The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(28)

I started drinking when I was thirteen. I wasn’t with my friends or anything, just sitting at home after my mom had passed out on the sofa, not from heroin but from booze. She’d made me sit with her as she drank gulp after gulp, forcing me to hold her hand and coddle her like she was a sick person taking medication to numb the pain. As she started to doze off, she’d wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly against her, telling me that I would always be her little boy, and then sang a song to match her words. I hated when she did this, especially because I never felt like her little boy, even when I was seven. At that point in my life I knew our whole relationship was wrong, the things she made me do for her, like crush up her pills and the way she was always touching, but I was too ashamed to say anything and honestly I knew even then that nothing was ever going to change until I was old enough to get out of that damn house.

Finally, after holding me for way too long, she’d passed out into a deep sleep and I was able to slip out of her arms and be free for a moment. She’d left the bottle of whiskey out on the coffee table and I can remember sitting there, wondering what it tasted like, wondering why my mom needed to drink it all the time. So I picked it up and took a swig. The alcohol felt like it singed my throat and when it hit my belly it burned like fire. I was fascinated with the way it felt inside me, how the heat smothered out the wrong inside me, so I kept taking swigs until I passed out completely and for a moment, the wrong in me drifted asleep. After that, I’d always take a few drinks after she passed out and the more I did it, the more the rage and helpless feelings living in me became tolerable. And now I have a hard time functioning without it.

I’m about to head out when I get a call from my dad. I stare at my phone as it rings and rings, deciding whether I want to answer it or just silence his call. Finally, I hit talk and put it up to my ear, attempting to sound in a better mood than I am.

“Yeah,” I say, pressing the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I can unscrew the cap off the beer.

“Hey,” my father replies and there’s music in the background. “You answered.”

“Yeah, but I’m headed out so I can’t talk for long.” I tip my head back and guzzle a mouth full of beer, feeling the slightest bit better as it liquefies my throat.

“Oh, okay.” He sounds disappointed. “I was just calling to check in on you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my son and I worry about you.”

“Why? You didn’t when I was a kid. Why start now when I’m an adult?”

He pauses and the noise gradually gets quieter. Then I hear a door shut and silence fills the connection. “Luke, I know I haven’t been a very good father to you, but I’m trying to make that up to you now.”

I grit my teeth. “I’m twenty years old. It’s a little late to decide you want to be my father.”

“I’ve always wanted to be your father,” he says, nervousness creeping into his voice. “I just had a lot of stuff going on and I wasn’t in the right place to be a good father.”

“Well, I wasn’t in the right place to be without a father.” I head for the door, ready to bail out on the conversation because it’s getting a little too heart-to-heart for my taste.

“Luke, I’m sorry.” He sounds like he’s about to cry, which makes me feel a little bad for him but then I get pissed off at myself for feeling sorry for him. “If there’s anything I can do to make it up, I will.”

I pause with my hand on the doorknob, biting my tongue, arguing with myself over how much pride I really have. Then I think about going home to Star Grove with my mother, the house covered in plastic, her begging me to help her. It makes me want to puke. “There might be one thing that you could do.”

“Name it and it’s yours.”


I take a long breath. “You could let me stay at the beach house for the summer. I know you and Trevor are going to be there but I was hoping I could take one of the extra rooms or something.” Trevor is my father’s fiancé. I guess part of the reason why he left my mom was because he was struggling with the fact that he was gay. It took him years of drinking to finally accept that he was and come out to the world. It was about the time he reentered my life, but it was a little too late. Amy was already gone and I’d been around my mom enough that I only felt hatred for him for leaving me with her. I honestly don’t really know how I feel about our relationship now. Confused maybe. I mean, Trevor and him both seem like a nice guys but the fact that he left me to be responsible for shooting up my mother is what I’m most pissed off about.

He pauses long enough that I know he’s going to say no and I want to hammer my fist into the door, enraged with myself because I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “Luke… I’m so sorry, but Trevor and I are putting the beach house up for sale. We’re trying to get a house near work and we need a down payment.”

“Could I stay with you in your apartment then?” I almost sound like I’m begging and I grip on to the doorknob tighter.

Again he pauses way too long. “We only have a studio apartment right now and it’s overcrowded with Trevor’s art, but when we get the new place in a couple of months you can definitely come out and stay with us for as long as you want. We’d love to have you.”