Page 118 of My Only

My chest was rising and falling now.

Everything around us muted.

All I could hear was my father’s words, bouncing off the walls of my head.

He sucked his teeth loudly then leaned over the table again.

Another shot. Another ball sunk.

I exhaled. Loudly.

Annoyed.

Frustrated.

Defeated.

“I know what it’s like, yuh know,” he finally spoke again.

He lined up another shot.

“Before I started working at the bakery in Long Island City? You know where I was working.” He glanced up at me. “You think I don’t know about the women who like to get too friendly at work?”

I opened my mouth. “Dad?—”

“I knew them,” he cut me off. “Plenty of them. I’m your father, aren’t I?”

He took his shot.

“But I ain’t never put myself in situations that would make your mother suspicious at a work event.”

Another ball rolled—but didn’t sink.

“Didn’t create situations where my female co-workers would even think I saw them as anything more than what they were. Co-workers.”

His eyes flicked up.

“Because no matter how much control you think you have?”

He tapped his cue stick twice against the table.

“A woman has ten times more than you and always will.”

I swallowed hard.

I wanted to argue.

Say that his experience wasn’t mine.

That Harper wasn’t even a factor like that.

But fuck…

It didn’t feel that way anymore.

And I hated that my father could see it before I could.

“Let me be very clear when I say these next few words to you, bwoy.”