Chapter Forty One-
Dax
I hate family dinners. I agree to appease my mother, but sometimes it's hard to stomach seeing my father. I always like to have Noel with me now. I love him so much and I love how he's always there to protect me.
I used to hate myself for letting him be there to protect me. It makes me feel weak. It still does, but I'm learning to be more accepting of it.
"You don't need to worry, Dax. It will be okay. He has no power now." Noel assures me, squeezing my hand.
I smile, stopping right outside the door. I look down and fix myself up. I flatten my suit jacket and straighten my tie. I always find myself trying to please my father even now that I'm an adult.
I turn to Noel and start to fix him up too. He raises a brow at me, but allows me to continue messing with his outfit.
"You remember the signs for strikes, right?"
"Yes, Master."
"Okay just... try to be cordial."
Noel rolls his eyes at me, but I let it slide as I knock on the door a few times.
"Oh baby! I'm so glad you came. Your father has been running me up a wall." My mom complains hugging me tightly while dragging me inside. After a second, she turns to look at Noel. "Hi."
"Howdy." Noel responds, taking my hand again as my mom leads us to the dining room that's already set up nicely. I'm surprised she said anything to Noel but I guess she's trying.
I take a seat at the table and Noel sits next to me. My mom sits across from us, and sighs. "Your dad is in the other room talking to his new assistant. Honestly, I think he found the kid on the street. They even share a bed now. I'm not sure why he can't go to his own house, but he's so far up your fathers ass I wouldn't be surprised if I walked in on them together."
I'm well aware that even though my parents live in the same house and are married, they aren't romantically or sexuallly involved. Both of them have had their fair share of affairs, and at this point, they're only married to keep up appearances. Though I never would've thought that my dad would be interested in men. Not after all the times he beat me for being gay.
My eyes widen as I look at her. "You think they're together? Together how?"
"Honey, I've been trying to read up on gays for your sake, and there's a few sites saying it's genetic. I'm not accusing anyone, but all I'm saying is those certainly aren't my genes."
Noel laughs softly. "Wow. It's always the closeted ones that are the most homophobic. No wonder he groped me when we first met. He said it's because I look like a girl, but maybe it's the opposite."
I sigh as my mom puts food on each of our plates, even forcing a smile at Noel who gives her one of his own. It definitely wasn't real but they're trying.
"The food looks great, mom." I tell her, twirling the pasta around my fork before bringing it to my mouth. I chew it slowly, ignoring how my mom nags me for eating before everyone else is sitting.
When the bedroom door opens, we all turn our heads. The sight of the two of them standing together makes my face pale, but I hear Noel laughing loudly now.
"You're kidding me. Seriously? God you're are so fucking desperate. He doesn't want you, Elian. You can stop stalking us." Noel snaps at him, making Elian roll his eyes and cross his arms over his chest, avoiding eye contact with me as he follows my dad to the table like a doting wife.
Elian stands awkwardly, and it seems like he doesn't want to be here anymore than we want him to be. My father must've convinced him to come. After our last conversation I was sure that he'd leave us alone.
"Please refrain from insulting my guest. After all, I've decided to be quite kind to you." My dad tells Noel.
Noel opens his mouth, probably to say something rude, so I tap his thigh with one finger, making him shut it again.
"Let's just eat." I announce.
"Of course." He agrees. We eat in silence for a minute before he speaks again. "I'm glad to see that your business is still doing well despite that scandal with your secret club."
"No thanks to you, no doubt. I find it awfully ironic that you sold your shares in my company just the day before that story went public on tv. I wonder why that was." I say, being as passive aggressive as I can.
I don't want to upset my mother, but I know he had something to do with it. Especially now that he and Elian are clearly working together. Elian was out to get Noel, claiming that he wanted me back, but that's obviously not the case anymore.
"I didn't think you wanted me to have anything to do with your company anymore. I know I wasn't the best dad, Dax, but you're my son. I love you and I'm willing to get over everything if we can just try to mend this rift between us."
I stare at him while he talks, seeing the emotions in his eyes. He seems to be genuine, but I know better. He's never going to change. I've seen that look a thousand times, and every time it's a lie.
"Yeah. Do you remember that time in 7th grade where my English teacher sent home a note asking me to write an essay to be published in the paper?" I ask, and my dad smiles.
"Yeah. Yeah, you asked me what you should write about and I told you everything I know about economics so that you could write a great essay."
"And we worked on it together for the whole week. We made it all perfect and you told me how to phrase things and what information to put in it. We spent so much time together and it was the happiest week of my life." I tell him, feeling my eyes tear up.
He tilts his head as if to ask why I'm getting emotional about it. I'm not surprised he doesn't remember.
"You remember the day I was supposed to turn it in, you wanted to read over it one last time and you did. You noticed I changed the title. It wasn't what you told me to put, and you got so angry at me. You tore it up into pieces and threw it in the trash."
"Dax, now is not the time-"
I laugh bitterly and take another bite of the pasta. "Yeah well I think it's the perfect time actually. Don't you want your new boyfriend to know what kind of person you are? I think I forgot to mention all of this when we were engaged."
"Sweetie-" my mom starts, but I cut her off too.
"Do you also remember how I started crying because you ruined it. I wrote it all by hand so it wasn't saved anywhere and that was the last day to turn it in. All the hard work I did went to waste, but you yelled at me because men shouldn't cry."
