Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 408(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
“No. I came back because I stupidly thought we could salvage our relationship somehow. You’ve both made it clear how you feel about me, yet I can’t seem to stop myself wishing you’d still love me. How fucked-up is that?” I said, laughing sardonically, mocking my naivety. “But I guess I shouldn’t have bothered,” I added, rising to my feet.
“Ryder no. Wait,” she pleaded, putting her hand on my shoulder. I stared down at her fingers, trying but failing to remember the last time she actually touched me. “Stay, please. I…I’d like to salvage something too.”
Stunned to my core, I sank back into my seat. Partly because I was intrigued by what she might have to say, and partly because I think I would’ve collapsed from shock if I hadn’t. The room was silent for a few minutes, the air thick and uncomfortable. Every so often we would catch each other’s eye, both feeling too awkward to start the conversation.
“So,” my mum eventually began. “How have you been?”
“Up and down. Things are getting better,” I shrugged.
“But you’ve not…I mean…the drugs?”
“No. I haven’t been back down that road. I promise you.”
“Good. That’s good,” she said clumsily, nodding her head. I definitely got my looks from my mum – the dark hair, green eyes and slight frame. My dad was tall, overweight, with blond, now fading into grey, hair and dark brown eyes.
“I’m sorry I disappoint you both so much,” I muttered, figuring we could either continue with awkward niceties or get straight to the point.
“Oh, Ryder…” she broke away, sighing. “He just, we just, wanted so much more for you, that’s all.”
“Like what? A good education? A decent job? Because I could’ve had all that if you’d given me some support. If you’d just accepted me.”
“People like… you don’t get-”
“Gay, Mum. You can say the word. It won’t turn you into a lesbian.”
“Ryder stop it. I’ve no issue with you being gay.”
Her words hit me like a kick to the stomach. “Whoa… Are you kidding me right now? That is the only reason you kicked me out and don’t you dare deny it because we both know it’s the truth!”
“Your father…”
“Fuck Dad! He’s not here so stop referring to him. You agreed with him. You let him throw me out of this house. You didn’t say a single fucking word. So don’t you now tell me that you don’t have a problem with it.”
“It might not be fair and it might not be right but gay people don’t get the same opportunities as everyone else.”
“Oh please. It’s the twenty first century.”
“Your father is a politician. Being gay is something that’s still frowned upon in those circles.”
“He does know he doesn’t have to be gay because I am, right?”
“Now isn’t the time for petulance, Ryder. He’s worked so hard all his life to get where he is. You must understand how he didn’t want that jeopardizing? He’s my husband, so of course I supported him.”
“And I’m your son! You were so worried about what the toffee-nosed arseholes he calls ‘friends’ thought that you didn’t even notice that I’d been…that I was fucking dying inside!”
“Been what, Ryder? Is this about the drugs?”
“Not everything’s about the fucking drugs,” I sneered. “Everything’s about the fact I was fucking raped.”
A choking sound burst from my mum’s throat and I felt the blood drain from my face as I watched it drain from hers. If she hadn’t have jerked back in her chair like I’d just punched her in the face, I would’ve started wondering if I really had just admitted that to her. “W-when? H-how?”
“Want me to draw you a diagram?”
“Just stop it! Why do you keep being so spiteful?”
“Because I’m mad at you! Because I needed you and you weren’t there!”
I had to cut myself off when a wave of spontaneous sobs wracked through my body. Even now a part of me yearned for her arm to fall around me, but of course that didn’t happen, which only made me cry harder.
“Y-you didn’t tell me. How could I have supported you if you didn’t tell me?” she stammered, tears distorting her words.
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Of course I would,” she murmured weakly, and not at all convincingly.
“You’d have taken his side,” I disagreed, shaking my head. “You already thought I was pretending to be gay just to piss Dad off. You said it yourself. I was being stubborn and rebellious. ‘You need to stop this little act’ you said to me.”
“Whose side?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard a single word after I said ‘his’.
“Doesn’t matter. None of this matters. This isn’t why I came here,” I rambled, shaking my head in frustration.
“Ryder, whose side? Did you know this man?”
“Frank O’Donnell.” His name burned my lips as it slithered off my tongue like a venomous snake. His face was etched onto the back of my eyelids, his scent – stale tobacco and body odor – crawled up my nose, and his rough, calloused fingers were once again pawing at my flesh.