Under the Stars and Stripes (Under Him)

“You are mean,” she goes on. “And you are a drunk. You’re controlling and manipulative. And you have never cared about anyone but yourself and your business, the latter of which has in recent years dropped off the list, because you have been drinking so much that I can count on one hand how many clients you have left.”

“How dare you speak to your father that way?” he demands.

“How dare you think that I belong to you, that I’m some property you bought at an auction and can give away or take back whenever you feel like it. I don’t come with a dowry, Barry, and I don’t owe you a motherfucking thing, least of all an explanation for my life. God knows I’ve never gotten one from you about your choices, nor for the way you let yours impact mine.”

“I did the best I could when your mother ran off, but–”

“Omigod, Dad, get it through your thick fucking skull— which shouldn’t be difficult considering that you’ve probably drank enough to decrease your bone density to the consistency of Play-Dough by now.”

She blows out some smoke from her lungs.

“You need to understand this this time when I say it so that we never have to address it again: Mom did not leave you. You drove her away. I know you may not have literally packed her bags, put her in the car, gotten into the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and driven her to the airport to leave her to start a new life.

“But every single horrible, vile thing you ever said to or about her, the way you told her no one would want to see her model or act again after she had a baby and made her resent me just enough to not feel bad about leaving me behind and never coming back or answering the phone, with every single one of those times, you shoved her further and further away.

“And for a while she tried to come back to you, Dad. But you just shoved her away even further, and further. It was like you had elastic arms that could reach her no matter where she was and shove her again.”

“You watch what you’re saying…”

“You watch me not do that and hear me say what the fuck I need to say. Otherwise, the only thing you’ll be watching is stair after stair when I shove you the rest of the way down these steps.”

Holy fuck, who is this woman and what did she do with my sweet Brittany?

I never knew she had this toughness in her. Although I should’ve suspected, because she really was into the rough sex.

“You drove her off, Dad,” she says. “And you resented me for it after already resenting me for being born, and now you’ve driven me off. You may as well have driven me right here yourself because we’d be standing here in the same place having this same conversation. But I like it here.

“I’m where I’m supposed to be, and this is where I’m going to stay. And if you like it so much back at your house, I urge you to go there. And if you prefer to have company there, I urge you to be kind,” she snaps on those few words. “And maybe don’t ever put your fucking hands on another human being for as long as you live.”

“If you stay here with this creep tonight, Brittany,” he begins, “you are no longer family to me. You will not be my daughter and I will not be your father.”

“I’ll take it,” she says, with one last drag off the cigarette. “Can I get it in writing?”

She then looks at him expressionless, and for the first time in this interaction between them and in the one they had at the studio, Barry actually looks like he might regret having said something.

“You’re serious?”

“As serious as liver failure, Barry, which is a little something for you to do some research about on Google later.”

Barry scoffs, and I think I might actually see a tear in his eye. But even if that’s true… it wouldn’t change how he treats her. Nothing so far has, and it’s all because he’s an arrogant little man who’s too busy getting drunk to forget about the problems he’s caused and make an effort to try to apologize for them, or even to make any rectifications.

This arrogance is only proven by the way he just shakes his head and walks back down the stairs without a word. No emotions expressed, no goodbye to his only child. Just… an end as hollow as the relationship they’ve had since the day Brittany was born.

And just before he’s completely gone from sight, Brittany flicks that cigarette out from between her thumb and index finger using her middle finger, and it hits him in the back of his ugly bald head.