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Authors: Monica Alexander
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full time, going to school and raising my younger brother.
I’d been doing it officially for the past three years, bu t unofficially for the past five, since the day my mother left after deciding she couldn’t live in a middle-of-nowhere town in the Midwest any longer – or with my dad, for that matter – and things had started to spiral at home. She’d left before, taking extended vacations and blaming the stress of motherhood on her need for weeks at rejuvenation spas in Europe, but she’d always come back. That time she left for good. And even though she had a pattern of being the flakiest wife and mother on the planet, my dad had still been devastated when she announced that she was moving to Paris to be with Jean Luc, a guy she’d apparently been having an affair with for some time.
From there things just got worse until the summer before my senior year of high school when my younger brother Austin was just fourteen. My dad had been offered a transfer with work and he’d decided to take it, which meant moving to Cleveland. I was pissed that I was going to be forced to move with just a year of school left, and not because I was so endeared to my high school – in truth I hated that place and the people in it with a passion – but I didn’t want to leave Scott. He was the only reason I got through high school in one piece. Going at it alone seemed like the worst thing ever.
But what we found out was that my dad had no intentions of moving Austin and me with him. In fact, without talking to us, he’d gone to Scott’s parents to ask if we could move in with them. He said he’d send money, but he couldn’t be a father to us any longer. He needed to move alone and be on his own for a while.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Evan had always been his favorite. They’d connected because they were both stellar at math and science. I wasn’t. I was good at English, but that made me weak in my father’s eyes, a pussy as he’d called me more times than I could count while I’d been growing up. He hated that I spent my time writing and reading. He hated my hair and my clothes and my music. He hated that I was shy and quiet and soft-spoken. I summed that up to mean that he pretty much hated me.
In truth, when I found out he was leaving without us, I was kind of relieved. He’d made my life a living hell since my mother had left, but I knew Austin would be devastated. To me he’d hardly been a father, choosing to either ignore me or bully me for most of my life, but Austin had always gotten along with him relatively well. And he needed a father. He was still a kid. So no matter how much I didn’t think my dad truly cared about me, I went to him. I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to get him to stay, and I probably handled it all wrong, because he still left. What I realized later on was that Austin reminded him too much of our mother, and it just got too hard for him to look at his youngest son and not be reminded of the woman who’d left him.
Evan was pissed when he found out and even tried rationalizing with our dad. I have no idea what their conversation entailed, but even his favorite son couldn’t keep him from abandoning us. So Evan offered to move home. He was finishing his freshman year at Coleman , where he had a full ride, and we both knew if he moved home he’d not only have to pay for college – and money was tight since my mother had spent most of her life living like we were filthy rich and had left my dad with a mountain of debt – but aside from that, Evan would have to enroll at the local community college. I wouldn’t let him do that. He had plans to be a doctor, and a school like Coleman would put him on the right track to get into a great medical school. Leaving would only set him back.
So I told him we’d be fine – okay, so in reality I badgered him for weeks before he finally relented and agreed to stay at school. Austin and I had moved in with Scott’s family that summer.
I’d been doing it officially for the past three years, bu t unofficially for the past five, since the day my mother left after deciding she couldn’t live in a middle-of-nowhere town in the Midwest any longer – or with my dad, for that matter – and things had started to spiral at home. She’d left before, taking extended vacations and blaming the stress of motherhood on her need for weeks at rejuvenation spas in Europe, but she’d always come back. That time she left for good. And even though she had a pattern of being the flakiest wife and mother on the planet, my dad had still been devastated when she announced that she was moving to Paris to be with Jean Luc, a guy she’d apparently been having an affair with for some time.
From there things just got worse until the summer before my senior year of high school when my younger brother Austin was just fourteen. My dad had been offered a transfer with work and he’d decided to take it, which meant moving to Cleveland. I was pissed that I was going to be forced to move with just a year of school left, and not because I was so endeared to my high school – in truth I hated that place and the people in it with a passion – but I didn’t want to leave Scott. He was the only reason I got through high school in one piece. Going at it alone seemed like the worst thing ever.
But what we found out was that my dad had no intentions of moving Austin and me with him. In fact, without talking to us, he’d gone to Scott’s parents to ask if we could move in with them. He said he’d send money, but he couldn’t be a father to us any longer. He needed to move alone and be on his own for a while.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Evan had always been his favorite. They’d connected because they were both stellar at math and science. I wasn’t. I was good at English, but that made me weak in my father’s eyes, a pussy as he’d called me more times than I could count while I’d been growing up. He hated that I spent my time writing and reading. He hated my hair and my clothes and my music. He hated that I was shy and quiet and soft-spoken. I summed that up to mean that he pretty much hated me.
In truth, when I found out he was leaving without us, I was kind of relieved. He’d made my life a living hell since my mother had left, but I knew Austin would be devastated. To me he’d hardly been a father, choosing to either ignore me or bully me for most of my life, but Austin had always gotten along with him relatively well. And he needed a father. He was still a kid. So no matter how much I didn’t think my dad truly cared about me, I went to him. I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to get him to stay, and I probably handled it all wrong, because he still left. What I realized later on was that Austin reminded him too much of our mother, and it just got too hard for him to look at his youngest son and not be reminded of the woman who’d left him.
Evan was pissed when he found out and even tried rationalizing with our dad. I have no idea what their conversation entailed, but even his favorite son couldn’t keep him from abandoning us. So Evan offered to move home. He was finishing his freshman year at Coleman , where he had a full ride, and we both knew if he moved home he’d not only have to pay for college – and money was tight since my mother had spent most of her life living like we were filthy rich and had left my dad with a mountain of debt – but aside from that, Evan would have to enroll at the local community college. I wouldn’t let him do that. He had plans to be a doctor, and a school like Coleman would put him on the right track to get into a great medical school. Leaving would only set him back.
So I told him we’d be fine – okay, so in reality I badgered him for weeks before he finally relented and agreed to stay at school. Austin and I had moved in with Scott’s family that summer.
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