Page 59 of The Voices are Back

“What kind of news?” he asked, sounding hopeful. “Have you fired your doctors?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. But I did get informed that you blocked Aodhan’s number on my phone so that I couldn’t call him, and he couldn’t call me.”

There was a lengthy pause and then a snort.

“There was only one way he would move on,” my father said. “And that was to block him so you wouldn’t call him back and guilt him into staying.”

My mouth fell open in shock.

I mean, I knew that he’d had a part in keeping me and Aodhan apart but…to go as far as to make it to where I could never talk to Aodhan? That was heartless.

“Dad,” I croaked. “What about yourdaughter?”

“My daughter stopped being my daughter when she chose sex before marriage,” he growled.

I all but fell over in surprise.

I mean, logically, I knew he knew that I’d had sex with Aodhan. I mean, he’d all but caught us parking at the end of his dirt driveway with half my clothes missing.

“And continued not being my daughter when she continuously chose medical bullshit over natural, healthy healing,” he continued. “And perpetuated a lie just to get people to feel sorry for her.”

That last part hadn’t really been surprising. I mean, logically, I knew that he thought I made it up.

If he trusted the medical community, he would think I had Munchausen syndrome—where I tried to get sympathy or attention by faking illnesses.

I only wished I was faking my POTS. Maybe then, I’d be able to live a normal life.

“Dad,” I said very carefully. “I think you’re the one that needs to seek medical attention. Possibly a psychologist would do you some good.”

“I would never…” he started, but I interrupted him. Something I’d never done, not ever. It was a for-sure way to make him mad. Very, very mad.

“I hope when you see me in a store, you keep walking,” I continued. “I hope one day, when I finally have a child, and I’m happy, that you see that happiness and realize that you aren’t a part of it.”

There was a moment of silence, and then he laughed.

“You can’t have a child with that fake illness of yours, if what you told me once was true,” he countered.

A child was my pipe dream.

I knew that having a baby would fuck with my POTS—and even my neurocardiogenic syncope—but I wanted a baby. One day, if I was ever in a stable relationship and my partner knew everything about me and wanted me anyway, I might bring it up to him. I might ask him if he was willing to practically hover over my every move for nine months.

I wanted to give my child something that I had never been able to have myself.

Though, logically, I knew that would be very hard to do. It’d be easier if I had a man that was willing to pull out all the stops for me. To put me first. To give me the world.

“Are you even listening to me?” my father snapped.

“From now on, don’t call me,” I said with certainty. “Don’t send me any letters. Don’t look at me when you see me in a restaurant. Don’t send your wife my way because I won’t respond. Don’t engage me at all. Act like I’m nothing more than a stranger on the street, since that’s what you’ve treated me like since the day I was born.”

“I raised you,” he said.

“You fed me. You clothed me. You did the bare minimum. But let me tell you something, Gus.” I refused to use his title anymore. From now on, he would be no more than “Gus” to me. “You barely did even the bare minimum. In fact, I think you stunted my emotional happiness every chance you got because deep inside, you don’t think anyone should be happy. I think that one day, you’re going to wake up and need me, and I won’t give you the time of day. Because I’m letting it all go. I’m letting you go. You are no longer anything to me more than a memory. A joke that wasn’t even funny.”

I hung up, then I blocked his number. I blocked their house number. I blocked my stepmother’s number.

And for good measure, I blocked his work number.

Granted, it might actually call one day and be someone that wasn’t him—him working for one of the largest shipping companies in the world meant that anytime he called me from his work, it showed up as a generic shipping number company-wide—but I’d take that chance.

---