Letting out a long sigh to try and calm my nerves I slumped haphazardly onto the sofa, staring up at the cracks that littered the smoke stained ceiling with a blank look in my eyes, wanting nothing more than to take a few more moments to just relax. Once I did, a difficult task when you felt one lurch away from throwing up and had a head like a beating drum, I pulled out my phone, remembering the group chat I had recently been added to.
The moment I clicked on the chat a wall of messages instantly appeared, dating back from as early as ten am when I had first been added. Before I could even start reading the backlog of messages I was instantly bombarded with even more from the others as they saw that I had finally entered the chat. Seeing the sea of friendly messages filled me with a sense of warmth that, at the moment, I sorely needed.
I spent the next hour texting them as I laid there on the sofa, mainly joking about the night prior, most of which I could barely remember. To my surprise, they asked if I wanted to come hang out with them again tonight. Something I immediately declined, feeling as if a single drink would have me spewing my guts onto the floor. Instead, I messaged them that I would be down to hang out tomorrow before deciding I needed to get some more sleep, feeling better than I did when I woke up but still god awful. Something, which to my annoyance, they all mocked me relentlessly for. And so I trudged my way back to my bed before wrapping myself into a cocoon of ratty blankets and immediately passing out once again, clearly desperate for more rest.
I next awoke to the slowly dwindling sound of a loud bang. As I opened my eyes in confusion, I noticed the light that had once poured through my window had been replaced by the dimmed rays of the moon as it began to emerge from the horizon. The room now cascaded in almost complete darkness. When I looked around, taking in my surroundings, marvelling at how much better I felt, I wondered what had woken me up. It was at that point that the loud noise from before began again, though this time, I was able to tell what it was. The sound of someone knocking from the other side of my door.
Still groggy from my rest, I was unsure what to do. I obviously already knew who it was. I just wasn't sure if I was ready for another talk with my dad, especially after the fight I had just had with Sam. Unfortunately, for me, it seemed the choice wasn't mine to make as after he stopped knocking, the door immediately began to open, my father's head peeking through the gap as he did so. Seeing that I was there, he quickly entered the room before closing the door behind him, saying nothing the entire time until just as the silence was beginning to become uncomfortable.
"I wasn't sure you were here." He whispered, his voice deep and gravelly.
"I was having a nap." I curtly replied, to which I only received a grunt in acknowledgement before the awkward silence came back once more.
"Did you need anything?" I asked, wanting him to just go away.
My father just continued to stare at me, something which never failed to make me as nervous as a box of crickets. "Where were you last night?" He finally said
"I just hung out with a few mates."
"Did you drink when you were with these mates of yours?"
"Maybe. Yeah, I had a few drinks, so what?" I spluttered in reply, feeling agitated with what seemed to be my second interrogation of the day.
"And how did you afford these drinks?" He asked calmly. Just as I opened my mouth to respond, he continued, "It wouldn't have anything to do with the missing fifty dollars from the savings box now would it?" and with that my mouth closed.
Seeing the guilty look I was no doubt portraying, my father's face became consumed in anger, and any hint of calmness that was once there completely disappeared. "What the hell is going on with you! The fighting, the stealing, the drinking! This isn't like you Adam, you're a good kid."
"And how in the hell would you know what kind of kid I am!" I shouted back. " Like I said before, you don't know me. Not my interests, my hobbies, my grades. You're my Dad and you know less about me than my fucking teachers do." I stood up from my bed, working myself into an anger to match my father's own.
Instead of backing down like last time, and as I expected, Dad fought back, his anger not deflating in the slightest. "What? So this is your way of rebelling? To steal money, money we need to buy food and in case of emergencies? And for what? Throw it away on booze and alcohol?"
To that, I had nothing to say. In truth, I was truly ashamed of what I had done. I had never stolen money from my Dad before, or at least nothing more than a couple of dollars at the most. I knew deep down how hard he worked for that money and how little of it we had. Certainly not enough to waste on frivolities such as expensive drinks and alcohol.
My dad leaned in closer, placing his firm, strong hands on my shoulders, his weight pressing down on me as he got to my eye level, his voice, back to the low, quiet tone it was before. "Adam, please. This is your life. Stop throwing away your future by messing around and getting in trouble." He spoke, his tone almost pleading in nature.
Unfortunately for him, his constant reminders of the future, or more specifically, my future, had the opposite effect he most likely wished for. All it did was remind me of my reality. How I had no future to look forward to. Something that I had still not come to proper terms with.
"The future, the future, the future." I started to mutter angrily, throwing my father's hands off my shoulders. "That's all you go on about is the fucking future!" my voice rose from a mutter to a shout. "What about now! Why are you so obsessed with the bloody future?"
"Because compared to the possible future you can have, the now isn't important! Why can't you understand that?" My father responded in frustration. "I mean, did you even bother looking at schools yesterday like I asked? Or were you too busy getting fucking drunk to do even that."
"What's even the point?" I replied while pacing around my bedroom in frustration. "My grades suck! It's not like I would have even been able to get into a college anyway."
