❝I know it's hard for you to be friends with a girl without objectifying her - but lucky me, not everyone's you!❞
❝Oh yeah. 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨. The lady goth protest too much.❞
❝𝘿𝙤𝙩𝙝, Gavin. Doth.❞
→ From Van Zandt family disappointment and Grade 8...
I wondered for a horrible second what it would be like for my friends — the ones I had now — to meet my dad.
Ellie met him only twice, on days where he was mostly sober. I knew the tics well enough to make excuses for her to leave when I felt the turn in his mood. Even then, she didn't like being around him. She convinced her mom to let me come over here and there despite Ellie's mom outright disliking me.
Alex saw him the most, on those days when someone had to have the wherewithal to gather my frozen limbs into my closet and lock the door. She'd tell ghost stories for hours until he'd leave, and she finally deemed the apartment safe.
"I'm Ashley Kerwin," Ashley said, extending a hand, always a parent's dream of a child. I could count on one hand the times she wasn't immediately fawned over by an adult.
"Hi, Ashley. Nice to meet you," he said, shaking her hand with a smiling, the winningest smile I could imagine. He turned to me with a narrowed stare through all the charm. "And you...?"
My arms folded over my stomach, and I took a measured step back without speaking or making eye contact. Similarly, Sean said nothing, but spit directly in the space between them.
Craig's father retracted his hand, then turned to his son like none of it happened. "Can I give you a lift home?"
"I live with Joey now," Craig said automatically.
"To Joey's. We can catch up on the way."
"...Um, I can't."
This deflated the man a little, which was the very least he deserved. "Okay...uh, I don't know, maybe we could have dinner tomorrow night. You can come by work."
Craig swallowed. "Dad—"
"Just think about it, okay?" Craig's dad backed up, withdrawn, and walked away slowly. "I got to go."
"He seemed nice," Ashley offered uneasily, and I snorted.
"Yeah, well he didn't have a belt in his hand," Craig bit back.
It was Sean who said the thing that was really on our collective minds, though. "You're not actually gonna go, are you?"
Craig didn't answer.
When we parted, Sean and I going toward the crap side of town while Craig and Ashley meandered away, my nerves got the better of me.
"You don't think he'd actually go, right?" I asked, kicking at some loose gravel.
Sean didn't say anything for a while as he examined the road ahead. "Dunno."
"It could be really dangerous."
"Yeah."
"But he wouldn't just go without letting someone know." He didn't answer that one, and I went on. "Because that would be really, really dumb, and what if something happened?"
"Hm."
"That's it? Hm?" I swatted lightly at his arm. "That's all I get?"
After a minute or so, he finally asked, "So...why are you mad at Craig?"
"I'm not."
"Yeah, okay."
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