Page 21 of My Heart To Heal

Open This Door So I Can Kick YourAss

Nick

‘Ma, stop.’ I pinchthe bridge of my nose and hold the phone away from my ear as my mom tries to convince me to come over to the house for my dad’s birthday.

‘Nicholas, he’s your father.’

I snort a laugh and hear her release a soft sigh. I get that it’s hard for her. I get that she lost one son and doesn’t get to see me, but she stays — she knows the kind of man my father is, and she stays. I can’t grant him the same courtesy.

‘Mama, I’m sorry, but I have no interest in celebrating his birthday.’

‘Nicky, please.’

I hate the sound of disappointment in her voice, the hurt. I love my mom. I have a lot of anger and resentment toward her, but I still love her. She clothed and fed me, bathed me, taught me to walk and feed myself, and she loves me — she and Clint are theonly two people who ever did, but she could have put us in the back of her car when we were kids and got us out of there, and she chose to stay. She chose him.

‘Ma, he doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him. You need to accept that he and I are never going to have a relationship. I’m not coming.’

Ending the call before she can beg anymore, I hang my head. I feel like a piece of shit, but I’m choosing me even if she couldn’t.

I’m in a shitfuckin’ mood; the conversation with Missy this morning set me up wrong, then talking to my mom made it worse, to the point that Lynnie had to send me out back to gather myself because I was making everyone in the clinic uncomfortable. I need to get away or something, but the other vet at the clinic is heading to Bali until the New Year, so I’m stuck, dealing with my mother, my clinic, and the next-door neighbor from somewhere between heaven and hell.

I hear the bell above the clinic door. We have no appointments over the lunch period so the staff can eat.Lynnie and Cleo, my nurse, had headed to the diner to pick something up, and I know they can’t be back yet, so I head out to see who it is, then freeze in the doorway to my office.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask the question as he looks around, his expression pinched, bitter. He’s never been in here before.

‘You’re coming to dinner tonight.’ He spits and turns toward the door.

‘Nah, I’m not.’

Freezing with his hand on the door handle, my dad turns and gives me a look he’s given me a hundred times before, and I feel my pulse quicken.You’re not a little boy anymore, Nick. You’re not a little boy anymore.

‘Your mother wants you there, Nicholas, so I expect you to be there.’

‘I don’t give a rat’s ass what you expect.’ I inhale and stand taller, and I notice the fury flash across his eyes at being challenged. ‘You don’t want me there. I don’t want to be there.’

‘Your mother wants you there.’

‘Since when do you give a fuck what she wants?’ I huff out a laugh, and he takes a step toward me, but I don’t step back. I stand my ground.

‘Watch your mouth.’

‘You’re on my property. You watch yours.’

My blood heats and I hear my pulse as it rushes past my ears. I never push him, even now that I’m an adult. I just stay in my lane, stay away, but he got me on the wrong fuckin’ day.

‘You always were a little shit — thought you were too good for this town, this family.’

‘No.’ I point my finger at him and step forward. ‘You made me feel like I was nothing. I only existed as target practice for you.’ I notice the flare of his nostrils that I dared mention the family secret outside of his house. ‘You were never a father to me. You loved Clint, and Mom is convenient for you, but I was an annoyance, always. Get the fuck out of my clinic,Dad.’

‘Yourclinic?’ He laughs and moves his gaze around the room. ‘Mymother paid for all of this.’

‘No,myinheritance paid for my education,thisI did on my own.’

He knows that. He owned the shop and the apartments because they were handed down to him, but this, my clinic, was never his. My grandfather sold this part of the building off years ago, but I got it back. I did this.

‘You might as well spit on her fuckin’ grave, throwing away the family legacy for what? Puppies?’ he laughs. ‘I’m ashamed of you.’

‘Then get thefuck out.’ My voice is low and serious, a tone I have never dared to use with my father, but I’m done. I’m not a little boy anymore, and he’s an old drunk.

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