“Stop,” I hissed through my teeth, but his gaze only grew sharper as he quirked one corner of his mouth in an insouciant half-smile.
“Come on, show me what you’ve got. Be a man. You want to feel like a man, don’t you? Would you feel more like one if you hit your father? Huh? Would it make you happier if you hurt me?” he insisted, and I didn’t think any more. I clenched my hand into a fist and tensed my arm to put power behind it, power that would make him bitterly regret this move.
I took a swing at him, trying to indulge his insane demand, but John crouched slightly to dodge and stepped back lightly.
Before I even had time to process what happened, he was inside my guard. He palmed the back of my head with one hand and pulled me to him, slamming me against his chest.
He was hugging me.
It was my first paternal hug.
The only one, in fact, that I’d ever received.
“That man you believed to be your father taught you that a man is someone who hits. The man who is your father is teaching you that a real man loves and forgives,” he whispered into my ear, wrapping his other arm around me like I was some small, helpless child. Like I washischild who had been lost to him for so long, and now he had finally found me again. I held perfectly still, processing this strange, novel, and unexpected contact.
I could feel his heart beating in his chest.
Insidemychest.
His breathing was ragged. His hand clutched more tightly at the nape of my neck while the other rubbed my back. He smelled clean, pure. Familiar. I felt new, destabilizing emotions coursing through me, sending tremors through the iceberg that had long ago replaced my heart.
And I became a little less Neil and a little more his son.
“You abandoned me…” I whispered. My arms remained flat against my sides. I wasn’t reciprocating his embrace, but I didn’t cringe away from it the way I feared I might.
“Never by choice. The Lindhoms were a powerful family. Your grandfather even set his goons on me. If I’d gotten too close to your mother, they would have had me taken care of.” He cupped my face in his hands and stared deeply into my eyes, searching for some sort of connection, some relationship, anything that might keep his hope alive.
“I loved Mia. You were not the result of a mistake or a one-night stand. You came from love. I felt joy when I found out about you. I was excited for you to come. But fate was cruel to me, as it also was to you.” He shook me slightly as though trying to force the words into my head. He could sense my mistrust, my fear, and my misery. “You have to believe me, Neil. I will never leave you again. You can count on me. I will always be there for you. Always. You aren’t alone anymore. Please, just give me a chance…” He was on the verge of tears. I continued to stare at him as he touched my hair and cheeks as though I weren’t quite real, as though he were trying to convince himself that I was really there, flesh and blood, standing right in front of him.
“I don’t… I don’t know…” I said in a confused mutter. I didn’t have the strength to reject him, but I wasn’t ready to forgive him either.
He continued to hold my face as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. He lingered there for a moment, as if to hold me to him for as long as possible.
“I’m here. I’ll give you all the time you need to get to know me and accept me. I understand how upsetting this all is, but please allow me to remain a part of your life.” His voice broke.
I thought.
I thought for a long time about what I should do.
I had a lot of confusion but also a great sense of relief in knowing that William had never really been my father. That man and I didn’t share anything except a last name, and there was nothing tying me to him, save our mutual hatred and disgust.
I gave John a nod; that was all he was going to get from me for the time being. I’d never been good with words anyway.
“Could we talk for a minute?” he asked tentatively. I could sense that he feared my rejection, which, in a move that surprised even me, didn’t come. I leaned back against the edge of the desk and gestured at the chair near him. He gave me an incredulous look before smiling and sitting down with a heavy sigh. I wasn’t sure why I’d given in, but for some reason, I felt like I needed to face him and hear him out even if I wasn’t yet ready to forgive his years of absence.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked, wishing I could light up a cigarette.
“I’d like to know how you are. How the internship’s going…” I knew that wasn’t what he really wanted to ask, but I played along anyway.
“I’m not great… I do like my work, though,” I interrupted bluntly.
“Not great? You miss your siblings, don’t you?” he pressed.
I didn’t say anything, but the memory of how I’d driven them away knocked the air out of me. My godforsaken pride had trapped me in this corrosive hatred that I couldn’t help but vent on everyone around me, even the people who didn’t have a fucking thing to do with it.
“They weren’t involved in any of this, Neil. William was a son of a bitch, telling you like that, but they had nothing to do with it. You are all still bonded by the good, loving relationship you’ve cultivated with them all their lives. Don’t let that man shape anything else about your life,” John said urgently. He knew that, deep down, I loved them. My love for my siblings and theirs for me was the only kind of love that I actually believed in. Still, there was something inside me, some dark power that urged me to give them up, crushing the smaller, more human part of me.
I heaved a frustrated sigh and stared unwaveringly at him. It had always been easier for me to pretend to be inscrutable rather than showing myself fragile and miserable.
