Shut Up & Listen

19. You've got to learn

"I don't wanna talk right now."

"Fine. I'll just talk until you get tired enough of hearing me. So, you might as well just come out the stall." He started, "Even though you're a gold digger and a bad son, I still be trying to bond with you but you push everybody away. Yeah we been fighting since you got back, but it's because you keep leaving before we even get to talk about anything. How the fuck we ever gone get to know one another? Of course we gone keep triggering eachother if we can't understand eachother."

He came out and Cole held his arms out. Cecil was skeptical and Cole waved him in.

"I think Cheyenne is pregnant."

"Is that bad? Y'all already got one kid."

"Yeah, but it's just that she doesn't even feel like she can tell me. Or she would have right?"

"I mean." He scratched the back of his neck, "I don't blame her. You kind of an asshole to her. What would your reaction even be to that? You want another kid? You think you want that?"

"You might not know this, but I'm struggling just being there for Three and it's literally taking everything in me not to give up because he's probably better off not having me around."

"Why would you ever think that?"

"Because I feel like my father and that's how he used to make me feel, Cole."

"Ok."

"That's why we don't talk. You cant understand me and I for damn sure don't get you."

Cole shook his head, "But i'm listening. And I didn't say or do anything that meant I didn't agree."

"So you feel the same way?"

"I mean sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have—" Cole shook his head, "Nevermind."

"Go ahead."

"No. I don't wanna do that."

"Ok."

"I just don't wanna make it about me. We're trying to talk about what got you here right now and what's causing you to  not bond with your son."

"Maybe it's the same thing that got you where you are right now."

"Maybe so."

They shared a silence.

"Lonnie was wrong for putting his hands on you. And, i'm sorry I didn't have your back. But, you punched me in the face. I was bleeding like crazy."

"I know, I'm sorry for that. But you fucked me up in front of my son. And you keep trying to bring me down in front of an audience and I really can't stand that shit because I would never do you like that."

"You wouldn't. And you never have."

Cecil nodded his head.

"I think that as far as your son goes, maybe you should just only think about him and not how you feel or felt. It might help you to get to know him and vice versa. Like, when it was just me and pops, he never brought up any of whatever else was going with you or mom or Sarah unless I brought it up. Which I did sometimes, but it just let us start fresh. He became like my best friend."

"I don't think that was him. I think that was you. You're always doing that. Letting a new day be a new day. Trust me, he wasn't that type of dude."

"I know that Cecil. That's why he was prescribed the drugs he OD'd on. Anyway, I could tell what was needed and I was that. Just read the fucking room sometimes instead of being so self centered and a selfish asshole. Maybe you'll learn how to keep people around. Or better yet, maybe if you didn't do shitty things to other people, you wouldn't feel so guilty about simply being in their presence."