Confess

I had a friend or two at school who knew how to get the pills my father needed, so it started out with my bringing him the medicine from people I knew. That went on for two years until those friends either grew out of raiding their parents’ stashes or moved off to college. Since then, I’ve been getting them from my only other source, which is Harrison.

Harrison isn’t a dealer, but being around alcoholics for the majority of every day makes it fairly easy for him to know who to contact when someone needs something. He also knows the pills aren’t for me, which is the only reason he’s been willing to give them to me.

Now that he knows I went to jail over the very pills he’s been supplying my father, he refuses to get any more for him. Harrison is done, which I was hoping would be the end of it for my father, since it meant the end of his supply.

But here he is with more pills. I’m not sure how he got these, but it makes me nervous that someone else out there other than myself and Harrison now knows about his addiction. He’s being reckless now.

As much as I’ve tried to talk my father into rehab, he’s afraid of what would happen to his career if he went and it were to become public knowledge. Right now, his addiction is just bad enough that it’s destroying his personal life. However, it’s almost to the point where it will destroy his professional life. It’s just a matter of time, because alcohol is beginning to play a large role and the incidents I’ve been rescuing him from this past year are becoming more and more frequent. And I know that addictions don’t just get better. They’re either actively fought or actively fed. And right now, he’s not doing a goddamn thing to fight his.

I open the lid and pour his pills into my palm and begin to count them.

“Owen?” my father mutters. He raises himself to a seated position. He’s carefully eyeing the pills in my hand, more focused on what I’m going to do to them than he is on the fact that I’ve been released early.

I set the pills beside me on the coffee table. I clasp my hands together between my knees and smile at my father.

“I met a girl recently.”

My father’s expression says it all. He’s completely confused.

“Her name is Auburn.” I stand up and walk to the mantel on the fireplace. I look at the last family photo we ever took. It was more than a year before the accident, and I hate that this is the last memory I have of what they look like. I want a more recent memory of them in my mind, but memories fade a lot faster than photographs.

“That’s good, Owen,” my father mutters. “But it’s after midnight. Couldn’t you have told me tomorrow?”

I return to where he’s seated, but I don’t sit this time. Instead, I stare down at him. Down at this man who was once my father.

“Do you believe in fate, Dad?”

He blinks.

“Up until I saw her, I didn’t. But she changed that the second she told me her name.” I chew on the inside of my cheek for a second before continuing. I want to give him time to absorb everything I’m saying. “She has the same middle name as me.”

He raises an eyebrow over his bloodshot eye. “Having the same middle name doesn’t necessarily make it fate, Owen. But I’m happy you’re happy.”

My father rubs his head, still confused as to why I’m here. I’m sure it’s not every night a son wakes his father up after midnight from a drug-induced sleep to rave about the girl he met.

“You want to know what the best part about her is?”

My father shrugs. I know he wants to tell me to fuck off, but even he knows it’s in bad taste to tell someone to fuck off after they just spent a month in jail for you.

“She has a son.”

This wakes him up a little more. He looks up at me. “Is it yours?”

I don’t answer that. If he were listening, he would have heard me say I only recently met her. Officially met her, anyway.

I take a seat in front of him. I stare him directly in the eye. “No. He’s not mine. But if he were, I guarantee you I’d never put him in the positions you’ve put me in the last few years.”

My father’s eyes fall to the floor. “Owen . . .,” he says. “I never asked you to—”

“You never asked me not to!” I yell. I’m standing again, staring down at him. I’ve never felt rage toward him like this. I don’t like it.

I grab the bottle of pills and walk to the kitchen. I pour them down the sink and turn the water on. When all the pills are gone, I head toward his office. I hear him coming after me when he realizes what I’m doing. “Owen!” he yells.

I know he also receives a legal prescription, aside from what I’m able to get him, so I walk behind the desk and pull open the drawer. I find another half-empty bottle of pills. He knows not to try to stop me physically, so he steps aside, all the while begging me not to do this.

“Owen, you know I need those. You know what happens when I don’t take them.”

I don’t listen to it this time. I begin pouring them down the drain, fighting him off while I do it.

“I need those!” He’s yelling, over and over, trying to grab them as they disappear down the drain. He actually catches one between his fingers and shoves it in his mouth. It makes my stomach hurt. He seems so much less human when he’s this desperate and weak.

When the last pill is gone, I turn and face him. He’s so ashamed; he won’t even look at me. He drops his elbows to the counter and cradles his head in his hands. I take a step closer to him and lean against the counter as I speak to him calmly.

“I watched her with her son. I’ve seen what she sacrifices for him,” I say. “I’ve seen what lengths a parent should go to in order to ensure their child has the best possible life they can give them. And when I see her with him, I think of you and me, and how we’re so fucked up, Dad. We’ve been fucked up since that night. And every moment since then, the only thing I’ve wanted is to see you try to get better. But you haven’t. It’s just gotten worse, and I can’t sit here and be a part of it. You’re killing yourself, and I won’t let the guilt of seeing you suffer excuse the things I do for you anymore.”

I turn around and head for the front door, but not before walking by the mantel and taking the picture frame. I pass by him and walk out the front door.

“Owen, wait!”

I pause before descending the stairs and face him. He stands in the doorway, waiting for me to yell again. I don’t. The second I see his lifeless eyes, the guilt seeps back into my soul.