Page 18 of Infatuated as They Come
“He’s a smart kid unlike you. Good for him.”
“His parents should have been here. He worked hard all last year to get this and I was the only one in this family who seemed to fucking care.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“You were with his dad. You were in Kansas. Why didn’t you tell him to wake up and be a real man for once and make an effort for his kid? Why wasn’t anyone else here to see him graduate?”
“I don’t have time for this.” He took a few steps away from me as he paced the room. “Where is everything? The TV? The couch?”
I shrugged. “Sold it. Brodie needs cash when he goes to school.”
“What happened to his full ride?”
“He still needs to pay for other stuff.”
“So you sold my things?” he asked, voice getting louder.
“My things, you mean. Yeah. I sold it. We didn’t even get that much, anyway. Just a few hundred dollars.”
“Couldn’t the kid get a fucking job?”
“He needs time to settle down when he moves. Until then, he needed money, and there was no one here to help him with that. And you should be fucking excited for him,” I said, teeth gritted, “but again: no one in this family seems to care that he did something so good. When’s the last time one of us got into college? When has any of us ever got in?”
He pointed a finger at me. “You need to get everything back.”
Jesus Christ, he wasn’t listening. He had never listened. Not much had changed since the last time I saw him, but I had never expected a miracle from my dad.
“It’s gone,” I said bluntly. “It’s sold. It’s done.”
“So this is what you fucking do to me?” he asked. “I come back to an empty home and a useless fucking kid? You gonna buy me a new TV? New chairs? My bed isgone.”
I gestured lazily to the carpet. “You can sleep on the floor. It’s pretty comfortable.”
“When are you getting everything back?”
“Listen to me: I’m not gonna help you with a fuckin’ thing,” I said. “I’m leaving too.”
“No, you’re not.”
“There’s nothing keeping me here. I’m done. I’m leaving in a few days.”
He eyed me up and down with a smile. “What, you gonna tell me you got into college too? You? There’s no fucking way.”
“No, and I don’t want to go to college, but I managed to graduate too if you care at all.”
“I don’t.”
I laughed, the sound all dry and cold and bitter. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“I am. Flight’s booked.”
“Flight?” He snorted. “This is a joke, right?”
“Nope.”
“You’re leaving with that girl?”
