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“Yeah, he didn’t bother to swap shifts at the hospital like Mom had asked him to He skipped it entirely When Patrick corandfather’s Rolex Forup He’s always knoasn’t cut out for it Watching me try so hard made me pathetic”

“So hi up to the party means you haven’t spoken to your father properly for five years? You’ve got to see it’s hurting yournot to cry”

“That night I got incredibly drunk I was sitting down there bythis bottle of whiskey into my mouth Alone Melodramatic Behind me is the house, filled with people, but no one had noticed the guest of honor was gone”

He looks a little amused, but I know underneath it is a deep hurt I re, a thousand years ago, and wondering if he ever felt isolated I know the answer now

“So you sat out there? Drunk? What did you do? Go in and make a scene?”

“No, but I realized so I’d worked so hard for—his approval—had resulted in absolutely no outcome I’m like him, maybe Why try? Why bother? I decided then and there to quit trying I’d go and get the first job I could”

He turns ain, he’s rubbing my shoulder like I’m the one who needs comfort

“I stopped e with hiest source of stress in ht, when he wants to be a father to me, he’ll make the move”

“And he hasn’t?”

Josh keeps talking like he hasn’t even heard me

“The thing that getsat Bexley, he was unimpressed Like he’d had any kind of opinion Like I wasn’t even noticed or acknowledged enough to disappoint But I have Over and over, my entire life My career is a joke to him”

I’ I think of Anthony, his face permanently twisted into a sarcastic expression

“He’s lost so special in you Why is he like this?”

“I don’t know If I knew, e it He’s just been that ith me, and most people”

“But Josh, this is what I don’t get You’re so overqualified for what you do at B and G”