"The point is for you to get away from this place! To have a great career, to be able to travel the world, have a beautiful house, anything you could want. Why can't you fucking understand that? If you just put in some hard work now and stop acting like a petulant fucking child you can have that kind of future.
My frustrations started to mount as it became clear we were never going to see eye to eye. Our viewpoints were just too different. And so, just like with Sam, in my frustration and anger, I let loose the secret I had been keeping hidden from my dad. "That might be alright for most people dad but I don't have a fucking future! My life is over!"
Immediately after I finished speaking, panting slightly, my Dad looked at me with furrowed brows, trying to piece together the meaning of what I had just said. Eventually, after a couple of moments and still unable to truly understand what I meant, he asked. "What the hell are you on about?"
Still fueled by anger, and no longer seeing the need to keep it a secret any longer, I took a deep breath, my hands clenched tightly into fists. I looked into his deep, usually unfathomable eyes, seeing the worry that had started to form due to the pause I had taken, before saying, as calmly as I could, the truth.
"I'm dying."
Silence. Not a peep was made by my father or myself. I just stared as I watched his eyes move erratically from side to side and as his brows furrowed even more. As he tried to come to grips with what I had said.
"This isn't a joke. The doctors have said that I don't have long left. Definitely not enough to be worrying about the future." I continued, plastering a smirk on my face in an attempt of false bravado. To hide behind and not show the fear and worry I truly felt.
I would have liked to say that it brought no small amount of satisfaction to see the way his face slowly turned from its bright red to an almost ash grey. The way his eyes enlarged, almost comically, from shock. The way his mouth stumbled over itself every few seconds, attempting to say something but unable to get the words out. But that would be a lie.
Eventually, he was able to get his mouth working once more. "What, what do you mean?" He asked. His voice warbled with terror, a sound that I could never have imagined coming from my father.
"I said what I said, it's pretty straightforward." I shrugged nonchalantly, as if we were just talking about the weather. "I'm suffering from something called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It's a condition that affects my lungs, and apparently, there's no cure."
It was clear my father was becoming frustrated. Whether that be to the shocking news or my purposefully relaxed attitude, I wasn't sure. His steady breathing started to become ragged pants. I saw how his hands were screwed so tight together into fists they had turned a pale white. A manic look in his eyes that if I wasn't his son would have petrified me.
"Adam, please, you're not making any sense. This is a sick joke, right? You're just trying to fuck me around?" He all but begged.
Seeing that he wasn't going to believe me without any sign of proof, I took out the pill bottle I still had in my pocket. I threw it towards him, something he wasn't expecting, based on the way he stumbled and fumbled for a few moments to catch the container. Finally, with the container in a death grip in his hands, he looked down upon it. Yet something I noticed was how he showed no look of surprise at the appearance of the pills, not even bothering to read the instruction label found on the side of the container. Something that I found peculiar. He just looked at the pills with a look of horror and sadness, an image that became ingrained in my mind.
"I saw these pills last night on the counter," He said in a hollow whisper, answering my unasked question. "I thought they were just like ibuprofen. Something for a headache or cold or something. Shows what I know." He chuckled without an ounce of humour, sounding almost broken.
I had assumed in my anger that seeing my father like this, in a way I had never seen before, would have brought me some sort of sick enjoyment. Appease some of the burning rage I still felt pent up inside. It did not. All I felt was heartbreak looking at the appearance of my father so defeated and lost as well as an unfathomable amount of disgust directed at myself for what I had done, what I had caused. Unsure of what to do and not wanting to see my dad for even a moment longer looking like this, I all but ran towards the door, my heart beating wildly in my chest, my breathing rapid and short. Only stopping when I felt an iron-tight grip on my shoulder.
"Where, where are you going?" The timidness in his voice made me want to throw up. Only making my desire to escape even stronger.
"Away from here. Like I said, I have no future, so I'm going to go and enjoy what little life I have left." And with that, I yanked my shoulder out from under my father's hand, something only possible due to his loosened grip, before heading out of my bedroom and the house as a whole, ignoring his desperate, almost silent pleas for me to stay. Pleas, which did nothing more but spur me on, feeling on the verge of throwing up again. Only this time, it wasn't due to the hangover.
The moment I got outside, I took a deep breath, feeling the freezing winds course through my body and chilling the frantic emotions I was feeling before beginning to simply forward with no direction in mind. Just a goal to get as far away from my father as possible. I didn't know what to feel. On the one hand, I felt free, just like I had after having spoken with Sam. One more secret no longer chained down inside me. On the other hand, I felt disgusted with myself in a way that put all other times to shame. I knew there was a better way to say what I did, a calmer, softer way in which I didn't use it as a weapon with the sole intention of hurting my father.
Letting out a long sigh and not wanting to think about it for even a second longer, I pulled out my phone. Instantly I brought up the recently joined group chat, asking where they currently were, remembering how they mentioned they were going out again tonight and wanting nothing more to forget about everything and get lost in a sea of alcohol. And so, once they gave me directions, off I went into the night.