"Can't we just eat?" He snaps at me.
"You took your belt off and beat me with it until I stopped crying." I tell him, looking him in the eye while I take a little sip of the water my mom set out for me.
"Or the time when I was a freshman in highschool. You and mom started going to couples counseling, and you came home a changed man. You swore you'd never lay a finger on me again, but I came out of the closet two weeks later and you hit me so hard I got a concussion and threw me down the stairs so I broke my arm too."
My dad looks at me for a moment and sighs. "That was years ago. I'm not saying I didn't fuck up. I just want another chance."
"You did the same thing when I was twelve. You gave me some cash to see a movie with my friends and you were supposed to pick me up but you left me there. I had to walk three hours to get home just to find you passed out on the couch from drinking so much."
Noel keeps quiet, but reaches over to put his hand on my thigh. I haven't told him most of this stuff. Every time I think about it, I usually cry, but now I'm so pissed I don't need to worry about that.
"I can't change what happened in the past, and we can't move forward if you don't give me another chance to prove myself." He insists.
"That's the point! I've given you so many chances and you let me down every fucking time. You think I don't want to fix this? You're supposed to be my dad! I can't handle getting let down again."
"I can't be a better person if you refuse to let me in."
"You can act all you want, but if you think I'm dumb enough to believe that you're a changed man, then you're the fool. You traumatized me so bad that I barely know who I am, and I'm so brainwashed that I hate myself because of the things you used to say to me."
My mom looks like she wants to intervene to stop our arguing, but we don't really give her or anyone a chance to say anything.
"I'm trying my best, Dax. What else do you want from me?"
"I want you to stay out of my life. Look, I only come to these dinners for mom's sake. We are never ever going to mend this. You don't get to put a bandaid on it and pretend that you care. I know you don't."
"You can't tell me how I feel. I love you, Dax."
"No you don't. You love controlling me. Well, I'm done with it. You're a weak person and you're so ashamed of yourself that you take it out on me."
"That's not true." He snaps. I can see the anger in his eyes. It's only a matter of time before he shows his true colors. When he gets angry enough, he'll revert back to being nothing but an abusive asshole.
"Isn't it? You're pissed that I won't carry on your legacy after everything you did to me. You're trying to get back at me by fucking my ex. Your whole life revolves around making me miserable." I snap at him, glaring as I stop trying to censor myself.
I don't care if I lose him forever. I don't even care if my mother hates me. I can't keep being this person. I can't keep being who he worked so hard to make me into.
"You hated me if I was anything less than perfect. You hated me for getting B's. You hated me for not making sports teams. You hated me for being a faggot. Like father like son I guess. What, did your daddy hit you for liking boys too?"
"Shut your mouth, Dax."
"Or what? You hit me? I'm not scared of you anymore. I'm not a hundred pound fourteen year old anymore. I'm not as easy to abuse."
"I might not be the best, but I never hit you just to hurt you. I made you better. I made you into the person you are."
"Then you failed, because you wanted me to be just like you. Well, I'm nothing like you. I'm not a bitter old man who has to hit his kid and sleep with men less than half his age just to feel powerful." I roll my eyes and laugh bitterly. "You don't hate me because of who I am. You hate me because you see yourself in me."
"You're a weak child, Dax. Everything I did made you stronger."
I stand up and glare at him, he doesn't get to sit there and act innocent. He ruined my childhood. He's been abusing me physically, mentally, and verbally since before I even started school. I hate him.
"Well you definitely didn't manage to beat the gay out of me, and it seems like your dad couldn't beat it out of you either. You can call me weak all you want, but you're still a faggot no matter how many women you've been with."
He stands up quickly, grabbing my tie to yank me closer while drawing his arm back and clenching his hand into a fist. I feel my heart skip a beat as fear starts to push through, but I swallow it down. I'm tired of being scared.
My mom practically jumps out of her seat to pull him away from me, Elian helping too just as Noel gets in front of me to shove at my dad's chest.
"Don't fucking touch him you old cunt! You don't get to hit him just because you're mad. For fucks sake, go to therapy or something!" Noel shouts at him before turning to me to put his face in my chest.
I take a deep breath and wrap my arms around him. "We should go. Thanks for the dinner."
I pull Noel with me to the door. Once we leave and are on the elevator, he sighs and turns to me. "You're mad that he and Elian have something going on?"
"No."
"You seem like you're mad."
"I'm not mad about that. I'm mad that he left me with broken bones and bruises for most of my life just because he couldn't accept who he was and hated me for being able to accept myself."
Noel stays silent for a moment as the floors ding, leaving me a bit uncomfortable. Noel is almost never at a loss for words.
"I didn't know that stuff you mentioned. I mean I knew he hurt you but I didn't know it was that bad or that he abused you mentally too." Noel explains, grabbing my hand. I'm sure he's trying to be supportive, but I prefer to handle tough situations on my own.
"It's fine."
"You almost cried just talking about it Dax."
"I said it's fine."
"You're lying."
"So what if I am? Look, you're not a therapist, Noel. You can't fix this."
He sighs and turns towards me, taking my hand. "You promised to start letting me in. Tell me what I can do to help."
I turn towards him as well, looking into his eyes before letting my lips stretch into a smile. "Just be here. All you ever have to do is just be here, okay?"
Noel smiles too, leaning in to kiss my lips, hugging me tightly.