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“What? You’re yanking my chain to get what you want. You already said yourself that you’ll stop at nothing.”
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but that’s not a risk you can afford, given your situation—no job, no healthcare, sick father, bills mounting…remember?”
“I’m aware, but thanks for the reminder of the shitstain that is my life.”
“Anytime.”
He was such a jerk, but I was grateful to him for this latest display of assholery. For a moment there, seeing him injured like that, I almost forgot that he was nothing but a trust-fund bully. I sighed loudly.
“They were high school sweethearts, and apparently an odd couple, but madly in love regardless. He was this good-looking but geeky Latino kid. He killed it at math and science, and was destined for college to study engineering. He was staring down the barrel of getting a full ride, as there was no way he could afford to pay his way through.
“She was at the opposite end of the scale— blonde, gorgeous beyond words, and popular to a tee—the alpha female, and queen bee of the entire school. The kind of girl who’d usually date the captain of the football team. She was smart in her own way, but nowhere near my father’s level of academic achievement.
“They had Homeroom together, but obviously didn’t move in the same circles, so didn’t know each other. They met randomly when the school was hit with a mono epidemic, and they were both missing lab partners for chem class. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“History that you’re going to tell me, because you can’t leave me hanging like that, given what I already know.”
“God damn. You’re a pushy asshole.”
“Is it stating the obvious day, or something?”
“Whatever. So they fell in love, fast and hard. Like something just clicked between them from the start, and they had this epic love that glowed white hot from day one. They also had plans—college and careers, and glittering futures—typical teenage dreams. All of that fell to shit when Mom got knocked up with me. Pregnant at seventeen really wasn’t featured in those sparkling plans. They had no support—both sets of parents were outraged for different reasons—so they went it alone. They brought me into the world and then started on their adult lives when they were barely more than kids themselves.”
“Fuck. I can’t even imagine.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it was pretty. College was off the table, so they got jobs—bills don’t pay themselves, and diapers don’t buy themselves. Dad was supposed to be an engineer, and he managed to get a junior position working at the Maclean Enterprises factory, nothing more than a production line job, really, but it was a start, I guess. He was smart, and hardworking, or basically desperate, so he went over and above to get the job done.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and looked away into the far corner of the room. I dug my thumbnail into the palm of my hand, to try to suppress the tears threatening to spill. I didn’t ever want to cry, not in front of anyone, but least of all him. He’d already seen me cry once, which was one too many times. I wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction again.
Chapter 31
Drew
“And then what?”
“He worked his ass off doing God knows what as their fucking human lab rat, and at some point in that process, Mom decided that she was bored of the average-Joe existence. It was all too much, like hard work with not enough reward for her liking.
“They both worked long hours—Dad at the plant, and her as a beauty technician—and life was a lot of drudgery. They were running me back and forth to daycare, looking after the apartment, trying to pay bills when there was too much month, and not enough money. None of it was what she had envisioned for her fabulous life when she was at high school.”
She swallowed loudly, and I could tell she was on the brink of tears.
I felt like the worst kind of asshole for making her talk about something that was clearly painful. It was ironic, given that I had been on a determined campaign to be the biggest source of pain in her life, and was doing a pretty good job of achieving that aim. Why I now gave a fuck that she was upset recounting her personal history I had no clue.
“She basically lost interest, in my dad, in me, in us. Then she found it again, only this time it was in my dad’s high school best friend. He’d managed not to knock anyone up, and had gone on to live the dream. Like Dad, he’d been a geek in high school, and still was in many ways, but he’d done the whole ugly duckling thing while he was at college. Not only that, but he’d made it big in the tech world, and was loaded.
“He and Dad had barely kept in touch—Dad had been too busy trying to keep our heads above water—and they’d grown apart. I think they reconnected at some kind of reunion or something, and that’s when Mom decided she wanted a shiny new toy. They fell in love, or whatever bullshit, and she dropped us like hot bricks.”
Her pain was so evident when she spoke that I wanted to yell at her mom for what she’d done—which I acknowledged was totally irrational, for a few reasons, probably the main one being that the woman had been dead for years. I waited out another lengthy pause.
“Then…?”
“Then she eloped to Mexico with Sam—the ‘firend’, but they both died shortly after the wedding in a freak boating accident on their way out to a dive. None of the passengers or crew survived. Apart from what I’ve seen in pictures, I don’t even remember her.
“Dad battled on—looking after me, and working his butt off at the plant, and that’s where he came into contact with raw chritonium. You know the rest.”
“I guess so, but one thing that’s been bothering me is what about your father?”
“What about him? What do you mean?”
