Page 44 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“Because it is!” I snap. “You don’t care about me, you only care about your damn reputation! You don’t see me as your son, just a project. A pawn to keep some shitty legacy alive. You don’t care about what I want.”

His voice doesn’t rise, and that’s what makes it worse. There’s never any emotion behind his words. “You think anyone gets to be soft around here? You think being a man means waiting for someone to pat your head? Toughen up. The world doesn’t care how you feel.”

“I’m not asking the world to care!” I say. “I’m askingyouto. Foronce.”

He stares at me like I’m speaking another language. Like I’m the weak link in his litter.

Then he just takes his black coffee and turns to walk away. “Get back to work…and please try to do something besides make me regret having you.”

I stand there, stuck as he walks out.

I can’t even wrap my head around what he just said, around someone being so heartless.

Hell, I look at my little brothers with more love than my dad hasevereven glanced in my direction with.

I can’t imagine the feeling I’ll hopefully one day have for my own kids—if I could even find someone who would want that with me, someoneIcould want that with.

I don’t understand the hate he has for me. I don’t think I ever will.

I sit at my desk for an hour after that, willing the time to go by faster. I only have a few weeks left in this place.

I just have to make it that long. Suck it up, turn my feelings back off, and survive a little longer.

My phone buzzes on my desk, and I check it to see a text from Brooke.

Brooke: Do you have a fake ID?

I laugh quietly, wondering what she wants to get into.

Mason: I’m a 19-year-old college kid…of course I do

Brooke: Take me out for drinks tonight

Mason: I’ll be out of here by 9

We end up at some rooftop bar in the city.

She talks about her family, her plans after graduation, and the position she wants to work her way up to at the firm, pulling me into conversations as much as she can. My head is fucked from today, and I don’t want to blow her off, but all I want to do right now is be home, in my bed, asleep, getting one day closer to being back in Texas, far away from here.

When I drive her home, she convinces me to come up and watch a movie with her, and I give in.

The movie is on, but nobody’s watching. Her mouth is on mine, and my hands are on her neck as she straddles me on the couch in her high-rise condo.

The make-out turns heavy until her lips are on my neck and her hands are on my zipper.

I gently stop her, pulling back. “I can’t.”

“Did I do something wrong, Mason?”

I shake my head, placing my hands on the sides of her arms. “No, it’s not you.”

“Do you even like me?”

“Of course I do,” I tell her. “You’re amazing, but you deserve more than just some summer fling. I’m leaving in a couple of weeks, Brooke.”

She leans down into the crook of my neck again and kisses me. “I was okay with the summer hook-up thing. I knew this wasn’t permanent.”

I angle my neck for her to get more access as I keep talking. “I don’t really have sex with anyone if I don’t think it’s going to last.”