Page 133 of Snowed In
“You never talk about him. Not like you do the others. And you…I don’t know, you said you wanted someone to help you with your family, but from what I can see, they all love you. A lot. They just want you to be happy.”
Happy. My father’s words come back to me in a flash, and my chest grows tight.I thinkyou’re unhappy, he said to me, and I’d immediately rejected it. Lashed out, and…
“Christian?” Her head lifts up, and I stroke her hair back on instinct, addicted to the feel of her. “You get along with everyone,” she says when I don’t respond. “I’ve seen you. You’re good at it. So why not with him?”
Maybe because he knows me better than I think he does. Or maybe because he doesn’t put up with my pretense.
“Remember what you said about your mam?” I ask. “About how she tries to understand you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, so does my dad. He’s always tried to. The problem is, I’ve never made it easy on him.” I wind a strand of her hair around my finger, watching it glint in the sunlight.
“I wasn’t that smart at school,” I say. “People think I was, but all I did was remember stuff, and that’s all they cared about it. I memorized what they told me, and I fed it back to them. I barely had to think about it, and it made everything so boring, and I guess that’s why I…”
“Was such a dick?”
I grin. “I wasn’t a dick.”
“You were a troublemaker.”
“But the small-town kind. I was endearing.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” she mutters. “Didn’t you put our teacher’s house up for sale online?”
“No.”
“You did!”
“Must have been someone else.”
“And like thirty people showed up to the open viewing. Mam was furious because he didn’t ask her to dress it for the photos.”
“I have no recollection of that,” I lie, smiling at the memory. That was the fun stuff. Harmless. Everything else…disappearing all night, drinking God knows what until dawn. I did my parents’ heads in.
“I stopped all that when I moved to college,” I say.
“Because you weren’t bored anymore?”
“More like I was out of my depth. I spent my early twenties like a fish out of water. Only for the first time in my life, I wanted to fit in.” I remember sitting in lecture halls, watching the other students, what they wore, how they spoke. “You’d be surprised how many places you can get to just by acting like you belong there,” I add. “But you should have seen the first Christmas I came home with a bit of money. I went overboard with the presents and the clothes and…” I pause. “I guess in hindsight it must have felt like I was rubbing it in.”
“They’d never think that,” Megan argues.
Maybe not. But looking back on it, it certainly feels like I did. “I thought they’d be impressed,” I say quietly. “My dad especially. But he just treated me the same as he always did. Like I’d mess it all up somehow. And that’s how it’s always been since. No matter what I do. No matter my job or my salary or any of it. And it’s fine most of the time, but at Christmas, I can’t escape it and…Jesus, maybe I do have daddy issues.”
Megan smiles, looking sad. But there’s no pity in her expression. Just understanding. And it’s because of that I carry on.
“I think he saw through me. I think he knew I was unhappy but pretending I wasn’t, and that’s what disappointed him. That’s why the harder I tried, the worse it got between us.”
“You’re unhappy?” Megan asks, and I start to shake my head before hesitating.
“Maybe,” I say. “Right now? No. I am the furthest from unhappy you could get. But yeah. I spent the last ten years working toward something that changed a lot on the outside and nothing on the inside. And I’m beginning to realize that maybe that meant I was chasing the wrong things the whole time.”
“It doesn’t mean it can’t change,” she points out. “Do you like anything about your life right now?”
“I like the money,” I admit. “I like not having to worry about where I’m going to get next month’s rent or what I’ll do if there’s an emergency. I like having a nice car and buying Liam’s kids expensive stuff that makes his eye twitch. I don’t think it’s wrong to be in a job for the salary.”
“But you hate it?” she guesses, and I pause. Do I?
