Page 19 of No Right To Love You
“Ocean, it’s good to see you.” Bernard says to me as he slaps my back.
Ah. Bernard. The little man that has no self-respect or knows what boundaries are.
“Bernard.” I say to him after I take a sip of my whiskey.
“How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you around for a bit.”
“I’m busy.”
“Too busy to visit your wife? Trouble in paradise?” He says as he laughs as if I’m laughing with him.
“We’re fine.”
Bernard’s beady eyes tell that he’s hinting at something, but I won’t take the bait. I call him a little man because he acts like a little ass man. A man full of insecurities, full of bullshit and is always starting fucking issues. Tonight, isn’t a night that a petty little man like him should test me. I haven’t figured things out with my father, and I haven’t come down from wanting to put him in the hospital again.
My mind automatically goes back to that night.
Everything was going fine. I had come back from hanging out with a friend of mine, Jenna but when we walked in the house, there dad was, passed the hell out on the floor.
It embarrassed me that I left with Jenna and dropped her off home. Once I got back home, I sat there on mom’s swinging bench for a good while as the sun went down. There was no way I was going into the house as angry as I was.
There was another side of me when it came to my father.
He didn’t have to ever hit me because every time he opened his mouth, it was worse. I could take the physical but with everything else and the way he was with us, especially me, made me wish I was never born.
My mother tried her best to shield me, but I considered her weak for not doing something about him. For not taking the bottle from him or rather, bashing him over the head with it so that he could go away.
While not many people said anything to the man because of his business aspect and how we were practically part of a legacy, it didn’t change that he shouldn’t have been drowning in alcohol.
“Come in for dinner, honey.” Mom called out to me, and I didn’t want to come in, but I stood anyway.
That was the problem with kids who had alcoholic parents or a parent, we forgave them too easily and we lived in constant fear of what could happen next.
My father was a mean drunk and I experienced it again the second I sat at the dinner table.
“Where are you going for school, son?”
“I’m thinking maybe Algonquin in Ottawa since I’m going for Horticulture. I’m thinking that going out of the city will be good for me.”
Dad scoffed. “Why Ottawa? You can go right here in Toronto so that way it’s easier for me to pass down the business.”
“Pass down the business?” I repeated “dad, I manage everything. I’m only going so that I’m certified, and I have the educational background for it.”
“Will you even be able to keep my company afloat with the way your brain works? You’re always trembling like a little bitch. Crying about unnecessary things when that’s not even important. Grow some balls and be a man.”
“Grow some balls?” I repeated.
“Ocean…” mom called my name trying to calm me down and I knew she wanted me to leave the table. It wasn’t for dad; it was for me.
I stood. “Excuse me.”
When I excused myself, my father stood as well.
“Where are you going? Did I tell you; you could get up?”
“You’re pissing me off, old man. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Dad laughed and scoffed.
