“Stop acting like a little shit!” he shouts. “Talk to me like a grown f**king man.”
My throat is on fire. “Like you, Dad? Talk like you?! Are you a grown f**king man?” I point at his chest. “Is that what you are?” I swallow a brick. “How long? How f**king long have you been lying to me?!” My face twists with too much pain.
I get it.
I get relapsing. I am a master at it. I also understand pretending and lying. It eats at vital pieces of you, but it rips the people you love apart.
I am at the mercy of it.
I am on the other end. Shreds of a former self.
“Get a f**king grip and we’ll talk,” my dad sneers.
“Fuck you!” That’s Ryke. Seething behind me. “You’re a sad, pathetic excuse for a father. And I believed you when you said you’d f**king try.” He steals the bottle of scotch. “What is this?” The pain in his voice silences my father.
He goes eerily quiet.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” Ryke shouts again.
My dad flinches and shuts his eyes.
With raw lungs, each breath comes roughly for me. My head spins, but I ask my dad one more time. “How long?”
His eyelids open. And his hollow gaze meets mine. “Since Daisy’s birthday on the yacht.”
Nausea builds. That was months ago. A lifetime ago.
Ryke laughs angrily, which morphs into a scream. He pitches the bottle at the wall, and it shatters, alcohol sliding down the paint. He destroys the nearest bookcase, knocking over paperbacks and tearing apart a shelf. His rage has always been in his fists.
Mine resides somewhere else.
“Congratulations,” I say dryly. “You’re a better liar than me.”
He raises his glass like he’s toasting to my words.
“Stop,” I tell him before he presses it to his lips, panic shooting into me. “Just stop, Dad. You can always try again. It’s not over.”
He shakes his head like I’m wrong. I’ve always been wrong. “It’s over for me, son. I’m not going to pretend anymore.” And then he finishes off his glass.
Ryke squats, breathing heavily, and then he kneels. He can’t look at our dad. He knew—early on, I guess—that if our dad relapsed he couldn’t be convinced to try again.
It’s harder the second time around. I know it. I’ve been there. “Please,” I beg. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you can do this.” I sound pathetic, the worst part of me believes. I refuse to give into that part. This is right. What I’m saying is right.
“You don’t understand,” my dad tells me in a controlled voice. “I don’t want to try again. So stop pleading like a little—”
“Okay,” I cut him off, not waiting for the insult that I don’t f**king deserve. I can’t give up on him. Ryke wouldn’t give up on me. But I’m not prepared to be a sober coach.
My dad sets down his empty drink, and he finds a new target across the room. His probing gaze lands on Connor. “Does Loren know what you’ve done in your past?” he asks him. “Or better yet…who you’ve done.” His brow tics, and his features darken in distaste.
“This isn’t about me, Jonathan,” Connor replies with ease. “Deflecting the issue here won’t help you.”
He lets out a weak, manic laugh. “Nothing will help me.” He buttons his suit jacket with a shaking hand, one that almost matches mine. “In less than a year, I’ll be gone.” He turns to Ryke, broken picture frames lie by his knees.
My brother must feel the heat of our father’s gaze because he raises his head.
“You can stop assaulting my things and celebrate,” our dad says. “Your dear old pathetic father will be dead. Hooray.”
My lips part in confusion. “What are you talking about?” He’s not making sense.
“That.” He points to the glass on the desk. “Has killed me. Or will kill me.” He flashes me a dark, agitated smile. “I received the news a couple weeks before the yacht trip. Liver disease. Cirrhosis. Non-reversible.”
Before my legs buckle beneath me, I dazedly find the couch and sink onto the leather cushion. The weight of his words silences the room. I rub my lips as I process his declaration.
He’s dying.
I choke on a pained laugh. He’s really dying.
The only parent who has ever loved me. The one person who gave me a chance at life. He’s going to be gone? Just like that.
I hear his voice. “Stop crying, Loren. Don’t be a baby.”
I go to wipe my eyes, my stomach roiling at his words.
“Fuck you,” Ryke sneers. He rises to his feet. “You tell him you’re dying and then the next minute you say shit like that? Who the f**k are you?” Connor reaches Ryke’s side and places a hand on his shoulder, partly, I think, to restrain him.
My dad scowls at the liquid dripping down the wall, I’m sure wishing it was all in his glass instead.
I clench my hand that trembles brutally. I can practically feel the alcohol sliding down my parched throat. The bitterness and power. All in one.
I breathe out. “If you have liver disease, you shouldn’t be drinking.” Hasn’t he thought of this? My doctor educated me on the topic, even sat me down with a dietician to create a post-recovery health plan. But it doesn’t take that formality to see the obvious.
“I’m dying anyway,” he says with edge. “Might as well revel in life’s few luxuries. Whisky and women.”
Women. The word stands out to me. “Is that why you’ve been bringing dates to functions?” I ask. Why he’s been choosing women half his age. Why he hasn’t even attempted to hide this part of his life from me.
“I’m enjoying the company while I can,” he admits.
I shake my head, heavy and weighted but it’s starting to clear. “There has to be other options.”
“There’s not.” He shuts it down immediately.
“What about a liver transplant?” I ask, knowing this road exists.
He laughs. “I’m so far down the donor list you can barely see my name. There are some things money doesn’t buy.”
He’s forgetting something. “I have your blood type. We’d be a match—”
“No.”
That’s all he says.
I grimace. “What do you mean, no?” I shoot to my feet, my veins pumping. “This could save your life and you’re just going to say no?”
He stares at me, square in the eye, no retreating. “You’re not doing that for me.” So this is pride? Compassion? I don’t understand.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I snap. “If I want to be a donor, I’m being your donor.”
“You want to try, have at it then,” my dad combats. “Your liver is in tiptop shape, I’m sure.”
“It’s better,” I argue. Like most alcoholics, I used to have fatty liver disease. But it goes away with the right diet and sobriety. I’ve been healthy for almost a year now. “They only need to remove a portion of it, right?” I turn to Connor for confirmation.
He nods once. “It’s not an easy recovery, Lo. This is a major surgery.”
I don’t care. It’s life and death, and I’m not going to stand by and watch my dad die. I can’t do that, no matter how terrible he can be. He deserves a second chance. Everyone deserves another f**king chance. I’m going to give him one.