Teaching Tucker (Face-Off Legacy/Campus Kings 3)

As I push the front door open, my stomach lurches at the smell of cigarettes. The smoky scent fills my nostrils the further I make my way inside. I want to run away screaming. But I force myself to do my daughterly duty. This is my obligation. He’s my responsibility.

What was once white paint on the walls is now a yellowish brown, the carpets frayed and scorched in various places. My nostrils burn from the thick cloud of smoke in the air.

“Wake up, Jim,” I yell at my father, who’s passed out drunk on the living room couch with a lit cigarette pressed between his fingers. It’s burning at the ends, the ash so long it’s fallen onto the carpet. “Get. The. Fuck. Up.”

My anger surges through me, coursing through my veins like poison. He presses every button inside me, turns me into a person I don’t like. I turn into a raging monster every time he’s near. Seeing him unshaven, dirty, and in clothes with stains on them repulses me.

How is this man my blood?

How did I come from him?

After my mom died, he fell apart. I was ten years old when she was diagnosed with cancer. At a time when I needed him most, he abandoned me, forced me to grow up faster. I lost both of my parents the day my mother died. Except this bastard is still alive, still breathing by some miracle.

I drop the groceries on the coffee table, the cans at the bottom of the bags waking my asshole father from a sound sleep. He blinks a few times, his eyes closing over for a few seconds before he opens them again. I have the same denim blue eyes, though his are bloodshot and glassy. He rubs the sleep from them, rolling onto his side to prop himself up on the arm of the couch.

“Savannah?” His words are slurred, my mother’s name slipping from his chapped lips.

“No, it’s me. Your daughter… Samantha.”

He blinks again, attempting to sit up straight without much luck. Slumping against the arm of the couch, he presses his palm to the side of his face to keep his head up. “Oh, Sam. I wasn’t expecting you.” He tries once more to get up from the couch and fails.

It’s pathetic.

He’s pathetic.

I shake my head in disgust. “It’s Saturday, Jim. Of course, you forgot. Again. Clean yourself up. You look like you’re homeless and smell like you are, too.”

I haven’t called him Dad in so many years it doesn’t feel natural to me. Every week I hope he’ll be different, that he will wake up from his mental prison and get his act together. But the day has yet to come. After spending over ten years in constant mourning, he’s never shown a sign of change. He doesn’t want to be better. Jim drowns his sorrows in a bottle and surrounds himself with other degenerates.

My father stares at the stained white t-shirt he’s wearing, gripping the cotton in his hand. He gives it a once-over, realization scrolling across his withered face. Fifty years old, and he looks almost as old as my grandfather. Honestly, they could pass for twins. It’s depressing to see him like this. A mixture of sadness and anger bubbles up inside my chest. I want to cry, scream, and curse him out.

But what good will it do?

Nothing gets through to him.

Staring down at him, I throw my hands on my hips, seething mad, black dots filling my vision. “Did you go to work this week?”

He scratches the dark stubble on his chin, confused and disoriented. I doubt he has a clue what day it is, which means he can’t remember the last day he worked. I’m sure he’s already out of vacation and sick days. Within the first month or two he earns time off, he’s already run through it.

Sick to my stomach I turn away, unable to look at him. “There better be enough money in the checking account for me to pay the bills.” My words are like venom stinging my lips. “I can’t work any more hours than I already have this month to support you and your addictions.”

He doesn’t process a single word I’ve said, a blank stare on his face as he reaches for the pack of Marlboro Red’s on the coffee table in front of him. After he lights a cigarette, he sinks back against the dirty couch we’ve had since I was a child. It’s the same color as the walls, stained from age and smoke. With the cigarette pressed between his lips, Jim glances up at the ceiling, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

I can’t take it anymore. Desperate to escape this ridiculous excuse for a father, I lift the bags from the table and dart through the living room, dining room, and into the kitchen. My heart races, my ears ringing from the panic attack coming on, rocking me to the core. Gripping the edge of the countertop, I look down, sucking in a deep breath.