about not gettingthathonest, but I figured with his second-degree connections to Hailey and Melissa, he probably knew about my lifestyle.
“Right now, I still struggle to look for affection in all the wrong places,” I said. I could feel everything in my body want to clamp down and shut up, but I fought through it. Everything would spill out now. “I go out and make mistakes with men. I’m looking for that connection that my father couldn’t provide me. I know it. I don’t need a therapist to tell me. But then, whenever the opportunity comes for attention or a good time, I can’t say no. I take it no matter how bad I know it may be for me. And…”
“Were we that?”
