Page 20 of No Right To Love You
I didn’t care about that because it wasn’t important to be affected by him. It wouldn’t do me any good but then as I walked off, dad threw a glass of whiskey at me, but it missedand hit the wall. The glass shards nicked me in the face over my eye. The same scar that I first got because of him trying to push me out of the way while he was busy trying to down another bottle when I was twelve.
It was easier to tell people that I was playing too rough with my cousins than to say my alcoholic father did this.
That was what made me black out as I turned and ran for him head on. All I had time to do was workout, run and try to just eviscerate this building anger inside of me but he pushed it. He pushed me and I couldn’t see past anything.
I wanted to kill him… I could have killed him if my mother hadn’t slapped me in the face to snap me out of it. That’s what changed everything for me. She saw me as that man. That monster and when I was sitting on that grass with unshed tears, I was at my lowest…
Until January tended to me. Making me feel like I finally had someone who saw me.
Just me.
Chapter 15
Ocean
Bernard callingmy name snapped me out of that moment. A moment I never want to visit again.
That’s the thing with kids who had a parent who was, in his saying, an alcoholic. We crave and need predictability, but he didn’t give me that. Everything that I needed to feel consistently safe was never there. There was no security.
All I ever was, was in survival mode. That was all I knew growing up. Defending myself from his words, proving that I was already doing more than he thought I was an overachiever.
All I ever wanted to do is keep the peace and prevent him from flipping out on me.
The second mom told me about him being around her, I refused for my children to be around him because they didn’t understand. Just like I didn’t understand as a child what addiction meant. I blamed myself over and over saying that it was my fault that I couldn’t achieve what he kept throwing my way.
It made me feel insane because no matter what I did, there was no reprieve. No exhale.
I couldn’t even breathe for just one second.
My home, the one place I was supposed to smile in… was scary to live in. Everything was unpredictable and as an adult, I realized that I checked-out a lot as a kid. When dad would yell and yell, I would just sit there, staring at something. He would ask me if something was wrong with me because I barely flinched as he berated me.
As I said… All I wanted to do was breathe. Was it too hard of a request from my parents? The people who brought me into this earth.
I was always stressed out, especially during my high school years. I never knew what I would find when I got home. Sometimes, he wasn’t home and actually made sure everything ran well. Dad was a functioning alcoholic. A recipe for disaster.
There was always this tension. This bubbling feeling of something that would soon erupt. Soon send me off the deep end.
This lifestyle that January and I chose instilled certain things in me that I didn’t have growing up. I always felt insecure and craved acceptance from the people who never gave it. At one point, I couldn’t trust anymore. Just like I can’t trust that he won’t do it again. That he won’t make my children feel this way. The constant lying, harsh parenting, and manipulation broke me apart. It shattered my entire soul.
I work hard until this day to make sure that I have control and that I make those around me happy. I go far beyond for my wife and children so that they know I would never be like my father. That they have all of me.
When I got help, a therapist told me that because my life as a child was pretty much out of control and unpredictable, I searched for order in everything I did. Everything had to be in control and order.
It was sort of a controlling behavior, but January and I talked about how that would be fair in our relationship. It took me timeto express myself. I struggled to do that and at the beginning of our marriage, it felt unsafe to speak up about things because of what I felt as a kid but after a while… I opened up. To her.
To the woman that my father looked in the eye at our wedding and said I would destroy her next. That everything my hands touched, crumbled. That I was stupid and not a good husband.
He spewed vile things about me from the second I was a kid until now. The worst thing that he said was that I couldn’t measure up to being with her. What was that last question he asked her again?
‘What do you see in him that you’d be willing to give him a chance or let alone marry him to ruin your life?’
What kind of father said those things about the son they raised? The son that did everything and saved their company.
An ungrateful bastard, that’s who.
That’s why when it clicks to what Bernard just let slip through those crusty lips of his, I don’t remember the control that I had over myself or maybe it was the trickling of what had recently just happened.
I don’t black out this time but instead, I swing hitting Bernard sharply in the face. This causes a commotion, but I don’t care because I walk out without looking back. I don’t stop until I hear her. It must’ve felt like I was in deep water because at this point, January was yelling my name out.
