Page 39 of You, As You Are

With Ted scrambling on the paving stones for the nearest drainpipe, Iain’s hands were too full to grab the phone that started to ring in his pocket with much dexterity. He smashed his thumb against the green button on the screen without looking at the ID.

“Hello?”

“Iain.”

His motions slammed to a halt.

Iain flipped into Welsh like an automatic reaction at hearing that voice. “I’m busy.”

The man on the other end did the same. “Too busy for your father?”

“You were too busy to listen to me for twenty-six years, so yes,” he said as he shoved his keys into his pocket and began to walk.

The phone crackled with the patchy reception that was common up in the mountains. “That isn’t fair, Iain.”

“It is. And I could say a lot worse than I do.”

Ted dragged him along the path by the other houses in this terraced row, nose to the concrete slabs. The sky was darker than dark, full of shifting grey clouds that gave no room to starlight. Only glimpses of the moon and muscle memory guided them to the end of their street.

“I’m busy,” Iain said again, his patience on its last thread on reflex. “Why did you call?”

“You never call any of us.” Alun Howell, the man who claimed to be his father, said, “How are we supposed to know if you are alive?”

Acid bubbled up in Iain’s throat – because for thirty-five years his father hadn’t ever really been a father at all. He’d strived so hard to please that man every day that he was raised on their farm, but no work that he did was ever good enough. His older brothers were always faster, smarter, better than him. The tongue like a knife that he heard through the phone hadn’t ever been slow to let him know that.

“I text Rhys and Lewis,” he replied, hoping Alun might get the point ofwhoexactly he didn’t want contact with.

“Your brothers don’t mention it.”

Why wasn’t Iain surprised? “Probably because they know I don’t want you to hear about my life,” he rebuffed, turning a corner with Ted in tow that’d lead them into town.

Alun let out a low growl. “Is that really the hill you want to die on? I’m getting old, son.”

“I don’t want to hear it. You have two sons to bend to whatever will it is that you want. You don’t need me, so stop calling.”

“Listen here, son?—”

Iain cancelled the call and realised how violently his hand shook as he squeezed the phone like it was malleable. There was something infuriating about how it wouldn’t give out – how the rectangle of metal and glass fought back against him.

“Fuck.”He shoved the phone into his coat pocket and wrapped his fist around Ted’s lead.

Why couldn’t he just be left alone? For two years he’d heard nothing from his father, and now all of a sudden he received calls every other week. Whatever Alun wanted, he could jog on. If it was something important that might actually concern him then Rhys or Lewis would call him instead.

He didn’t need to be put down any more in his life, and unless his father had changed –highly unlikely– then there was no reversing how he’d been pushed away by his own blood just for wanting to go off and live a different life.

People say you should forgive and forget, but how many of those people had been made to feel like they were a hopeless case by their own father?

“Leaving here is a dead-end adventure for you, Iain.”

“You’ll come crawling back when you realise you made the wrong choice.”

He’d left that very same day.

There’d been no turning back. Nocrawlingback to that farm. Even when he’d been living on a pitiful payslip to payslip for months, he hadn’t had a single thought of running back. Back then, he’d rather have eaten cheap instant noodles every night than give Alun a reason to gloat.

Which just left him here.

Alone.

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