Page 114 of Forever We Fall

My tongue stings with the desire to tell him I love a man just so he can be that much more disappointed in me.

I hold it back. Mostly because my feelings aren’t reciprocated. Not really.

“You need to remove yourself from this Arlo Judge’s life.”

A gasp chokes me.

My father never speaks English. Even in business meetings, he uses a translator, never stooping so low as to speak such a simple man’s language. Of all the things he could say in the language, why that?

Anger bubbles up, burning my throat.

“He is a weak person. You will not be associated with him. Do I make myself clear?”

It balloons, building to a pressure nothing can hold back, not even my father’s disapproval.

“He is not weak. He is the strongest person I’ve ever met. He is my best friend. My only friend.”

A restricted groan whispers through the phone. I can imagine his face turning caramel to red and his cheeks puffing.

“Then you are weaker than I suspected. Weaker than your mother,” he hisses.

His words land like Phillip’s rock. Only my father’s aim is dead center.

I walk to the tree line near the back edge of campus, where we’re now forbidden from going. No more fields on Fridays. No more freedom. I brace my forehead on the nearest tree and suck oxygen in through my nose.

“You are weak and not worthy of the Kido name.”

“What?” I hiccup. “How is defending my friend weak? How?”

“Your friend should be able to defend himself,” he spits.

“Like Mom should have defended herself from the adults who abused her when she was a child?” I vomit back.

“What happened to your mother was in her past. She should have left it there.” My father hollers every word. The vibrations rattle around my brain, trying to make something of my already scrambled thoughts.

Several truths solidify.

Until Arlo deals with his past, it will always haunt him. It will always haunt us. I can’t push him to face it. I can’t face it for him.He has to take the steps himself. All I can do is be there for him when he does. If he does.

Tears slick my cheeks.

My father reverts to Japanese.“Leave Arlo Judge behind. Leave your mother behind. Become the Kido man you are meant to become.”

“Kesshite. Never,” I growl through my tears.

“Then you are not my son,” my father bellows.

My heart constricts. Even though we’ve never been particularly close, he’s the only family I have left. If he disowns me, his parents will disown me too. I want to start this conversation over. I want a redo so we don’t end up here. I want so much, but only one outcome has consequences I can live with.

I won’t lie to my dad. I won’t forget my mother. I won’t abandon Arlo.

“Then I am not your son.”

In truth, I had never been my father’s son. Not one he was proud of. I was always my mother’s child. Even when I let her down, she was never disappointed in me.

In the past few years, I’ve grown into a man I am proud of. I don’t need this man to do it for me. I hang up on the man who both gave and tainted my life, resolved to never speak to him again.

I would do it for Arlo, but I do it for me.

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