It’s instant. Her movements freeze and her body tenses up. I feel my heart drop down into my stomach.
“You have… ten million dollars? In your bank account? At this very moment?”
“Nearly, yes.”
I’ve never noticed our kitchen sink faucet leaks, but I can hear it now. Every water drop hitting metal feels like a bang onto my ear drums. The apartment is silent aside from that. What’s left of my heart must have stopped beating. I can’t feel it anymore.
The outrageous stacks of cash have gathered cobwebs in my account for years. A younger me took liberties in spending it, at the beginning. Every gaming console on the market at the time was bought, and no trip on a random weekend was spared.
Then, I realized, if I didn’t need my father’s money, then I shouldn’t need him. So, I stopped spending on useless things. I created a secret account without telling him. I transferred the money over, knowing he’s too unconcerned with me to check.
Then, I saved.
I gave myself a reason to let him go, and so many years later, I still haven’t done it. It’s shameful.
“I’m just as bad as he is.”
The words were only meant to be thought. My mind decides to torture me with them, spoken in the gap of silence. I can’t remember a time Rosalie has ever been so silent.
“You hate me.”
“Oh my god, no, Locke!”
Those words escape me without intention, too. So do the quiet tears she gently wipes off my cheek.
“I don’t hate you. There’s no reason to hate you. I’m sorry I went silent. I was in shock.”
“Because you can’t believe I let my father act the way he does.”
“No.” She grunts. “Because you don’t realize it’s more than just money.”
It slices my chest open. I feel bare and exposed. It’s almost as if she ripped the revelation from the deepest parts of my soul, where I stored them away in secret.
I throw my glasses off and hide my head in my palm. “I do realize it’s more than that. I thought, if I didn’t need his money, then I could separate myself. I tried to gather the courage to do it for so long. I couldn’t. My whole identity is dependent on him,and what he wants me to do and who he wants me to be. I don’t know who I am without him. It’s so pathetic.”
Rosalie shifts. Her legs go from hanging off the couch’s side, to surrounding my thighs, and her arms wrap around my neck.
“It’s not pathetic. No amount of money can undo a lifetime of cruelty. That’s something you have to unravel yourself, in your mind. Somewhere in your heart, probably, too.” I make quick work in wiping away my tears. When I open my eyes, the world is blurry, but Rosie’s kindness is in full focus. “I don’t think you’re a bad person because it’s hard for you to make a life away from what you’ve always known. But I think youshouldknow, that with that money, you have the resources to do whatever you want. Create a life full of your own passions and joys, and not what your father expects from you.”
My arms wrap tightly around her, head burying into her neck. “I don’t know what my passions are. Or my joys. I don’t know any future that doesn’t involve my dad.”
She laughs. I feel like the world could swallow me at any second, as revenge for all my failures and shortcomings, and Rosalie is laughing. I know it’s not at me, but for me. It’s the only thing that gives me comfort.
“Well, I can answer the first two for you. You’re passionate about your loved ones, and especially your siblings. You care about them so deeply. Liliana told me about you and Grant—how you always considered him a brother, before he even wanted a relationship with you and Billie. I hear the way you talk, like you would rather take the worst of your father’s behavior, if it means he won’t push it onto them. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with that much kindness in their heart.”
While she’s out here praising me for caring about others, she’s affording me just the same kindness. When I thought no one would accept me as anything but my father’s son, Rosie saw me. She cared about “Locke” before she cared about “McCarthy”.I’m being complimented for my kindness, but it’s really her who deserves that praise.
She continues, “I know about your joys, too. You love anime and video games. And although it takes you some time to get through schoolwork, you enjoy your classes. You like software engineering.”
I grumble, “I’m not good at it.”
“You’re not as good as you want to be. There’s no want if there’s no care.”
I still feel exposed and vulnerable. There’s something healing about it, though. These pieces of me have been buried for so long, it’s like they’re seeing the sun for the first time. The more Rosie pulls away parts of myself I never thought someone would see, the further warmth spreads through my heart.
“You have the resources to do something with all of this. Start a business with Grant and Billie. Go into the animation industry with something on the technical side. Shit, get another degree if you want to! Whatever it is you decide, you just need to believe in yourself to do it. Once you’re brave enough to try, you can.”
She slips my glasses back on. I see everything clearly. The hopeful glint in her brown eyes, and the alternate futures that only started to arise once she appeared in my life.
