Dad.
I should ignore it. Delete the voicemails without listening. Cut him off like I’ve threatened to do a hundred times.
Instead, I sit on my couch—leather creaking under me, cold even through my jeans—and press Play on my voicemail.
His voice fills the apartment. Slurred but warm. Friendly, even. The version of my father that shows up when he’s three drinks in and feeling nostalgic.
Please let him not be in a casino.
“Hey, buddy. It’s Dad.” A pause. Ice clinking in a glass. “I know you’re probably busy. Big game coming up, right? You’re doing great, son. Really great. Your mother would be so proud.”
My throat tightens.
“Listen, I need a favor. Small thing. There’s this…situation. Gambling thing. You know how it is.” He laughs, like we’re sharing a joke. Like calling your kids to bail you out is totally normal.Come on over, son. We’ll play some catch, you can watch me get banned again from another casino. It’ll be good times.“I got in a little over my head. These guys, they’re not messing around. I need maybe ten grand. Fifteen, tops. Just to smooth things over.”
I close my eyes. Shoot. Ten grand. Fifteen.Tops.
Last month it was eight. The month before, five.
And of course, the fifty large ones from Barcelona. He wasn’t too happy with my little detour. But I managed to bail him out, kneecaps intact. In fact, by the time I arrived, he’d managed to wheedle a loan out of the house and was back on a winning streak.
At least one of us was. It lasted all of an hour.
So I guess the fifty grand came in handy after all.
“You know, you got your charm from me. Your mother used to say you could talk your way out of anything. Just like your old man.” His voice gets softer. Almost tender. The tone he used when I was a kid and he’d tuck me in at night, back when he was still Dad and not just a collection of problems I can’t fix. “Before I…well. Before I messed everything up.”
There’s a long pause. More ice clinking. The sound of him taking a drink.
“I love you, Brody. You’re a good kid. Always have been. Just…call me back, okay? Please. I’m counting on you.”
The message ends.
I sit there in the silence, staring at the gray sky outside my windows.
You got your charm from me.
Just like your old man.
Yeah, the kind of charm that gets you called “Candy” until you forget your own name.
I delete the voicemail.
The silence in my apartment is suffocating. The gray January sky presses against the windows. My phone sits on the coffee table, screen dark, offering no answers.
I need something. Anything. A distraction. A solution. A way out of this mess that doesn’t involve becoming my father.
My laptop is sitting on the coffee table. I flip it open without really thinking about it.
Instagram loads.
I shouldn’t look. I know I shouldn’t look.
I look anyway.
I don’t even have to type it into the search bar. It pulls up in my history as if to sayAh, back to this again.
@everaftereventsco
