things worse! Stand down,” she ordered, speaking to me like a drill sergeant. Obviously, she picked it up from the military man who broke her heart.
“Mind your business.”
“Mind my business? You’re my brother! I love you, and so does he.”
“He has a shitty fuckin’ way of showin’ it. He has never treated you the way he’s treated me, and we both know why.”
“Cash, that’s not fair. He just doesn’t want you to hurt yourself more than you already have. It’s a tough place to be in for any parent.”
“I just wanna live my life. I don’t care ’bout the consequences.”
“All I’ve ever done,” my father drawled, “is try to help you make the right decisions. Be someone who shows you the way, but it was never good enough. It’s never been good enough for you. You’ve resisted me at every turn, at every step! You have no idea the things I’ve done to support and help you, ’cuz you refuse to see them. Like right now! I could lock you up! Drivin’ under the influence! Underage drinkin’! Possession of marijuana! That’s one felony and two fuckin’ misdemeanors! Except, I can’t bring myself to do that to my son, and it goes against everythin’ I believe in. Do you have any idea how hard you make it to be your father?!”
“Yeah? Well like father, like son.”
“Dylan!” Ma reproached. “Take that back! Oh my God! You don’t mean that! Tell him you don’t mean that!”
“Why is he gonna lie?” I stated as a question. “I’ve always known he’s wanted me to be someone I’m not. He wanted me to be born different since day one. The truth is he hates who I am, and we both know it!”
“That’s not true, Cash! Your father loves you. He loves you more than anything in this world.”
“Yeah? Well, like I said—he has a shitty way of showin’ it.”
“I expressed it to you the only way I knew how! You know what fame did to Skyler. What that lifestyle leads to. You’re better than that, Cash. I don’t want those repercussions for you.”
“It’s not your choice to make. Besides, we both know you’re full of shit. There’s only one reason you don’t want me followin’ my dreams. You hate who I am, you always have.”
“That’s not true.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t fix it. I’m not perfect like you. I’ve accepted who I am, and I wish you would too.”
“I’ve worked so fuckin’ hard to give you everythin’ you’ve ever wanted. Do you think I want my only son to be like me? Follow in my footsteps? You couldn’t be more wrong. You have no idea the pain and torture I go through each and every day. You think you know so much! You don’t know shit! You will never know the terror I’ve been exposed to! The shit I’ve fuckin’ seen! I thank God for that! I would never want you to follow in my path and have to worry about you gettin’ shot! Endin’ up killed in the line of duty. I’ve spent all your life protectin’ you from the bad guys, and all you do is see me as one.”
In two strides he was in my face, the boys following his every move to intervene if needed.
“I may not have been the father you think I should have been, but I know when you took your first step, when you lost your first tooth, got your first haircut! I know about every skinned knee, every bruise, every broken bone, every runny nose, every milestone in your life. Why? ’Cuz I was there!”
“That’s not what’s important right now! You totally missed the point. Why am I not surprised? Good ‘ol dad never paid attention to what I said or wanted. None of that matters to me, but the one thing that does you couldn’t give a flyin’ fuck ’bout. You have the bar set so high for what you think I should be, there’s no way I could ever reach it. Giselle, Constance, and Locket never had it half as bad as I do! Why is that, huh? ’Cuz they ain’t like me?”
“Cash, that couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re hurtin’ yourself. It’s only a matter of time before it catches up to you and you’re just another washed up musician who wasted their life chasin’ a dream that wasn’t for him.”
“I don’t know what hurts worse, you not supporting me, or that you don’t believe in me. You called in a raid.