Page 144 of Only With You

Memories resurface, plaguing my mind, reminders of everything I’ve tried to forget. I’ve been doing a good job, but John is like a parasite. He comes into my life, triggering the feelings I’ve been trying hard to bury away, but at my expense, he comes back, and so does the noose.

Because when I look at his face, I see myself, and that reminds me of how much my mother despised me. How she couldn’t stand to look at me, how she’d wished and admitted—in her drunken stupor—she regretted having me.

I grind my teeth, my gaze steering in Jagger’s direction, who stares at me apologetically.

“Sorry, I tried to text you,” he mouths, throwing his thumb over his shoulder, and he, along with the other guys, make themselves sparse.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, getting straight to the point.

“Son, I’m here to?—”

“I’m not your son,” I say, my voice sharp.

Every single cell in my body is screaming to get out of here, because I don’t have an ounce of patience to deal with him. I can easily brush anyone off, shut them down, and not give a single fuck about what they do or don’t. But this man, all he has to do is look at me once, and all those hard-built walls come crumbling down.

The proud smile on his face slips and he breathes out a weary sigh. “Why must you make everything so difficult? I’m here to see you, because I haven’t seen you in a few months.”

There’s a painful strike against my temple. “There’s a reason why you haven’t.”

His lips pinch in a thin line. “Jesus Christ, Landon, I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because I haven’t seen you, and I miss you.”

A flat, humourless laugh escapes me. “A little late for that, don’t you think?”

“Don’t. Not here.” His eyes harden and pierce me with a warning look, then cast over to the kitchen where everyone is at.

“Or what?”

I feel the tip of a knife, teasing and poking the stretched tight tension that envelops us.

John’s body becomes rigid, expression grim. “Not. Fucking. Here.” He delivers each word with a punctuating sharp bite.

My jaw pops and every last bit of restraint I’d been holding onto disintegrates. “I don’t know what it is now that you want from me that you didn’t before?”

His nostrils flare and anger simmers in the depth of his steel eyes. “Why can’t you just let it go and forget? I’ve done everything in my power to make things right. I’ve done everything I can to give you everything you need. I’m not a perfect man, Landon. You need to meet me halfway. I know I’ve made mistakes, but haven’t I paid enough for them?”

My mouth twists wryly. “You’re only here to clear your guilty conscience. So, get the fuck out of here with your apologies. I needed them when I was six. I don’t need them now.”

His face burns with annoyance. “I don’t owe you an apology for leaving your mother. I wasn’t happy. I needed to do what was best for me.” He scrubs a hand over my face, rolling his eyes. “And I don’t owe you an explanation, so stop acting like I do.”

“You broke your promise. You said you’d come back and you never did.”

His eyes cast to the floor like he’s embarrassed I brought that up. “Things came up.”

Things came up.

A knife punctures and twists in my stomach, but despite the unmistakable pain I’m feeling, it doesn’t stop the fury bubbling inside me. My jaw hurts from how hard it’s clenched and my knuckles, I’m sure white as I fist my hands at my sides.

I blink once, everything becoming a blur and going black.

“Right,” I drawl. “Things came up…”

“Listen, I?—”

“You know I cleaned up her vomit almost every bloody day. I learned how to cook at the age of seven. I begged her to get better for me because she was all thatIhad. You know I was picking out shards of glass from my fucking face because she hated when I smiled because I look like you. You aren’t my father, because if you were, you would have prevented me from having to put up with that. And a father doesn’t make their kid feel like a burden for existing. And how dare you ask me to forget…” I seethe, my voice cracking, but I clear my hoarse throat and rein in a stiff breath. “When you know more than anyone that I can’t?

“How fucking dare you whenyouknow I can still smell the vomit, I can still hear her choking on it, every day.” A cold shiver races down my spine, and pin-like goosebumps break across my heated skin. “Ifyouwere my father, you wouldn’t have been absent for most of my life, but instead, you were playing house with a whole other family. So no, John, I can’t meet you halfway and I don’t ever intend to. Fuck you. You’re a bloody pathetic, shit excuse of a person. Nothing but the man who produced the sperm.”

He raises his hand but falters, leaving it suspended in the air.

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