A long, long time ago—with my dad.
It was a little surprise bonding trip he sprung on me after my mum forced me on that plane with an attendant to watch over me for the whole flight, then Dad thought it was a great idea to distract me from how much I hated him with a camping trip.
Even better, he brought Liam along.
My ‘brother’.
I would have felt more related to a cousin—if I had any.
Liam was such a brat on that trip.
If my dad so much as handed me a chocolate bar, the moment it touched my fingers, Liam’s face would turn purple like a pickled beetroot, and he would scream, and scream, and scream.
Nothing could console him.
Even his own chocolate bar.
Didn’t matter. He wanted to be the only one.
Guess there was something we had in common after all. I just went about my dark, secret wish in a moody way, sulking the whole damn trip, instead of making everything a show, a performance.
I hated how my dad never did anything about it, either. He would coddle Liam. Tend to him.
I felt the stares of other campers. The judgement. And I was mortified.
More than the actual parent.
That’s a problem.
So I pushed Liam off the dock. It was one time, but I got a verbal lashing for it.
Not my fault he couldn’t swim.
I was just so fucking done with it all.
I’ve felt like a third wheel too many times in my life to count, but that was a week straight of it.
No escape; just tucked away in a mossy forest with a sweaty tent and damp socks, and other happier families around us.
If I had to rank the worst weeks of my life, that one would be pretty high up there.
Another thing I hated about the trip was how far away the bay was from the camping ground. And that each time I went out to get some air or watch the water, the tide would be up and the shore completely swallowed.
But this time, the tide is out.
It won’t be for long.
I remember being stuck in the tide, because Liam didn’t want to go back to camp, because I caught a fish (that I let go after I cried over it), and he didn’t catch anything. So I had to stand ankle-deep in rising tide, and watch as my dad threw in the biggest fish from the catch-bucket into the water, hooked on the line, and put on a hell of a performance for Liam to reel it in.
Dad already caught it.
It was already dead.
But that was the only thing that got Liam to shut the fuck up that day.
ThenIgot in trouble for being too sour and bringing the mood down?
God, I really hated that kid. Dad, too.
