Barry Donahue was not a patient man.
Even worse, he hated being ignored.
I tried really hard not to do it because I knew what kind of an asshole my dad could be when he was ignored. Hence me answering the phone in the first place when I was clearly in the middle of something.
“I am,” I lied. “But I’m seriously busy.”
“I have sacrificed my whole life for you,” Barry started in on the guilt trip like he always did when I didn’t immediately bow down to his orders. “The least you can do is give me a ride home.”
I sighed. “How’d you get there, anyway?”
“Drove Eedie’s car,” Dad said, but something sounded off, like he was lying. “Broken down.”
“Eedie” was my dad’s new wife’s daughter—his stepdaughter.
I had yet to meet her, though I’d met his wife, Elizabeth, multiple times and had formed a very strong opinion of her—I hated her.
And since I couldn’t stand her, I made it a habit not to hang around at all if I could manage it.
When I did things with my dad, it was without Elizabeth around.
However, I’d noticed lately that he’d gotten worse. Elizabeth’s sparkling personality was rubbing off on my dad.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I sighed.
“Seriously?” he asked. “You’re five minutes away.”
“But I’m busy, and I have to say my goodbyes.” I ignored his attitude. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Aella gave me a look that clearly said “your dad’s a dick.”
Her man, Chevy, jerked his chin at me and said to be careful.
The rest of the bikers all did the same sexy nod thing, and I was sad when I left to head out to my car.
A shitty little rust bucket that was my pride and joy.
See, when I was younger, my mom was worse than my dad.
She was my least favorite person in the world, and if she’d rot in hell, that would be too good for her.
When I was nine, I specifically remember seeing a piece of mail come into the house that had my name on it. Curious, I’d opened it up to see that I owed seventeen dollars.
I’d been a very responsible kid then, and not knowing what I owed seventeen dollars for, I’d sent the money through the mail in cash with a postage stamp attached wrong to the envelope.
From then on, I’d started paying attention to the mail coming in, and by the time I was sixteen, I’d known that something was wrong.
I was getting bills in the mail for things that I didn’t buy.
By the time I tried to open my first bank account at eighteen, I’d realized that my mom had spent years ruining mine and Aella’s credit to the point where not only could we not get a bank account, but we couldn’t rent an apartment. We couldn’t buy a car. We couldn’t do much of anything.
Even angrier now, because thinking about my mom always made my blood boil, I headed to the store to pick up my dad.
He angrily slammed his bags onto my trunk, and I had to grit my teeth as I got out and opened the trunk for him—God forbid he actually put his bags down into the trunk himself.
“I’m driving,” Dad said as he all but slammed my trunk closed after I loaded everything in.
I gritted my teeth because it made me mad when he mistreated my things, but ultimately kept my mouth shut when I ignored him and dropped back down into the driver’s seat.
