Read Online Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself by Zachary Anderegg - Free Book Online

least advise me while I struggled with all the fear and insecurity and low self-worth, I get angry. There is a great imbalance, and a great injustice, when I feel him expecting loyalty or love from me, as if he’d earned it, or deserves it, after giving me neither for so long. On a subconscious level, I find the idea of a relationship with him less and less acceptable, because he’s not saying, “I’m truly sorry for not being there all those years. What can I do to make it up to you?” Rather, he’s saying, “Don’t ask me to try to make up for the past because I can’t. Let’s just move forward like things are all rosy.” It’s about what he can get from me, for free, and it has nothing to do with accepting responsibility for his past actions or for the way he treated me, and it has nothing to do with what he wants to give.
    One Saturday morning, standing on his front porch, apparently he decides he’s had enough, and he confronts me and says, “What’s the matter, Zak? I thought we had a relationship, but you’re pulling away from me. From me and Robin both. I will not tolerate being treated the way you treat your mother. Either we go back to where we were, or it’s over.”
    Really? I think. You’re giving me an ultimatum? You dare tell me it doesn’t feel good to have somebody pull away from you? You’re a grown-up. You don’t like it? How do you think it felt to a little kid?
    “You want an answer? I’ll give you one when I’m ready,” I say.
    A couple nights later, against my better judgment, Michelle and I honor a dinner invitation made before the falling out. I feel like it’s not going to go well, but Michelle is a peacemaker and argues that we should all try to get along. For the first two hours, we do. We make small talk and eat, ignoring the proverbial “elephant in the room,” and then we move to the living room. The elephant follows us.
    “So, Zachary, we need to talk about something,” Robin says. This is a challenge on two levels: first, that she knows I hate being called Zachary, and second, that she has decided to confront me on the issue. Her tone is nasty and condescending, while at the same time making a gesture I’m sure she thinks is magnanimous—she’s putting on a show again, a public display. She has decided she is calling the shots and has authority over me, and she thinks she can intimidate me, the way she did for years. Not anymore. “I thought things were going well between you and your father.”
    I’ve had it with her, and realize I don’t have to sit here and listen to her scold me.
    “Are you kidding me?” I say. “You’re acting like I’m supposed to owe you something. As far as I’m concerned, you were nothing but a shit to me my whole life. You were abusive to me, and you terrified me, and you knew you were doing it.”
    I spell out for her the things she did. She starts crying.
    “Maybe I could have treated you differently,” she says, “but lots of kids have been through much worse. Why can’t you learn from the past and be stronger for it? Why can’t you get over it?”
    Get over it? Who is she to tell me to get over it? She wants me to learn from the past, as if I’d made mistakes that could teach me something. I did learn one thing from my past—I learned, when I became a Marine, to stand up for myself and hold my ground.
    “You’re not entitled to tell me to get over it, Robin,” I say. “You’re not entitled to do anything other than apologize and ask for my forgiveness. You’re completely full of shit. You might be able to fool everybody else, but you can’t fool me. As long as I’m alive, I’ll know what you did, and who you really are.”
    For the first time in my life, I see her break down. I don’t feel good about it, but I don’t feel bad either. There’s no lasting gratification. She made me feel bad for years. If she feels bad for a few minutes, it’s not like now we’re even.
    “It’s because of both of you