I shook my head. “I can’t leave him,” I said, my voice sounding miserable.
Brent reached over and clasped my shoulder, his hand a warm and comforting weight there. “Come on; I’ll text you if anything changes. But probably, he’s just going to keep lying there for a while longer.”
I shook my head. “I can’t leave him,” I repeated.
Brent nodded to me. “Then I’m going to go get you some coffee,” he said. “You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, unable to peel my eyes from Trethan’s face. I stroked his hand. “Please,” I pleaded once more as Brent stepped out of the room. “Trethan, we all need you to wake up. I need you to wake up. I’m begging you.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Trethan
Dad’s face, when he turned to look at me, was set in a sneer, his eyes hard and glinting. “You can barely even ride a carousel pony,” he said. “What makes you think that you could ever ride a proper bull? You’re worthless; you know that?”
“I’m not worthless,” I said, even though his words made me feel small inside. I was small, though: I was just a child in my vision, no more than five years old. And stupid enough to think that, after watching the rodeo when it was in town, I could be one of those guys someday. The cool guys.
“Not worthless?” the man asked incredulously. “Well, why don’t you show me what you have, then? Let’s get you out on one of the bulls and see you try to handle it. You’d go flying before the thing even bucked.”
The scene merged into another one before it could advance any further, an even darker scene that I was even more desperate to escape from.
He had me pinned back against the wall, so close to me I could smell the stink of alcohol on his breath, hot on my face. It was a familiar feeling and a familiar fight. I was older now, but I still felt small inside, like I always did when he came home like this.
He reeked of booze and cigarette smoke, and I wondered who had pissed him off that night. But for all that I knew, no one had even pissed him off. For all that I knew, my very existence was enough to rile him up like this.
I had tried to stay out of his way that night, as I always did when he was out late. But I’d forgotten my phone downstairs, stupidly enough, and when the thing started ringing, instead of just turning it off, Dad stomped upstairs looking for me, ready to push me around.
“Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t consider you a worthless failure,” he said. “All you’re good for is selling drugs, and you’re not even good at that. The only reason the sheriff hasn’t thrown you in jail yet is because you’re not worth the time or the paperwork. You’re not worth anyone’s time.”
He leered at me. “You’re certainly not worth the time of that stuck-up bitch that you’ve been hanging around with. She’s going to college, isn’t she? Leaving you behind here in this backwater town. Sure, she’ll find some rich doctor or lawyer to take care of her and give her the life you could never hope to give h
er.”
I pushed at him, trying to get him to let go of me. “Might have had a chance to be a little less worthless if I hadn’t grown up with such a deadbeat for a dad,” I snapped.
He didn’t like that. Not one bit. The punch wasn’t a surprise. I let him have that first hit because I knew it would defuse some of his anger. I deserved it anyway – no one should talk to their father that way.
I swallowed hard and grappled with him.
The scene changed again. This time, to a scene that had never happened.
It was our wedding day, and Vanessa looked resplendent in a simple, knee-length white dress. She smiled over at me from where she was standing next to John. My own father came up beside me, laughing at me. “What, you think you deserve to be here?” he asked. “Vanessa only invited you here because she feels sorry for you. Because she wants you to see everything that you might have had if you hadn’t fucked it up.”
Because of course, this wasn’t our wedding, Vanessa’s and mine. There was someone else there on the other side of her, opposite John. A laughing, dark-haired man, whose tanned arms were strong around Vanessa’s waist. She laughed at something that he said and then tilted her head back for a kiss.
I started forward, but Dad put a hand on my arm. “Are you really going to interrupt them?” he asked cruelly. “They’re married now. She doesn’t want you. No one wants you. Even John doesn’t want you to keep working on the ranch anymore, you know that. You’re too much of a liability.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yes,” Dad said, sounding gleeful at the way he could get under my skin like that. “You’re worthless. A total waste of space.”
“No,” I said again, louder this time. But in the back of my mind, I knew that it was useless to argue with him anymore. He was nothing more than a ghost.
I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t worthless.
I looked back at where Vanessa and her new husband were laughing, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she might not be happier with someone else. If there was one thing that my bull-riding escapades had proven, it was that I wasn’t capable of providing a secure and stable life for her. I might have a job that I loved, but it didn’t pay well enough to give her the life that she deserved.
She deserved someone better.