Page 82 of Aced (Driven 4)
“Can I help you with something? Car having some trouble?” His voice sounds like years of cigarettes ground into the gravel.
I can’t tear my gaze from him. Hate that I keep waiting for something to spark in his eyes when I don’t want it to. Just something to tell me I mattered at some point. A flash of a thought. A pang of regret. A question of what-if over time.
There’s absolutely nothing, just his words hanging in the air. He narrows his eyes, broadens his shoulders.
I shift my feet. Swallow. Decide.
“No. I need absolutely nothing from you.”
One last look. A first and last goodbye. Circle completed.
Fuck this shit.
I turn on my heel and walk away without another look. With my hands shaking and my heart conflicted, I slide into the passenger seat. I can’t bring myself to look at my dad. My real dad. The only dad I have.
“Just drive.”
The car starts. The world zooms by as I move back into the comfort of the blur. The place I haven’t returned to in so very long. My dad doesn’t say a word, doesn’t ask a thing. He just drives and leaves me alone with the motherfucking freight train of noise in my head.
Regret. Doubt. Confusion. Anger. Hurt. Uncertainty. Guilt. Each one takes their time in the limelight as we drive. Shut it down, Colton. Lock it up. Push it away.
The car pulls to a stop. The blur fades to clear. The beach stretches before us off Highway 101. It’s my spot. The place I go when I need to think.
Of course he’d know to bring me here. That this is what I needed.
I sit for a moment, quiet, unmoving, before the guilt eats up the air in the car until I can’t breathe anymore. I shove the door open and stumble from it, needing the fresh air, the space to think, and the time to grieve when there’s nothing really dead to grieve over.
And that’s the goddamn problem, isn’t it? Why in the fuck am I upset? What did I expect? A reunion? An attaboy? Fuck no. I didn’t want one either. And yet that teeny, tiny piece of me wanted to know I mattered. Wanted to know that the blood we shared tied us together somehow.
But it doesn’t. Not in the fucking least. I’m nothing like him. I know that from the two minutes I came face to face with him, looked him in the eyes, and felt only indifference.
Does he even know I exist? The thought comes out of nowhere, and I don’t know if it makes the situation worse or better. Ignorance over abandonment.
Fuck if I know. Hell if I care.
But I do.
My chest hurts. It’s hard to breathe. I sit down on the seawall separating the asphalt from the sand and tell myself this is exactly what I wanted. To prove he’s nothing to me. To close the circle. And walk away.
So what in the hell is wrong with me?
It’s the man in the car behind me. That’s who. How could I betray him? How could I let him drive me there? Would he think I didn’t believe he was enough for me when he’s given me everything?
I’m such a selfish prick. To think I was looking for more when I’ve had it right in front of me since the day he found me on his steps.
The ocean crashes on the beach and I lose myself in the sight. Find comfort in the sound. Use the one place I’ve always escaped to, to quiet the shitstorm in my head.
I hear him before I see him. The fall of footsteps. The scent of the same soap he’s used since I was little. The shuffle as he swings his legs over the wall to sit beside me. The sounds of his thoughts scream in the silence.
“You okay, son?”
His words are like poison lacing the guilt I already own. All I can do is blow out a breath and nod my head, eyes staring straight at the water.
“Was that your father, Colton?”
I take a moment to answer. Not because I have to think about it but because how I respond is important. Was he my father? By blood, yes. And yet when I hold Ace, even though I’m scared shitless and don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and still fear I’m not going to be the man he needs me to be, I still feel connected with him. An indescribable, unbreakable bond.
I didn’t feel it with the man at the garage.
