Sherry had been my uncle’s wife when he passed away. Lance was hers from a previous relationship, but my uncle had been happy to raise him like his own son. For the short time he was able to.
I knew my father kept in touch with Sherry for a long time. I suspected he sent her money, even though she got a nice life insurance settlement from my uncle’s death.
I didn’t know they were still in touch. Or that he would be willing to take on her son when she decided she was done being a mother. But that’s exactly what he’d done.
As for me, I’d been thrilled.
With Lance only being two years older than me, I thought we’d have a lot in common and could keep each other company, since my father was gone so much.
That first day all but dashed those hopes. Lance had been moody and quiet. As soon as my father offered him up his bedroom, with my father sleeping on the couch, he’d gone in there and didn’t come out until dinner. Where he gave one-word answers or grunts.
Slowly but surely, though, my father worked on him. He was good with people like that. He could bring them out of their shells, could get any information out of them that he wanted. And those were experienced criminals, more often than not. So a grumpy teenager? Easy work.
Pretty quickly, Lance was being taught all the things I’d learned growing up. But when I tried to help him when I caught him practicing, he’d flip out and tell me that he didn’t need help from an ‘arrogant little girl.’
Did I make things easier by replying, “Fine then, I hope you stab yourself in the foot?” No. Especially when just a few minutes later, that’s exactly what happened. I’d totally stood there, arms crossed, ‘arrogant’ smile on my lips as he hobbled past me to go get his cut cleaned up.
Unfortunately, that was how things were with us.
With more mature eyes, I could see that he was clinging to the only father figure he ever knew, that he wanted to prove himself, and make my father proud.
As a kid, all I saw was that he was constantly trying to one-up me, to prove he was better than I was.
And sometimes, the little ‘tests’ he threw at me were downright cruel, if not abusive.
Shame on me, in hindsight, for never telling my father. He would have put an end to it immediately, set Lance straight, told him that there was nothing to compete about. But at the time, I’druffled at his taunts of, “Fine, go cry to your father like the baby you are.”
Because he never got in trouble, it only continued. Slowly but surely, I was becoming the sullen one. I was getting the comments from my father. I was being told to stop trying to ‘show off’ in front of my cousin. When I’d been fed up enough to scream, “He’s not my cousin!” I’d been sent right to my room.
Eventually, it was time for school.
I thought maybe that would help, that having more time away from him would let me compartmentalize everything.
The problem was that Lance was every bit the same asshole at school as he was at home. Only now, he had an audience. And, eventually, friends to help pile on.
It was no longer just teasing about being younger or not being as strong as he was or whatever petty crap he’d spewed at me when we were home. It was meaner, more personal. It was about my acne-prone face. It was about my flat chest. My big feet. My lack of friends.
My father worked hard my whole life to instill a seemingly ironclad sense of self, a previously unshakable confidence.
Lance chipped away at it bit by bit.
I shrank into myself, eyes on the floor when I walked the halls, sitting alone in the library at lunch so I couldn’t be targeted, darting out of school at the bell to run home before Lance and his friends could follow me.
But it all came to a head that following spring. My father had another time-consuming job involving a lot of travel, so he was coming home later and later.
Lance took advantage of that by having his buddies over to get trashed all day and half the night.
I’d started ferreting food away in my room and climbing out my bedroom window to go use the bathroom at the conveniencestore a few blocks away, just so I wouldn’t have to go out there and deal with any of them.
For a long time, that worked.
As long as I was out of sight, I was left alone.
Until one night.
When my door flew open.
And there was Lance, teetering on his feet, eyes blurry. But he wasn’t alone. Nope, he had his friend Blake with him.
