Cade snorts. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what that man thinks. He barely has two brain cells to rub together and has treated everyone in his life like a punching bag. His opinion is worthless to me.”
I try not to audibly sigh, but I’m not really successful. I push that same loose curl off his forehead again before I speak.
“I think we both know that’s not true.”
The silence that sits between us is heavy, and I stay very still, waiting to see how Cade’s going to react. When the seconds pass and he still doesn’t say anything, I panic and keep going.
“I’m not trying to be a dick. I spent my entire life trying to make my dad happy, and he didn’t do a damn thing to deserve it. You know this. You’ve told me a million times that it’s okay, and I shouldn’t be mad at myself, because parents fuck you up and your brain is always still kind of a little kid when you deal with them. Why is it okay for me, but you have to be totally above it all? You’re just what? Over it? Magically healed from all his abuse and what that does to you?”
“He didn’t abuse me,” he says, like a reflex. I ignore it, because we both know it’s a lie but there’s no point in fighting about it.
“Whatever you want to call it. He’s a piece of shit. That doesn’t mean you can’t want him to approve of you. If anything, it probably makes you more desperate to please him. On some level. It’s an instinct.”
Cade is silent a little while longer, but at least he’s not getting angry.
“I should never have let you go to therapy. You were already scary smart, now you’re all insightful and shit as well. Unbelievable.”
The better corner of his mouth tugs up in a smile, but the humor feels forced.
“Come on, Cade,” I whisper. “Can you be honest about something, for once? I feel like all you ever do is run around telling everyone how fine you are.”
For just a second, I think I have him. I think he might talk to me. It’s becoming more and more glaringly obvious how overduethis conversation is. Instead, he locks up. I see him tense, and his expression shutters as he pulls away from me.
“Fine. If you want me to talk to him, I’ll talk to him. Just talk. But afterwards, when he’s still a piece of shit and it hasn’t made a damn bit of difference except opening ourselves up to his cheap-ass ridicule, I’m going to say ‘I told you so’.”
He’s pulling himself off the bed, his movements jerky with anger and obviously painful as he winces through getting dressed. I try to follow him, but he moves away from me, making a point of digging around in the drawer for some underwear and then putting it on without my help, even though it looks awkward.
“Cade, that’s not what I meant. I’m not trying to force you to do anything, I just thought it might help.”
“Sure. And I’m going to do it, to show you it won’t. Let’s go. We’re burning daylight, and if we leave it any later he’ll probably be unconscious, if he isn’t already.”
Cade has officially draped himself in a flinty resolve. I’m pretty sure this is all my fault for taking us down this path, but it’s too late to go back now. As I quietly get dressed to follow him, all I can do is cross my fingers that his dad really is trying to be better, like he said.
Chapter Fourteen
Idon’t really talk to Silas on the drive over to the trailer. I hope Kyle is there, because I’ve been building momentum the whole way, and if I lose it now, I don’t know if I can go through with this again.
I’m proving a point to Silas. That’s it. I don’t give a damn what Kyle thinks.
The amount of times I have to repeat it to myself makes me think it’s not true, but I want it to be. If I keep pretending, eventually I’ll have to feel it.
Right?
At some point in the swirl of thoughts coursing through me, I realize that there is no best-case scenario here. Even if he apologized for everything—which he won’t—it won’t help.
On the rare times that I end up dwelling in my memories, I put most of my mental energy into gaslighting myself that it wasn’t that bad. My child’s eye must have made the bad things bigger and the pain brighter. The people around me were adults doing their best, burdened by their own abundance of pain.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I wish I’d been a better father. Everything you remember is true, and you have every right to be furious.
Even picturing him saying the words makes me shiver. It should feel good, right? The idea of acknowledgment and apology?
Instead, it makes the whole seething mass of memories creep closer. As if him acknowledging it makes it all so true that it will wrap its jaws around my soul and shake it, like wounded prey finally caught at the end of a long hunt.
And if he apologizes, then would I even have the right to be angry anymore? Or would I have to let that go, along with everything else. And try to be a whole person without that rage to shore up my personality. Without the doubt hampering me, providing a constant excuse for my failures.
I realize dimly that if he really did apologize, I would just consider it one more reason to be angry at him. Like he’d unburden himself and move on with his healthier, more responsible life, and I’d still be stuck here, mired in my own issues and unable to extricate myself from jack shit.
I’m aware that I look like a stompy, petulant child as I park sloppily and practically collapse out of the cab of Silas’s truck. Especially considering how much I fought him to drive, even with my bad hand, like some worthless point of pride. But I’m tired, sore, and already gearing up for the inevitable fight that’s about to happen, and petulant is about the best I can do right now.
