He doesn’t know what really happened that night. That I wasn’t the one, just took the fall, but I’ve accepted that means I might as well have done it to everyone, including my dad, who should know me well enough to know better.
I want to believe Mom would have known, but who knows?
“Have you, um, talked to any therapists?” he asks.
I grunt, not replying right away because I don’t want to lie.
He sighs…oh, the sigh of my father’s disapproval burns like acid on my chest. “Miles, we talked about this. I handled everything after you got in trouble, and you said you would talk to someone.”
“About just this?” I press.
If he wants to go there, then let’s go there.
He hesitates. “I think you probably have a lot of things on your mind.”
Fucking say it, Dad. Say I’m probably fucked up for being a kid whose mom killed herself and whose dad fucking ditched him to go to a mental hospital, being abandoned by both his parents at once.I hate myself for even thinking it—I know neither of them could help it. That they both must’ve been in so much pain to get to that point, but I can’t help this rage that bubbles up whenever I think about it. Angry as I can get, it’s never something I want to put on him. I keep it bound up in me with all the rest of this shit.
“Now that I think about it, I do have a meeting coming up,” he says.
Yeah, fucking right.
“I’ll be around later if you’re free,” he adds.
For obvious reasons, I don’t ever believe him when he tells me he’ll be around.
“Sure thing, Dad.”
“Love you.”
I do love my father, but I can’t bring myself to say it back. I hang up, the tension steadily rising within me as my mind flashes back to the daybefore, Mom smiling and laughing with me, leading me to believe everything was fine.
I’m fucking pissed at Dad for bringing all this to the surface, and now that it’s shown its ugly face, I can’t push it back down like I usually do. And I’m pissed at Dax too. For a few moments,he was the cure I could have turned to, but for whatever reason, he probably doesn’t even want to see me again.
As if I’m gonna make it that easy for him.
I catch the shuttle to fraternity row, pulling up Instagram on my phone. I’m not friends with Dax, but I’ve stalked his account before. It’s what you’d expect—lots of hot shirtless pics, and he’s all smiley with his buddies. Always having a great time.
Though clearly, there’s more to him than he shows his frat buddies.
Since we’re not friends on Instagram, my DMs will only go to his requests, but that’s good enough for me. I draft a few messages:
You acted like me running was such a big fucking deal.
You could have at least told me you didn’t want to fuck around again.
And then there’s always just:Fuck you.
That would be very me, but I’m not sending him any of that. I’m not giving him the chance to ghost me on socials. He’ll have to tell me to fuck off to my damn face.
The shuttle pulls up to the block with some of the frats, and I get off and head for Alpha Theta Mu.
Will he even be there?
Will he give a shit?
What the hell am I here for?
I don’t have answers, just know I must dosomethingor my head’s gonna explode.
