Page 49 of Making Choices

“Weird,” I mutter as I push back to my feet. Every atom in my body twangs with the need to tell him to fuck off, but I swallow it down and plaster what I hope is curiosity on my face. “I wonder what was different about Fret.”

“If you ever find yourself in her situation, I’ll sit you down and explain it to you. Otherwise…” he trails off to gesture at my belly. “It’s kinda pointless.”

This time, I can’t keep my reaction to his cruelty to myself.

“Seriously, dad.” I push past him and storm off in the direction of my bedroom. “You’re being an arsehole today.” Halfway down the hallway, I toss the tea towel into the laundry wash basket and spin around to face him. “I’d prefer if someone else takes me to see Fret.”

At the mention of my brother, the frown that creased my father’s features while he rubbed my face in my inability to have kids disappears. He pulls himself to his full height and narrows his eyes at me. “Watch your fuckin’ mouth, Cherub, or you won’t be steppin’ a foot outta this damn house.”

“We’ll see.”

We stare at each other for a drawn-out moment. I refuse to blink and so does he. Almost identical gazes locked together, a million unspoken words pass between us. Our mutual disenchantment. Our common disdain for the other’s choices. A festering hatred that’s been growing since the day my mother died. It’s transmitted silently and acknowledged by the other tacitly. It hurts to feel this way about my dad, but I push down my emotions so I don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he can still affect me.

My father is a rat.

He’s betraying everything good in my life.

He doesn’t deserve my reaction to his deception.

He lost that right when he decided to collude with the father of the man who raped me.

The grandfather clock in the living room chimes to announce the dawn of a new hour.

“You’re so much like her,” Dad grumbles once the noise dies down. “Fuckin’ kills me to look at you… I wanted better for you.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather be like her than you. Mum was kind. She loved unconditionally. All you do is judge and ruin.”

This is the closest I’ve ever come to verbalising my true feelings toward him. Of course, the hard man who raised me doesn’t bother to hide his scorn at what he, no doubt, perceives as my weakness. Kindness doesn’t factor into Brutus Mayberry’s world view.

My father drives home my point. “You don’t have what it takes to carry on my legacy.”

“Your legacy is a fucking joke.”

Something dark flickers within my father’s cerulean gaze. He shakes himself, both physically and apparently mentally, because a heartbeat later the same benign expression he wore at the dining table returns to mask his real thoughts. Dad sounds bored with my presence as he proclaims, “Toker’ll take you to the hospital.”

I don’t bother to thank him.

Instead, I watch him with dispassionate interest as he gives me his back and stomps out of the safe house. The moment the front door slams shut, I allow my emotions to break free of the numbness I used to shield them from my father.

This time when the nausea gets the better of me, I know it’s not from the stomach bug. It’s the direct result of finally acknowledging that my dad isn’t the man I thought he was.

“Hey, little cuz,” Toker announces his arrival with a cheery greeting twenty minutes later. The front door closes. I pull myself up off the tiled floor and rinse my mouth out with water. Never one for formalities, he bursts into the ensuite half a minute later. “Dunno what you said to Brutus, but he’s spittin’ mad. Told me to take your ungrateful arse to see Fret, then he took off with Bear. Literally spat gravel in his rush to get the fuck away from you.”

“I burnt his toast,” I tell my cousin with a fake laugh. “You know how touchy he gets over his food.”

“Sure you didn’t shit in his cornflakes?” Toker jokes as he looks around the bathroom. “What are you doin’ in here?”

“Had to throw up,” I explain as I follow his focus around the room. Something shiny—and very dangerous in my current headspace—catches my attention and a sick yearning invades my veins. “This was the closest basin.”

My cousin turns a light shade of green. He backs out of the bathroom with his hands jammed over his mouth and nose. I can barely make him out as he declares, “Don’t breathe on me… I don’t wanna get sick.”

Laughing, even though humour is the last thing I feel, I wait until he’s out of sight to wrench open the glass door to the shower cubicle. I snatch the straight razor off the lowest shelf in the caddy and jam it in my pocket. When I hear Toker’s footsteps returning, I hustle my way out of the bedroom Dad uses when he spends the night here and nudge my big, blond cousin out of the way.

“Give me five,” I say as I stride toward my bedroom. “And we’ll go.”

“Lucky you’re not a real girl,” he yells after me. “Otherwise, I’d be takin’ a nap to kill the hour and a half women usually mean when they say give me five.”

“Gee, thanks.”

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