“Don’t call me son.”

He pauses for a second and I recognize a flash of the condescending look he used to give. Then he says, “They’re all whores. You’re young, don’t settle down. Enjoy your life.”

“I do fucking enjoy my life. I enjoy it a whole fucking bunch.”

He shakes his head and then mutters, “You’re the angriest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met.”

He’s right. I am.

I’ve never been angrier than in this moment.

I want to climb across this table and shove my cards down his throat, despite the fact that it’s a winning hand.

The dealer pushes my winnings in front of me, but I stand up and walk away before I do something stupid inside a building full of security cameras and security guards.

“Sir!” The dealer calls after me. “You can’t walk away from your chips!”

“Keep the fucking chips!”

I walk as fast as I can from one side of the casino to the other. I finally find Jon, flanked by the two lot lizards at a fucking pussy-ass Wheel-Of-Fortune game.

“Go find Dalton and Kevin. We’re leaving.”

I walk toward the exit and as soon as I shove open the doors, I bend forward, gasping for breath.

I’m not like him.

I’m nothing like him.

He’s pathetic. He’s weak. He’s fucking bald, for Christ’s sake!

My hands are shaking.

“Hey!” I get the attention of a man who just exited. “Can I bum one of those?”

He puts his cigarette in his mouth to reach into his pocket for another one. He hands it to me, then offers me a lighter. I light it and mutter thanks, then inhale a long drag of it. I’m still pacing when the guys finally make it outside.

But not far behind them, I see him. The wrinkled-tit lot lizard flanked to his arm. They’re making their way toward the exit.

“Let’s go,” Jon says, once they’re all outside.

I shake my head and don’t take my eyes off my father. “We’ll leave in a second.”

I continue staring at them as they walk toward the exit. Once they push through the doors and are outside, his eyes land on me. He notices the cigarette in my mouth as he passes me.

“I thought you said you didn’t smoke.”

“I don’t,” I say, blowing smoke toward him. “This is my first.”

Again with the condescending looks. They’re the same condescending looks he used to give me when I was a kid, only this time they aren’t served up with a beating.

From his end, anyway.

They keep walking and when they’re about five feet away, I say, “You have a lovely afternoon, Paul Jackson.”

My father stops walking, waiting a few seconds before turning around. When he finally does, I see it. The recognition. He cocks his head and says, “I never told you my name.”

I shrug and then drop my cigarette to the concrete, snuffing it out with the heel of my shoe. “My bad. Guess I should have said Dad.”

There’s no second-guessing whether that’s recognition on his face now. “Asa?” He takes a step forward, but that was his second mistake.

His first was not remembering me to begin with.

I stride over to him and come down on him with both fists. The pathetic fuck hits the ground before I even follow through with a full swing. I can feel one of the guy’s trying to pull me off of him. The bitch is screaming in my ear, scratching at my face, trying to get me off of him.

I punch him again. I punch him for every year he left me alone. I punch him for every time he called my mother a whore. I punch him for every piece of fucked up advice he ever gave me. I keep punching him until my fists are covered in blood and I can no longer see my father’s face. There’s so much blood, I’m pretty sure I even mistake the concrete for his head, because that punch hurts the worst.

When the guy’s finally pull me off him and start dragging me toward the car, I feel the wet shit on my face. The shit my father told me is what makes the difference between men and pussies.

Yes, I’m talking about tears. I can feel them and I can’t fucking stop them and I’ve never felt more powerful and more weak in my whole fucking life.

I have no idea how I make it to the passenger seat, or who even put me here, but I’m fucking beating the dashboard, punching it so hard it cracks. Kevin is peeling out of the parking lot, I’m sure to try and beat security before they find the bloody mess I left at their front entry.

Jon reaches around my seat and tries to pull my arms behind me but he’s stupider than I thought if he thinks he can hold me back. I tear my arms from his grip and start punching the dash again. I’ll punch it until my hands are numb or this shit stops coming out of my fucking eyes.

I’m not turning into him. I’m not fucking turning into that pathetic bastard.

I don’t want to feel this anymore.

“Somebody fucking give me something!” I yell.

It feels like my bones are trying to tear through my skin. I pull at my hair, I punch the fucking window. “I can’t fucking breathe!”

Kevin rolls down the window but it doesn’t help.

“Give me something!” I yell again. I turn around and try to grab Jon, but he leans back and lifts his fucking leg up like that’ll protect him from me. “Now!”

“It’s in the trunk!” Jon yells. “Christ, Kevin! Pull over so we can calm him the fuck down!”

I turn around and punch at the dash again. Several punches later, Jon returns to the backseat. “Give me two seconds,” he says.

He’s a fucking liar, because it’s more like ten seconds before he hands me the needle. I pull the cap off with my teeth and shove it in my arm.

I lean back in my seat.

“Go,” I say to Kevin.

I close my eyes and feel the car begin to move.

I am nothing like him.

And they are not all whores. Sloan is not a whore.

“She’s heroin,” I whisper. “Heroin is nice.”

 Carter-32

Carter

“What are you hungry for?” I ask her.

She wanted me to drive back, so I’ve been looking for a restaurant for the last five miles.

“I don’t care,” she says. “Anything but Greek.”

“You don’t like Greek food?”

She shrugs. “It’s okay. There’s just not a Greek restaurant until the next town and I’m hungry. If you wanted Greek, I’d have to wait too long to eat.”

I laugh. She’s so goddamn adorable. I reach over to take her hand, but receive an incoming text. I normally wouldn’t text and drive, especially with Sloan in the car, but Dalton said he’d warn me if they decided to come back early.

And sure enough, the text is from Dalton.

Dalton: Time for you to head back. Asa’s not in good shape.

Oh, shit. Did my death-wish curse him earler?

Me: Were you guys in a car wreck?

Dalton: No. He just beat the shit out of his father and he’s having a major fucking breakdown.

Dalton: He keeps rambling about how Sloan better be there by the time he gets back. Never seen him like this, man.

I delete the texts and then set my phone back in the cup holder. I grip the steering wheel. “Sorry, but we can’t stop and eat. Dalton says Asa had a breakdown and they’re on their way back.”

“A breakdown?” Sloan says.

“Yeah, something about his father? Apparently he beat him up at the casino.”

Sloan looks out the window. “His father is alive?”

I glance over at her. She doesn’t know about his father being charged for murder? I guess it makes sense that Asa wouldn’t tell her. That’s not really something you would want your girlfriend to know.

“He doesn’t know you’re with me. We don’t have to get back before them, I’m hungry,” she says.

I hate that I’m forcing her to go back home when she needs to stay the hell away from there. “Dalton says he’s pretty adamant that you be there. Apparently he’s in pretty bad shape.”

She sighs. “That’s not my problem. Why does Dalton know you’re with me, anyway? I don’t trust Dalton. Or Jon. Or Kevin.”