I took a gulp of my coffee, ignoring the way it burnt my mouth and the desperate attempt of my father trying to have a conversation with me.
“Your mother never wanted to spoil you and Ollie. She wanted to make sure you two weren’t entitled to everything. Materialistic. I’ve probably failed a little at that in the last few years, but you really don’t ask for much.” A smile reached his eyes. “You’re everything your mother would have wanted you to be. You’re mature beyond your years. You've been that way since the moment your mom passed.”
I clanked my teeth together hard. This was not on my list of things to talk about at 6:30 in the fucking morning—or ever.
Resentment was creeping down my limbs; words I didn’t want to say were on the tip of my tongue. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, and when they opened, I saw something I’d never truly seen before. My father was a shell of a man. I used to look up to him. The days he would come home from a business trip were my all-time favorite. I’d no longer be the man of the house, which was what he'd always told me when he departed for a trip. The second he was home, he’d dote on Mom, wait on her hand and foot. Her cheeks would be rosy from blushing, and her smile would be as bright as the sun. He’d spend nights wrestling with me and Ollie and let us stay up past our bedtime playing football in the backyard. Then he’d leave again on another trip, and things would go back to normal.
And then the crash happened, and nothing was ever normal again.
Maybe it affected him more than I gave him credit for. But that didn’t excuse his lack of parenting. It didn’t justify his decision to forget about his sons. Ollie and I had raised ourselves. He put a roof over our head, paid someone to clean the house and fill the pantry, gave us expensive cars and phones and a credit card with a hefty limit on it, but that wasn’t what we needed, especially after Mom died.
My father kept talking, but I was too busy pushing my thoughts away to hear what he had said. I came in on the tail end of the conversation.
“Ollie said that’s what you wanted, so I’ll go ahead and install it while you’re in school. I thought maybe I’d stay for your game, too, before going back to China for the week.”
I drew my eyebrows together. “Ollie said I wanted what? And you’re staying for our game?”
“The new gaming system. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I chuckled, feeling some of my anger loosen. I took another sip of my coffee. “I know you’re never truly present when you’re home, but you should know by now that I’d never want something like a gaming system for my birthday. That’s something Ollie would want.”
My dad shook his head. “That little shit.”
I laughed, and for a moment, things seemed normal. Things seemed all right. My dad and me, sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee and laughing about my younger brother. The only thing missing was Mom. It was such a small glimpse of the life we didn’t have, but it felt good while it lasted.
Ollie popped downstairs, already wearing his uniform, freshly showered and ready to go. “Who’s a little shit?” He slid past me and my father, searching for something to eat in the fridge. He opted for a premade breakfast smoothie that lined the shelves inside.
“You,” my dad and I said at the same time.
I walked over to him and plucked the smoothie out of his hands. He yelled, but I smacked him upside the head. “Thanks for the gaming system. I’ll make sure you never use it.”
“Oh, now come on!” he whined, throwing his hands out. “I knew you’d say you wanted nothing for your birthday like you’ve been doing for the last three years. Why let a perfect birthday go to waste?”
My dad listened to Ollie and me banter back and forth for a while before he excused himself to go on his run. As soon as he was out the door, Ollie snapped his head over to me. “What got into him? He never cares when it’s one of our birthdays. Gets a lame gift and has someone from the store wrap it.”
I shrugged, finishing off the smoothie. “I don’t know, and I don’t really care.”
Ollie’s face remained unreadable. “You're too hard on him sometimes.”
I said nothing in response. Ollie wasn’t nearly as pissed off at our father as I was. I was the cold son; he was the warm one. That was how it had been since Mom died.
“I heard him say he was coming to the game Friday.”
I shrugged, clearly wanting to put a cease and desist order on the conversation.
Ollie ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t think he’s watched us play a single game since before…” I let out a hefty breath as he paused. It’d been four years since Mom died, and Ollie still struggled to say the words, and I did, too, at times. Four years was a long time, relatively speaking, but time didn’t work that way when it came to death. Those memories surfaced whenever they wanted, and they cut just the same.
“Okay…onto better things,” he started, shutting down the previous conversation. “I…wanna know…”—Ollie was dragging his words out in a sing-song voice that made him sound like a little schoolgirl—“why you told Hayley it was her fault Mom died, and also, I’d like to know what the fuck happened between you two in the stairwell.”
I began to shake my head, but Ollie’s voice grew stern—something he was never described as. “Before you say ‘nothing’ and brush me off again, just know I won’t stop pestering you. Every single moment of every single day, I’ll ask again and again.” He dipped his head down. “And you know how annoying I can be.”
I rested my arms on top of the marble counter, hanging my head. For fuck’s sake. “Madeline lied. Cole didn’t rape her friend or try to do anything like that. He dissed her when she made a pass at him, and she wanted to get even. That was what Hayley told me, and she only told me because I agreed not to tell the headmaster a lie that would get her kicked out of English Prep. Madeline stole her clothes because she’s goddamn psycho.”
Ollie paused, taking in my words, and then threw his head back and laughed. “Madeline is a goddamn psycho. What are you going to do?”
I ran my hand feebly down my face. “I’m gonna embarrass the fuck out of her tonight at the birthday party you put together.”
He groaned, smacking his hand on the counter. “It was supposed to be a surprise! Who told you?”