Page 109 of The Blame Game

“I never—”

“Yeah, you did. You told me to man up and push through. And maybe you didn’t mean that if I didn’t keep pushing, that made me weak, but that’s definitely the way it came across. Especially to a nineteen-year-old who only wanted to make his dad proud.”

“Shea,” his dad said roughly. “I’m proud of you.”

“Are you?” Shea said, his eyes stinging. “Because I never once heard you say that. Even when I got my masters. Em and mom came to my graduation but you weren’t there.”

“Fuck.” His dad sighed. “I’m sorry for that. I was being hardheaded.”

“You think?”

“How long have you been mad at me for all this?”

“Since I was nineteen,” Shea said flatly. “And worse than being mad, I was hurting because I never felt like I was good enough for you. Like nothing I ever accomplished would make you happy.”

“Fuck me,” his dad said, putting his head in his hands. “I had no idea.”

And Shea could argue with him that he should have.

He should have known how deeply it hurt Shea to feel like he’d let down the man he’d spent his whole childhood admiring. But his dad was actually hearing him for the first time and that was something.

It wasn’t a lot but it was a start.

“Well, now you know,” Shea said roughly. “And I’m not saying I was perfect either. I shouldn’t have cut you guys off for so long. I know that hurt both of you.”

His dad looked up, expression pained. “I think if I fucked up that badly that you felt like you didn’t want to be around me, that’s on me, not you.”

“Well, I get my stubbornness from somewhere, eh?” Shea nudged his dad’s thigh with his knee.

He let out a little chuckle but his eyes were still sad. “I’m sorry,” he said, growing serious again. “I’m sorry I made a lot of bad choices.”

“Hey, I’m sorry too,” Shea said.

“I’ll try to be better at listening, okay?”

“Yeah.” Shea swallowed. “While we’re on the subject … there’s something I should probably tell you.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” His dad sounded a little wary, which was fair.

“I know you said you couldn’t see me like that but I—I kinda lied the other day when we talked on the phone.”

“About what?”

“I’m not gay but I’m not entirely straight either.”

His dad frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means … I’ve been involved with men too. I’m”—he remembered what his sister had said last night—“bisexual, I guess.”

His dad was silent for a moment. “Well, I’m surprised and it’ll, uh, take me a minute to wrap my head around it but this is what makes you happy?”

Shea nodded. Close enough, anyway.

“Then I’ll support you,” his dad said gruffly.

“Yeah?” Shea hated how surprised he was. How much he’d been bracing for a fight.

“Yeah. Your mother and I, we love you. And I know how much I hurt you and hurt her when we were fighting.”

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