Page 67 of Bad at Love
He stumbles forward to take a swing at Laz but my father is slow and Laz is fast. Laz ducks backward and I immediately jump in front of my dad, giving him a hard shove in the chest.
"Fuck you!" I scream at my father. I shove him again. "Fuck you, you fucking MONSTER!"
I scream so loudly, it's painful. It's ripped out of me, pulled from somewhere deep and all the anger and all therage is now flowing out of me, unchecked and wild and dangerous. I start pounding my fist into my father, into his chest, his arms, his shoulder. I want to hit his face so badly, I want to strike and kick and hurt him. I want to hurt him.
Hurt him.
Hurt him.
"Fuck you, I hate you!" I scream, tears now coming like a flood. "I hate you! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!"
The last words I scream so loud that I nearly pass out, I can feel my words shaking my skull, vibrating throughout the room. Everyone seems to freeze. My ears ring.
I stare at my father as I’m gasping for breath and he's taken a step backward, staring at me with an open mouth. I pray, I pray, I pray I see my father inside somewhere. Just a glimpse, just a flicker, just a hint of the man he was, the father I know he still is.
But there's nothing. His eyes are glazed and they don't belong to him. He stares at me in complete confusion.
I.
Break.
Down.
"Hey," Laz says gently, grabbing my arm and pulling me away. "Come on, let's go."
"No," I say to him as he leads me out the door and down the path to the car. I can hardly breathe, I'm sobbing so hard it feels like my lungs are being wrung out. "No. No, I need to help him." I try to move back toward the house but his hold on me is strong.
"Iwill help him," he says. "You sit in the car and you stay here."
"No, Laz, he'll fight you, you can't, you can't."
He opens the car door and gently pushes me down soI'm in the seat. "He will not fight me. I will not fight him. This isn't like that."
"You don't have experience with someone like that, he's not himself, he?—”
"Marina." He gives me a long, steady look. He crouches down beside me and holds my hand. "I grew up with my father. They are no different. The only difference is that you still have one. I don’t. So let me go take care of him. It's the least I can do."
I swallow, snot, tears, everything falling down my face. I nod, squeezing his hand as hard as I can.
He shuts the door and walks back to the house. I grip the hem of my shirt with both hands, twisting it around and around, trying to dispel the sadness, the hate, the futility of it all.
I didn't know that Laz's father was the same. I knew he was a drunk but Laz never talks about it so I assumed it was never that bad. But god, even though my father is like this now, he wasn't when I was a child. I'm not sure how I would have fared growing up if he had been. My happy childhood is the only thing that keeps me from being a complete write-off sometimes.
I watch the house intently, trying to breathe, waiting to see any signs of distress. I keep thinking that I'll see a chair crash through the glass window or perhaps Laz being thrown out the front door. I know he meant what he said when he said he wouldn't fight back, which means that if my father gets nasty with him, Laz will take it. And that could lead to some serious damage.
So I sit there and I wait.
And I wait.
And I wait.
And I worry.
The sun fades and twilight comes and the house is still dark.
I must have fallen asleep for a while because suddenly I'm shaking awake and a roaring sound fills my ears.
I open my eyes to see orange streetlights coming in through the windows, the car moving.
