I’d rather wipe my ass with a cheese grater than become the topic of his pretentious dinner parties. I can’t believe there was a time when I worked so hard for his approval—when I thought it wasworthsomething.
Being around Staten and seeing how she interacts with her own mother—it’s made me realize that sometimes it’s necessary to cut out what’s rotten. Years of verbal abuse from the one person who promised to love me. Years of doubting my own abilities because it’s what I was conditioned to do.
Despite my father’s efforts to make me a star, secretly, deep down, I know he’s been rooting for my fall from grace. Why wouldn’t he? He’s the man of the house—if he doesn’t have any competition, it’ll make him seem more competent.Impossible, by the way.
A frown crumples Staten’s mouth. “What are we going to do?”
My mind may be listing creative ways to inflict torture upon my sperm donor, but I don’t miss the Freudian slip of her tongue.
“We?”
“Duh. I’m not going to let you deal with Satan alone,” she explains, grabbing my hand and rubbing the mountain range of my knuckles with her thumb. “We’re a team.”
I’ve never been a part of a team before. Well, I have, but not in the emotional, pour-all-of-our-feelings-out sense. Staten is the rock that I never even realized I needed. As much space as my dad occupies in my head, Staten takes up double.
I nuzzle my nose against her forehead, forgetting that we’re still contractually obligated to uphold this whole fake datingscheme for the greater MU population. Nothing has ever been fake with Staten, though.
Fuck, she’s the antiseptic to a shallow cut, providing a sting so delicious that pain is something to be readily accepted than premeditatedly shunned.
“God, what would I do without you?”
The question is rhetorical, of course. I’d probably still be a sex-obsessed, futureless degenerate if I wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. I don’t know, it just seems on brand for me.
“I hope I never have to find out,” she banters.
As much as I want to smile, I can’t get that whole interaction with my father out of my head, and the burden of being the perfect son—one I still carry despite not wanting to perpetuate this toxic masculinity—weighs me down like slow-drying cement. There’s a little boy deep down, not disclosed to his dad’s acerbic hate and a firm believer of his parodic affection, who still reveres him because of a blood-born connection.
An idea pops into my head—an idea that has the possibility to bring me peace. “Uh, I know you just agreed to tutor me until I got my Lit grade back up, but what if I wanted to shoot for an A?”
I’m already sitting in the B range, so it shouldn’t be too hard, right? Not to mention that I’ve brought my participation grade all the way up. Those extra points are sure to help me.
“Knox Mulligan wants an A?” A smile blossoms on Staten’s face as she looks up at me.
“It’s doable, right? I mean, we only have the cumulative exam left. If I just study my ass off, I might be able to jump a whole grade letter.”
“Is this secretly an excuse to keep me as your tutor?” she teases.
“Youaremy good luck charm. Plus, I’d love to see the look on my dad’s face when he finally realizes what I’m capable of.”
My father has always gone out of his way to make me feeldiminutive—a lab rat poked and prodded through a cage for the mere purpose of draining its desire to live. No tests for the greater good of humanity, no behavioral studies, just…pure, black-hearted cruelty.
He makes the small victories even smaller. I scored one goal in youth hockey when I was ten? He mentions how my other teammate scored three. I got a B+ on my history test in sophomore year of high school? He brings up how my sister always gets straight A’s.
I’m so fucking tired.
Staten’s hand upgrades from my palm to the side of my face, and she inadvertently soothes the fiery sting of tears cropping up behind my eyes. I blink to keep them hidden.
“You’re capable of so much, Knox. I hope you know that,” she tells me, her voice slightly hushed, as if she’s finally decided to let me in on one of her many secret truths that she hoards just for herself. Somewhere in the catacombs of her ribs, nearest to her heart.
I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear it.
24
WHO SAID BUSINESS AND PLEASURE DON’T MIX?
STATEN
“We’ve been at this for houuursss,” Knox complains, really making a show of planting his face into my bedspread like subject-verb agreement and pronoun usage is a death sentence.
