Page 39 of Resurrecting the Enemy
“Don’t think she’ll buy that I’m hungover?”
“Since I don’t lie to your mother, you’re going to have to go with something else, Ram,” he replied.
“I fucked up last night,” I told him truthfully.
“I figured.”
“How so?”
His smirk was genuine when he said, “There’s only one thing that has the power to fuck us up good, and that’s a woman.”
I glanced over at my Mom. She was sitting in one of the deck chairs talking with Sally and Aunt Ava. “I know you and Mom have had some intense moments in your relationship, so can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he replied smoothly, and that was one of the things I loved about my parents. They didn’t bullshit us. Even if it was to tell us something was none of our business, they still didn’t bullshit us.
“How do you get her to forgive you when you’ve been an asshole?”
“Oh, fuck, Ram,” he rushed out. “What’d you do?”
With the way my father adored my mother, it was hard to get the words out, but I did. “I didn’t like hearing her tell me she didn’t have any feelings for me.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
I looked at him. “She broke up with her ex-boyfriend a couple of months ago because he cheated on her. So, when she came at me with her bullshit, I told her I was going to hook up with that same girl her boyfriend cheated on her with to see what that girl had that she didn’t.”
He didn’t say anything for a really long time. He just stared at me, and I knew he was choosing his words carefully because they were probably going to be brutal.
Finally, he said, “Your mother forgives me because we have an unhealthy co-dependent relationship on top of being in love with each other. She has to forgive me because she can’t be without me just as much as I can’t be without her.” That didn’t sound good at all. “However, if it ever got to the point where one of us did walk, your mother would survive it. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t.”
“So, you don’t get her to forgive you, she just does because she loves you,” I surmised.
He glanced over at my mom before looking back at me. “Ram, from the first moment that I ever laid eyes on your mother, I have never looked at another female. Even at our worst, I never threw another female in your mother’s face.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Christ, son, you know better.”
“I know,” I told him. “And that’s why I didn’t get any sleep last night and look like shit.”
“Regret doesn’t go away, Ramsey,” he said. “Even if this girl forgives you, the regret stays with you.” He looked serious and remorseful. “You can’t damage someone you care about and not pay the price for it. Forgiveness doesn’t absolve you, son. Nothing does.”
I let out a dark laugh. “So, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Just sit back and let it destroy me?”
Dad shook his head. “No,” he said. “You do your best to make sure she doesn’t regret forgiving you.”
“And if she doesn’t give me the chance to do that?” I asked.
“Then you don’t give her the choice,” he said. “Anything worth your love should be worth the fight.”
I looked him straight in the eye when I asked, “Even if it lands me in jail?”
He speared me with a look. “First off, I’d never let you end up in jail,” he automatically replied. “Your mother would kill me. Second, fuck yeah, even if it means you could end up locked up.” Dad glanced back over to where Mom was sitting and said, “I’d fucking murder an entire city for your mother, Ram, and happily spend the rest of my life in jail for it, if that’s what it took to make your mother happy.”
I shook my head. “That’s some twisted shit, Dad.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true, Ram.”
Before we could say anything more, I noticed D.J. making her way towards us. Dad’s hand came down on my shoulders and said, “Just let me know if things get really out of hand, okay?” I just nodded, and he went on his way.
D.J. smiled at him as she passed him on her way to talk to me. When she stood in front of me, her amber eyes narrowed on me. “I heard a rumor,” she started off.
“Oh, yeah?” I teased. “And which rumor would that be?”
