Page 30 of The Downside of Love
STRYDER
Eight years ago . . .
“I want everything typed up and put on my desk in the morning. Do you hear me?” my father booms from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yeah, I got it,” I answer, loosening my tie as I make my way to my room. Shutting my door, I lie flat on my bed, pamphlets in hand, and take a deep breath.
Fuck, that was miserable.
After the admissions counselor for the Air Force Academy left, my dad spent the next hour and a half grilling me, getting in my face, berating me for mymanyshortcomings, the ones he thinks won’t get me into the Academy.
Receiving an A- in algebra will be the end of me.
The inability to do thirty pull-ups in a row will sink me.
My lack of extracurricular activities outside of sports will destroy my chances.
More, he wants more. But I have nothing left to give. I’m a fucking freshman in high school and I can barely fill my lungs. Every day he breathes down my neck, questioning my every move, suffocating me with his demands.
I’m going to snap. There will be a breaking point and I can feel it.
Deep breaths, take deep breaths.
I toss my notebook to the ground, putting it out of my sight for a short period of time, because I know I’ll spend my entire night staring at it along with the computer, typing up my notes for my dad, letting him know how I’m going to correct my shortcomings, how I’m going to make it impossible for the Air Force Academy to say no to me, along with a step-by-step process on how I plan on doing that.
Fuck.
I drag my hands over my face, wondering what my friends are doing right now. What would it be like to live the kind of life they have? One that’s not predetermined for them. To have the freedom to be your own person.
I don’t even know what that feels like—to have an opinion on a matter—because any opinion I form of my own is quickly squashed by my father. He would then drill me until I’m blue in the face about what I’m supposed to believe instead.
And what really sucks about all this bullshit with my father is this: as I listened to the admissions counselor talk about the programs the Academy has to offer, I actually got excited. Maybe thiscouldbe for me . . .
Maybe it’s because it’s in my blood, or because I’ve been conditioned to think a certain way, but shit, the programs they have, the aeronautics and glider classes, they felt like something I want to be a part of.
Isn’t that a fucking kick to the dick?
I want nothing more than to defy my father, to join the Army and give him the middle finger as I walk out the door, but after that meeting, I actually felt inspired and antsy to get up in the air.
I want to be a part of something bigger than the world I live in right now. I want to be high in the sky, flying a heavy piece of machinery through the clouds, defending and protecting.
I want to jump out of airplanes.
I want to have a sense of brotherhood, a sense of belonging.
I want to do something for me and no one else, and it physically pains me that it’s the exact thing my dad wants for me.
It pains me to think that I don’t fall far from the tree, that my bones and blood yearn to be in the sky, that I want nothing more than to hear my call sign over the coms in the cockpit.
I realized that despite everything my father drilled into me—decidedforme—there was a moment of clarity. Like everything around me had washed away and I could see myself as a pilot.
Because one word resonated with me as the counselor talked. One single word that stuck out among all the others.
Freedom.
Freedom in the sky.
I crave it. I want it. I will do just about anything to get it, even if it means gritting down and obeying my father.
