As Evil As Ignorance

AEAI 7 - Dad Has To Be Right.

I smile again and shrug before taking a step back toward the group. He doesn’t let me go. He grabs the back of my shirt and pulls. He continues to pull as he walks to the front door, opens it, walks into the hall, and closes it behind us. He lets go of me with a little force and I have to take a step back to get my balance.

“What the hell, Dad?”

“When are you going to settle down?” he crosses his arms over his chest and asks without answer my question.

I try to straighten out my shirt and tilt my head at him, “I’m only twenty-three. I have a great job. I make decent money, so I don’t have to live off you. I don’t do drug – I rarely drink alcohol. What more do you want?”

“You’re twenty-three and I’m so proud of your job. I’m glad you want your own life and that you’re not addicted to anything,” he shouts. “But when-”

His sentence gets cut short when my front door opens and Pops walks through.

“Hi, love,” He smiles at dad and then looks between the two of us without closing the door, “I love you both. But so you know, these walls are not soundproof.” He raises his brow for emphasis. He leans back into the apartment for a second and I hear, “El, are these your keys?” There’s a pause where I just stare at Dad. Pops is still talking to people on the inside, “Is there a key to the studio on here?” He stands back up straight and holds out a pair of keys that are not Ella’s. “Here,” he places them in Dad’s hand, “these are Henry’s keys. There’s one to the studio on there somewhere. Go up and argue all you want. We don’t want to hear it and I suspect,” he looks at me and hitches a brow, “you don’t want that either.”

I take the keys out of Dad’s hand and start to walk off. I see Pops kiss Dad quickly before I’m out of view. A few seconds later, Dad’s silently standing behind me as I unlock the door.

As soon as we’re through and the door is closed, he turns on me, “When are you going to stop messing around with so many people and find someone you love?”

“Why is it always ‘love’ with you?” I fire back. “Why can’t I just be young?”

“Being young is fine, Samuel,” now I know he’s angry. My first name is coming out to play. “Playing with people emotions is not. I can tell you have actual feelings for Henry. Why won’t you let yourself?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shake my head.

He chuckles and looks straight into my eyes, “I don’t know if you realize, but other than your dark hair and green eyes, you look a lot like me.”

I fold my arms over my chest, “And?”

“And,” he extends his hands toward me as if he wants to shake my body, “I used to give your father that exact look. Like to a t, that was my Damian face.”

I sigh and run my hands through my hair, “It’s not that easy.”

“It is that easy,” he tries to say, but I’m not hearing it.

“You don’t know the situation.”

He starts to walk over to a couch Ella has up here. When he sits, he pats the seat next to him for me to join. On the way, I see a sweater draped over the chair next to it. Henry must have left his hoodie up here when I was showing him around. I grab it and sit down next to Dad.

“That’s his, isn’t it?”

I look up at him and nod, “Yea, he must have left it up here when I was showing him my half.”

“You let him in there?” he expression is a little surprised, but I don’t understand.

“Yea?”