Dare You to Hate Me

“Sounds oddly familiar,” Aiden returns straight-faced, a warning tone directed at my father. “Maybe you should watch your words considering you’ve spent far more time trying to run a failing store all these years instead of giving a shit about your children. Including the one you let up and leave years ago.”

Emily places a hand on Aiden’s shoulder in silent warning, but it doesn’t stop his shoulders from stiffening. “Let’s sit.”

Porter, Aiden, and I all sit on the couch together while my parents take the love seat to the side. Aiden’s mother sits on the armchair while his father stands cross-armed and hyperaware of the darkening atmosphere beside her, a straight stance just like Aiden usually has when he’s being cautious. They’ve always been more alike than Aiden liked to admit.

“First,” Mr. Griffith addresses, “We apologize for bringing Porter here. We hadn’t known he lied about his whereabouts when we agreed to take him to the Raiders game at Wilson Reed to see Aiden and the Dragons play them.”

Our parents’ eyes shoot to my brother, and it’s Mom’s frazzled voice that says, “We told you that you couldn’t go to that.”

Porter sinks into the cushion. “I know, but when Aiden…” His eyes go to me, then to the tense body on the other side of me before looking back at Mom. “When Aiden invited me along, I couldn’t say no. You and Dad were going to be working and never cared if I stayed at Jimmy’s before, so I didn’t think you’d mind now.”

“You lied, Porter.” It’s been a long time since I’ve heard her stern, motherly tone. Oddly enough, I missed it.

Looking to Aiden and his parents, I smile and say, “Can I have a couple minutes with my family, please? I’d like to talk to them alone.”

Aiden looks like he wants to tell me no, but his mother pats his arm, and his father gives him a single nod before tipping his head toward the kitchen as if in quiet demand to follow them.

“If you need me,” he whispers with reluctance, pecking my cheek, “you know where to find me.”

Nodding, I watch the three of them walk into the other room before shifting back to my parents. There’s less evidence of the origins of my dark brown hair from Dad, but the slight button nose I get from him is still there. The thinner lips and fuller face that I inherited from Mom still stand out on her as well. I’m not sure how long I study them, or how long they let me, before I realize I need to be the one who speaks up first.

I squeeze Porter’s arm once as the only warning before I state my piece. “I reached out to Porter online.”

Mom and Dad exchange a brief glance before turning to Porter for confirmation.

“She just said she wanted to talk,” he tells them, nervously gawking between all of us. When he was little, he used to give me a hard time whenever Mom asked me to watch him. He’d throw tantrums and make a mess of his room or break something I’d either have to hide or take responsibility for, yet every night at the dinner table his eyes would dart around at the rest of us like he couldn’t figure out whose side to pick when obvious tension was there. “But it was my idea to come here. She had no clue about it.”

Mom holds up her hand. “The problem at hand is that you lied.”

Porter presses his lips together and nods.

The woman whose words still clench my heartstrings turns her focus to me. “I…” Her voice catches, forcing her to clear her throat and try again. “I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re here—that you’re here together. When Porter didn’t come home I thought the worst. I thought…”

My nostrils twitch with emotion that I force back down, but it tries creeping up my throat regardless.

Dad remains silent, his eyes moving between me and his son as if he’s trying to gather his thoughts. I want to ask him why he’s not at the store, but I don’t want to fuel the fire that’s brewing between us already.

The room grows eerily quiet, blanketing us in threatened suffocation. “I reached out to Porter because I thought it was time. I needed to make sure he was okay.”

Mom blinks back tears, head turning away as she tries collecting herself. She never liked people seeing her cry. Even at my final days at the house, after all the things she said to me out of emotion, she’d hide her tears behind closed doors.

Dad turns his eyes solely on me when he realizes Mom can’t ask the question. “Why now? Why after all this time?”

“Dad,” Porter cuts in.

Our father shakes his head. “I think we all deserve some answers, Porter.”

Answers? They don’t expect the bubbled laugh that escapes me. Porter snorts over the noise, and Mom’s startled gaze darts to me again with wide eyes. “That’s a two-way street. I know I owe you a lot of them, but why don’t we start with why you and Mom couldn’t stop picking fights?”

Mom pales and Dad shifts to the edge of the couch cushion. “Your mother and I have had a lot of problems, but we always did what we could to ensure you had a roof over your head. If you’re insinuating—”

“Fred,” Mom intervenes.

Unwrapping my arm from Porter, I stand my ground. “I know you guys kept a roof over our heads. We always had food. I’m not saying you were terrible parents. I’ve had to deal with the choices I made and know I messed up, but you should acknowledge your own part in it.” I meet both their eyes, as the words I’ve saved for years bubble out of me. “You never stopped fighting, not even when the cops showed up over and over again. Dad spent more time at the store than he did at home and you, Mom, spent more time complaining about Dad than you did paying attention to anything else.”

She goes to speak, but I stop her. “It is not one person’s fault. Dad was trying to keep the store afloat, you deserved to vent. We all had something to do with what happened, and I…” My eyes close for a moment. “I’m sorry for everything that happened. If I could apologize for every little thing I wish I could go back and change, we’d never leave here. Since starting at Lindon and being around Aiden again, I’ve realized that I wanted to try. I thought if I reached out to Porter it’d be a first step, but I wasn’t sure if he’d even give me a chance and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he didn’t.”

Mom stares right at me while Dad’s eyes move to the blank TV screen. “You go to Lindon? That’s…” Her head nods, then shakes as if sh