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“You hurt her,” I say, irate at this point. He hurt what is mine, and he should have to feel just as shitty as he made her feel. As we made her feel. It is not lost on me that I am to blame for a lot of tonight. But he didn’t help matters at all, and he isn’t even pretending to offer an apology.
“You can stop pretending like you actually care about that girl. You’ve paraded her around in front of me and sufficiently annoyed me. Mission accomplished,” he scoffs.
“I’m not pretending, but regardless of that, what you said upset her,” I say.
“I fail to see how that is my problem. Now, if you’ll either sit and eat in silence, or leave; you are being rather disruptive and I wish for you not to be,” he sighs, clearly bored with me at this point.
“I haven’t even begun to become disruptive,” I seethe, breathing heavily as I will him to lift his eyes to me. Just once. Acknowledge that I’m here.
“Jesus, Bodhi, with the tantrum already,” he says as if he’s addressing a toddler.
“Tantrum?” I ask, outraged.
I glance in my mother’s direction, and it is not lost on me that she has remained silent through this entire ordeal. I love my mom. Really, I do, but is she honestly going to just sit by in silence while he pulls this shit? The way she’s always been when it comes to my dad. For once, I would just love for her to lose her shit and call him out. Walk out and leave and trust that I’ll do whatever she needs to take care of Nana and Pops. But she won’t. She just takes it, and it kills me.
Still, my dad just sits there, cutting away at his food, biting little forks-full, and keeping his eyes down, like he can ignore my presence.
“Seriously?” I say, sardonically. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. Every time. But he doesn’t move. Refusing to acknowledge me. Refusing to take my side. To be there when I needed him. To love me the way he always loved Tommy. The way he never loved me.
I charge forward, a growl ripping free of my chest.
“Will you fucking look at me?” I scream, and only then do his eyes lift to mine, in a slow, lazy, fed-up manner that shows me just how much he’d rather not.
“What? What on earth could you possibly need?” he asks, scowling at me from beneath his heavy, gray brows.
My chest is rising and falling, drawing in air like I’m drowning. And in a way, I feel like I am. Drowning in his stare. In his disdain. In his unacceptance. I can’t take this shit anymore. I can’t fucking catch my breath. I’ll never be enough for him, and I see that in this one single look.
I sigh, dropping my shoulders in defeat, too tired to yell anymore. It won’t change anything.
“How about for you to just be my dad for once?” I respond, bleeding out the emotions I’ve kept buried since I was little. Since I was old enough to realize that he didn’t care for me the way he did for my brother. That he didn’t hug me, or hold me, or tuck me in the way he did for Tommy. The way that Tommy always felt like his, and I belonged to my mom.
He just stares at me, bored with the conversation, before blinking heavily and reaching for his napkin. He wipes his mouth and tosses the cloth beside his plate before leveling me with a cold stare.
“I find that would be a rather difficult feat, seeing as I am not,” he states plainly, but I’m sure I didn’t hear him correctly.
Mom gasps, the first sound she’s made since I stormed back in here. I turn to see her, eyes welling with tears, shaking hand covering her mouth as she watches my dad from across the table.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Thompson,” she whispers, tears falling down her cheeks now.
“Oh, come off it. He’s old enough to know by now.”
I look back and forth between the two of them, trying to piece together what just happened.
I find that would be a rather difficult feat, seeing as I am not.
Not what? He can’t mean what I think he does. That just doesn’t make any sense. I had to have missed something in my anger. Blacked out during a crucial part of the conversation.
“Old enough to know what?” I say, voice barely above a whisper, lacking any of my previous rage.
“Just what I said, you’re not my son,” he says. Just like that.
Everything around me goes quiet, like someone covering my ears. I stare at this man who for twenty-three years has raised me, and the edges of the room become fuzzy and unfocused.
“But… what? How?” I ask, drawing in a shaky breath, suddenly feeling like I may need to take a seat.
Not my son.
