Page 74 of Rough Cowboy
“I love her.”
“Fuck you.”
“I didn’t care if she was carrying your kid. I just wanted to be with Elsie. I would never try to step in and take your place as that little girl’s father. I would’ve never ruined anything between you two.”
“You already have. Just like everything else in my life. You swooped in and fucking ruined it.”
“You mean because I didn’t walk away and let you keep my daughter?”
In one swift motion, Sammy steps forward and punches me square in the jaw.
The force of the blow is intense. It always is in the jaw. I reel backward, dazed and disoriented for a second. I taste blood. My jaw throbs.
Sammy looms by me. Anger and frustration etches on his face. “This was my chance to have a kid.”
“To have my kid. My daughter.”
“You didn’t even want her.”
“I do fucking want her.I always wanted her. And you knew that.”
I feel my anger growing by the second. I lunge at my brother and shove his chest hard. He stumbles backward but manages to steady his feet.
“You knew I would love that kid and Elsie, and you still plotted behind my back to take it all away from me. Why?”
“‘Cause, you’re an asshole.” He spats at my feet.
“That’s not it.”
“You’re a selfish prick who can’t keep his dick in his pants.”
I shake my head. “Try again.”
“You like being put down?” He raises his arms in the air. “I can do this all fucking day.”
“Even if you’d thought I wouldn’t take responsibility—which I don’t believe for a second—you wouldn’t have let me stand by and be an asshole. You’d have made sure I did right by the child. That I was there for holidays and every single day in between.”
“I ain’t your keeper.”
“Why did you try to steal her?”
“You don’t deserve her.”
“Why did you try to steal her?”
“Fuck you.”
I fist his shirt and shake him close to me. “Tell me dammit. Tell me why my own flesh and blood would betray me in such a horrific way.”
“You what an answer so you can forgive me? Is that it?”
“I want the truth.”
Sammy grabs the back of my neck and brings my head to his. “Because I’m sterile.”
***
ELSIE
