I hadn’t even gotten my head through the opening when I whirled back around and closed the distance between us.“You know what! You’re right. Your damn words do not meet myexpectations!”I was pretty sure my thoughts were yelling now. A cringe would have been nice.“No part of you meets my expectations!”
Another long, deadpan stare.“What is it you wish me to say?”
I floundered. What did I want him to say exactly? What could he say? Maybe the opposite of all that Grandfather had said.“I don’t know. Anything! Say anything!”
The moment stretched out. I’d nearly given up and decided it was pointless when his words broke through my thoughts.“It’s late.”
“Late? It’s late?”I looked at him, aghast.“That’s all you have to say? It’s late?”
“You told me to say something, and the statement is true. It is late. You should be sleeping. I should be sleeping. We must rise soon.”
I stared at him so long, I began to feel the need to stare him down again. I shrugged it off and looked away. I was wasting my time. Even I didn’t know exactly what I wanted him to say.
“I am to be one of the number of your accompaniment tomorrow.”
His words caught me by surprise, not that I would have understood what he meant even if I’d been prepared.“What?”
“I will be one of the ones attending the hunt with you this day.”
“Oh. The hunt. Sure.”I thought back to Lelas’s words. She’d said many of the mers wanted this tradition to end, that it was cruel. I would have expected Therin, above any of the rest, to be of a like mind. He was always so worried some innocent little fish was going to get hurt.“I doubted you would go.”
“I am willing to swim beside you still.”
That took me a heartbeat.“Oh.”Ouch!“I meant because you don’t like hurting animals, but, hey, thanks for being willing to lower yourself to such a level to swim with me.”
He had the decency to look ashamed for the briefest of moments.“While I do not condone useless sacrifice of life, no matter how small, the hunt traditions tie us to our past. To our ancestors. To our history. Our honor.”
“Cut the crap, Therin. You saying you’re willing to swim with me has nothing to do with hunting some damn shark!”
“Again, I ask what you desire me to say.”
Then it came out. Daddy issues all over the fucking sea floor.“Since you heard me tell Syleen that I prefer men, you haven’t looked in my direction, let alone talked to me. You spent every second for weeks with me. Teaching me all kinds of stuff. Telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. Bossing me around every fucking minute. Then you’re gone, like all that other crap meant nothing, just because I love men!”
As if to prove he was human, or at least not an unshakeable statue, I saw his fist clench and his face twitch, as if attempting to suppress a shudder.“I had not prepared for your deceit.”
“My deceit? What deceit?”
“You did not confess your infirmity upon our meeting.”
Maybe it was my anger, or maybe the overwhelming yet familiar sting of rejection, but I was struggling even more than normal to keep up with his meaning. I had to pause to attempt to interpret.“My deceit was that I didn’t tell you I was gay when you swam up to me in the middle of the ocean that day? And infirmity? Really?”
“I suppose I should have expected such, but I was not aware that you were not whole. Perhaps it should have been obvious to me, considering the manner of your conception. If I had known, I would not have sought you out.”
“I wasn’t exactly in control of how I was conceived, Father. And please forgive me for not starting our first conversation with my favorite sexual position after I realized you weren’t some sea monster. I’ll know to do better the next time I meet another father that was never there for me!”
Again, nothing more than the slightest grimace. He’d never met my grandfather, but it was amazing how much these two would have gotten along.“Why did you seek me out? I’ve asked you a thousand times. Why look for me? Why follow me all the time? Why did you wait so long?”
He crossed his arms, causing the lean muscles of his chest to flex.“It is of consequence no longer. I was mistaken.”
Why was I doing this to myself?“Mistaken? Mistaken because the reason you needed or wanted me doesn’t exist anymore, or mistaken because of who I am?”
“Details do not change the outcome.”
“Damn it! One minute you sound like you’re trying to write Shakespeare, and the next you sound like a fortune cookie. And apparently, one detail about me did change the outcome.”
And apparently, me showing up yelling and demanding didn’t change his feelings about me. Big shock there.
I turned to go once more.
