Read Online The Deeper We Get by Jessica Gibson - Free Book Online Page B

just like with my mom. I should be talking about this with Becca, but I wasn't , and I didn’t plan to in the future.
    “What can you do about him coming around?”
    “Probably nothing. He’s not really doing anything wrong.”
    “That really blows.”
    “Yep. So that’s my situation. I’ll be okay eventually, but for now I just need some time.”
    “At least come to the gym, it would be good for you. I’ll let you beat on Ian for a while, that would be fun right?”
    I knew he was trying to help, but I just wanted to be alone. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it.”
    He stayed for a bit longer. “Alright man, I’m going to come looking for you if you stay away too long without answering your phone.”
    “I’ll be around soon, I promise. Just need to process this.”
    I sat back on the couch and zoned out for a few minutes. More knocking on the door snapped me out of it.
    “Dude, I said I’m fine.” I swung the door open and it was my dad and not Vin. “Oh, it’s you.”
    “It is. Mind if I come in?”
    “Will you leave if I say no?”
    “Probably not.”
    “Fine. Come in then and say what you have to say.” I stepped aside so he could come in.
    “I don't want every conversation we have to be confrontational Chad. I’m not a bad guy, I was just mixed up for a while. Will you let me tell you my side of it all? Will you give me that?”
    As much as I wanted to say no, I was curious. I wanted to know how he could justify everything he did to us. “Go ahead, talk then.” I sat on the couch, and he followed suit.
    “Your mom and I, we had a fierce love. Right from the start it was intense. We married right out of high school and had Becca a few years after that. We were so happy when she was born, then Frannie came a year later , and we were over the moon.” He had a wistful expression on his face.
    “I don’t need your life story. Just tell me why you were the way you were to us.”
    “You need to know all of it.”
    “Fine.”
    “It wasn’t until after you were born that things really started to unravel. I lost my job, and it took a long time to find another. The fights about money were almost daily. I started drinking because it was my way of coping. We were barely scraping together enough for rent. Your mom couldn’t work because of you kids so it was all on my shoulders.” He stopped and got up to pace in front of the couch.
    “I found another job, but it was for half the pay I was making before. After a few months there, I met a guy who told me I could be making twice my normal pay in a week selling pills. You can imagine how alluring that offer was.”
    I didn’t answer, but I knew all too well how tempting it was to make the ‘easy money’ from selling drugs. But there was always a catch.
    “It started out simple enough, I even made it a few months in before I started using. Your mom didn’t know where the money was coming from, but she didn't question me too much. By that time I had lost the straight job because I was too high all the time. Your mom had started to drink a lot, but I couldn’t say much because I drank just as much. I can’t say exactly what made me start hitting you kids, but it happened.”
    “Is that really going to be your excuse? I don’t know what made me do it?”
    “I’m not giving you an excuse, I’m telling you what happened. Will you let me finish?”
    I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to say anything.
    “I got in deep with the suppliers, started using more than I was selling. When I couldn’t pay them back, they broke my hand. I was too addicted to stop cold turkey, once I scraped up enough to pay them back they cut me loose. Wouldn’t let me sell for them anymore. Thinking back, I was lucky they didn’t do worse than break my hand. I was out of a job, unemployment barely covered rent, and we were getting food stamps. I spent what little we did have coming in on booze and drugs. I was only happy when I was high until I started using