Page 59 of Freedom
But he couldn’t deny to himself now hehadhad those thoughts, even if just a few, and that was why it hurt.
“Tobias matters to me. Why can’t you understand that?”
“It’s a toy,” Leon snapped back. “I don’t care what jollies you get out of playing with an abomination like that. Maybe it’s got two assholes for all I fucking know. But we both know you can’t share a single fucking thing that’s important with a monster. You can’t be family with a monster. I wouldn’t have given you the fucking Eldorado if I thought you’d end up spreading a freak in the backseat.”
Jake choked, anger and shame tangling up inside him. It was already bad enough that he couldn’t stop touching Tobias, holding him when the nightmares got bad. He couldn’t stop, not when Toby looked at him like he was his entire world, like he’d lose everything if Jake left him, and Jake was all he had to hold on to and believe in. It hadn’t been that long ago that Jake had known the kid was so brainwashed he would’ve done anything—anything—Jake might’ve asked him to.
Even now Jake was afraid that Toby didn’t really know what he wanted, that he couldn’t yet. How could he want Jake when there were plenty of better options out there, all the people Toby hadn’t even considered yet who were way less fucked up?
“Tobias and I don’t...” he began and had no idea where to go from there.
Leon sensed the weakness. Whether it had been a chink in someone’s emotional armor or a monster’s lowered guard, Leon always knew when to go for the belly. That was what made him an exemplary hunter. But fuck did it hurt when Leon went unhesitatingly for his throat.
“So it’s not the fucking backseat, and you’re not trying to make it family.” Sarcasm dripped from Leon’s voice. “I don’t care if you’re riding the freak in a bed or it’s riding you, but you can’t let monsters get under your skin. They’ll rip it off and wear it like a coat. Didn’t your mother’s death teach you fucking anything?”
“It taught me that peopleleave,” Jake snapped. “But you could have taught me that just fine without her.”
Silence, long enough for Jake to realize what he’d said and wonder if he’d gone too far. Then Leon started again, quiet, choked fury in his voice: “You dishonor her name. You disgrace her life and her death. She staked evil. What the fuck are you doing, sucking it?”
“Go fuck yourself, Dad,” Jake choked out. He wished he could mean it. He wished he had the balls to hang up the phone.
Leon’s voice was suddenly gentler, angry but calmer, coaxing. “Just put a bullet in its brain and come back, Jake. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not family, and it can’t really share your life. You can’t share anything important with a monster. It’s not human and never will be.”
Jake stared at his hand on his lap, stared at his shoes, stared at the floor. He was glad Tobias wasn’t here. So fucking glad that Tobias wasn’t here. “No,” he said. “I could never hurt Tobias. And I’ll never let you hurt him.”
“It’s just a freak. A fucking freak.” Leon’s voice broke on the snarl or some kind of sob.
“Tobias’s as human as I am, human as you are,” Jake said.Not saying much, fuckups that we are. Sick to put us in the same class as Toby when he’s so much better.
“That’s just what it fucking wants you to believe, you goddamned idiot.You little shit, I raised you smarter than this!”
“You didn’t fucking raise me, you absent, fucked-up—”
“Don’t you talk to me while your whore is probably licking your—”
“You don’t have the fucking right to talk to me about Tobias when it was your fault Mom—”
“You bring up your mother and I’ll come shoot you myself!”
“I’d like to fucking see you try,” Jake snarled.
“You’re not my fucking son.”
“You’ve said that before.”
Leon paused, and Jake panted, struggling to catch his breath through the blind rage. What had been said, what he had said, and what that meant sank slowly, horribly into him. That silence hurt more than anything Leon had said to him because in it, he saw the end.
“Yeah,” Leon said. “But this time I mean it. You’re not my fucking son. I see you, I’m putting it down and you with it. Enjoy your whore.” He hung up.
Jake sat on the bed and looked at the phone. He was shaking. When the fuck had he started shaking?
He looked at the phone and scrolled down the list of contacts.DADwas right there, all caps. He highlighted it and thought about changing it. Thought about deleting it. Why should it still sayDADwhen that wasn’t true anymore? It should be something else. Leon, maybe. Or Hawthorne, if Jake didn’t count himself and Tobias—but he did because Leon had had no fucking right to say Tobias couldn’t have a goddamned name of his own when he’d had nothing his entire life. It wasn’t like they owned the fucking name. There were fucking trees named Hawthorne that were worth more than Leon and Jake combined. Maybe he should have found Tobias another name, a better one, because right then, Jake was sure that being a Hawthorne was more a curse, more the brand of stupid dicks and killers than anything to be proud of.
In the end, Jake didn’t change Leon’s contact name, didn’t delete it, because seeing the word that used to represent his whole world and knowing that it represented nothing... that hurt. And Jake deserved to hurt, for Mom, for Tobias, and maybe for the ghost called Dad.
He flipped the phone shut, snatched his jacket, and slammed the motel door behind him.
Jake almost collided into Tobias after turning the first sharp corner. Tobias had been leaning against the brick wall beside the soda vending machine, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes fixed on the ground. He brought his hand up when Jake barreled into him, fingers barely brushing Jake’s shoulder before Jake swore and took a step back. Tobias started, first stepping away, then timidly toward him. Jake wanted to bolt, take off in another direction and not look back until he could fight down all this destructive emotional shit he shouldn’t be exposing to Tobias. Tobias wasn’t supposed to see this.
