“Then, I guess neither of us has a thing to worry about.” I crack open the beer and plop down onto my mattress, downing the thing faster than necessary, but using it as an ice breaker. “One thing, though…”
“Yeah?” he says, slugging his beer.
“We gotta work on your taste in beers.”
He laughs and shoves me in the shoulder. “Hells to the yeah, you’re a fucking normal son-of-a-bitch. That was a test, just so you know. No one really drinks this shit. Oh man, this is gonna be a good fucking year.”
As I’m getting settled in, I watch the people pass in the hallway since Brink has our door propped open with a shoe wedged under the door. For some reason, I didn’t think the dorm was co-ed, but I’m seeing that is, in fact, the case. Unless, I’m wrong and we’re in the wrong hall because I see a whole lot of chicks straggling by, and most of them stop to say hi. It’s like the friendliest place on earth here.
“Like I said, it’s going to be a good fucking year,” Brink says as he slips out into the hall to watch the passing blondes with short skirts find their rooms.
I grab the small photo I have of Cammy and I kissing from my bag and shake my head at it. Man, this isn’t good. I shake my head, knowing this is the beginning of the end. Powering off my phone, I slip it into my back pocket and tell myself things are definitely changing now.
CHAPTER NINE
It’s days like today where I realize, I had no right being a father at seventeen. I can hardly manage my life at twenty-nine. Though, if I had my daughter today, maybe my life would be different. Maybe Cammy would be here. Maybe, I would be happy.
ONCE TORI GOT home, I realized my anger was not going to subside, and the only thing I can ever think to do when I feel this way is take a long, burning-hot shower. The steam doesn’t exactly clear my mind but it releases the tension running through me. There isn’t a goddamn day where I don’t wake up and wonder where I went wrong—where we went wrong. She looks at Gavin as if he were no more than a mistake. Regardless of my strong desire never to have another child again, there hasn’t been one second when I thought of Gavin as a mistake. He was supposed to be in my life, and that’s the only way to look at it. How can she look at him differently? I can’t understand and it’s killing me. It took her almost three full minutes to tell me she did love Gavin, but I swear it sounded more like a question than a definitive, immediate answer.
It seems as though things are progressing for the worse every day, and I’m scared to think what our situation might be like in a year from now. I’m scared for Tori in general. Today, I saw a side of her I didn’t know existed, and I’m not sure I know how to handle another situation like that if it were to arise.
It’s awful that I’ve considered taking Gavin to Mom and Dad’s to crash for a few days so I can clear my head a bit, but I don’t think that’s the best thing for Gavin.
As I’m rinsing the suds from my hair, I hear Gavin begin to cry. Poor guy must be hurting again. I lost track of the time but I’m guessing the six-hour dose of ibuprofen is close to being up. I lean my forehead against the cold, gray-slate-tiled wall, watching the drops of water trickle down my nose and fall to the basin of the tub, wishing for just another few minutes in the shower. As I wait a minute or two to see if the crying stops, I only hear the sound grow louder. Just rock him, Tori. That always soothes him.
A ten-minute shower is pretty much the longest one I’ve had since Gavin was born, so I shouldn’t have expected anything more now, even so late at night.
I step out onto the shaggy bathmat and dry off quickly before stepping into my shorts. I grip the edges of the sink basin as I look in the mirror at my sleep-deprived appearance—the puffy bags under my eyes, the lines curving downward from both corners of my mouth, and even some small indentations forming on my forehead. In the last four months, I look as if I’ve aged ten years, and again, I remind myself how desperate I am for a real break.
As I’m pulling the bathroom door open, the shrieks grow louder, and it’s immediately apparent that the screams aren’t just from Gavin, but from Tori too. What the fuck is going on?
I race through the house and up to Gavin’s dark bedroom. I flip the lights on, finding Tori in nothing but a t-shirt and panties. She’s sitting awkwardly—one leg outstretched in front and the other bent behind her. Tori is in the middle of the floor with Gavin, who is squirming and screaming in front of her. “What the hell are you doing?” I shout at her, leaning over to lift Gavin from the cold hardwood floor.