Page 35 of Unbearable
“What? Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t you think that’s something you should have told me before now?” Pissed off, I don’t even think before I grab a glass on the counter and throw it against the wall in the kitchen. Mom jumps at the sound but now she’s staring at me like she doesn’t even know who I am, which seems hilarious since I feel like I don’t know who she is either. “How the hell could you have kept this from me? I get that I didn’t need to know at ten but how come you didn’t tell me when I was older or better yet at some point during my six-year relationship with Berkley. I’m twenty-six now. Fuck. This changes everything about me and relationships I have with women.”
Mom rolls her eyes, not seeing the significance behind my words. “It doesn’t have to change anything, Tyler. I get that you’re upset but please calm down.”
I laugh. Calm? Is she serious?
My dad walks in, having heard the glass breaking and stares at me, his stone-cold blue eyes narrowing. “What’s going on?”
“Did you know about this?”
Mom gives him a look. “I told Tyler….”
So he knew. He fucking knew too. My own father, a man himself wouldn’t think to tell me something like this?
“You fucking knew and didn’t think to tell me?” I wave my hand around in front of them. “I’m your only son and no time in the last sixteen years did you think it would be a good idea to tell me that I’ve been taking seizure medication that probably made me sterile? You didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell me I could never have children?”
Mom chokes back emotions and stands, reaching out to me but I back up near the door holding my hands up. She’s the last person I want comfort from. “Tyler, honey, you don’t know what it’s like to watch your child suffer day after day. To be so afraid for their safety that you insist they are never alone in a room because what if he has a seizure and falls and hits his head or chokes.”
I can imagine how scary it must have been for her, I can, but it changes nothing. My mom’s voice filters my thoughts, distancing me from the past and back to the present. “The fear is so consuming that you begin to feel hopeless because what if the doctors never find a cure, or what if we aren’t doing enough to help you? God, Tyler, you have to understand that when we finally found a medication that worked. It felt like we’d been given a miracle. At the time, we didn’t care about anything but making sure you had as normal a life as possible. We weren’t focused on ten years from now. We were focused on ten days from now. As time went on and you stabilized to the point you could live like a normal child again, we rejoiced in the victory and put the risks in the back of our mind. The last thing we wanted to do was take your future away from you but I’ll never regret putting you on it. It saved you.”
Normal. Fucking normal. Words I desperately wanted to be but now knew I never would. It’s not even all about the medicine; it’s about them not telling me and basically finding out Berkley cheated on me and had no intention of even telling me.
“Damn it, Mom. It’s not about the fucking medicine!” I shout, only to have my dad glare, his silent way of letting me know I’ve crossed the line yelling at my mother, but they crossed the line and that’s all I see. “It’s about you keeping this from me for sixteen goddamn years. I can’t have a family! Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
“Tyler.”
My throat threatens to close, my pulse soaring. “No. You don’t get to say anything else.” I storm toward the front door but turn one more time to see both my parents standing in the living room looking at me with apprehension.
“I can’t be here right now. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be here again.”
I’d walked out of my parents’ house after those words, slammed the door and headed to Murphy’s where I’d began my quest to give myself liver damage and sleep with Raven. Honestly, deciding to take Raven home with me that night was a decision I will never regret. Those six months with her before feelings started fucking everything up, made pushing the shit my parents had dumped on me that day into the back of my mind possible.
AFTER WORK, I head straight to Murphy’s bar. I know I’m going to potentially run into Berkley, which would not be a good thing considering I would like to punch her for being a lying, cheating bitch but she’s a waitress here sometimes, and I need a fucking drink in a bad way.
I find a stool at the bar and drop into it exhausted. I’m the kind of exhausted where I wish I could go home and sleep but know there’s no way it’s going to happen with all that’s going on in my head right now.
Zack approaches me bracing himself with his hands on the bar. “You look like you need either a good drink or a blow job.”
I stare at him as if he’s crazy. “Women complicate shit that doesn’t need complicating.”
“Okay, drink it is.” He laughs. “What can I get you?”
“Whiskey.”
He takes a minute to look at me and reaches for the whiskey and a glass but doesn’t pour it. “You really do look like shit, man.”
I drag my hands over my face. “You have no idea.”
“Girl problems?”
I’m not in the mood for talking. With anyone. “Can you just get me the whiskey?”
Zack nods. He knows I’m not going to talk about it. I set my phone down on the bar and immediately my mind moves to Raven and the fact that I want to call her, even if it’s just to hear her voice. A message pops up from Lenny.
Lenny: Hey, you were looking kind of rough today. Just checking on you. You doing ok?
If she only knew.
Me: I’m fine.
