Charade

Benji

I hated being restricted like this, trapped like a bird in a cage, with this clunky high-tech bracelet wrapped around my leg like I was shackled to a ball chain. I mean, the whole reason I ran away was to escape people who wanted to control me, and instead I found a more powerful enemy to contend with.

A knock on the door came around nine a.m., just as the morning news shows were starting to repeat themselves. I opened the door. When I looked at the man standing there, broken arm hanging in a sling, deep painful bruises up the left side of jawline, with cane in his hand to help walk him through fractured ribs, I laughed.

"Well, you look like shit." I chuckled, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against the doorframe.

"Hello, Ben." My father replied through gritted teeth.

He wanted to lecture me, I could feel it. He wanted to take out all his anger and frustration and years of guilt on me right at that moment, but he couldn't. His body was broken and his fear rested with good ol' Vic, who wasn't here, but still held a fair amount of power over him. He wouldn't risk another ass-whooping just to chastise me.

"I'm here to discuss your trial." He said quietly.

"Don't know why. Already told you I didn't want your help."

"It doesn't matter what you want."

"Never has, apparently."

"What matters is what you need. And you need me, Ben. Without my help, you'll most definitely be put in a juvenile detention centre."

"And what if I don't care? What if I'd rather juvie over spending one more minute talking to you?"

Dad laughed, but it wasn't humorous.

"You don't mean that."

"Even if don't, get it through you head old man, I don't want you help."

"So this... this is what you want? You want to live with some psycho, stuck in some going-nowhere job, uneducated, convicted of attempted fraud and larceny, heading straight for prison? What kind of life is that?!"

"Mine," I said, looking him in the eye. "This life is mine and it's not perfect and it's not easy, but it's still mine. You can't take it away from me."

"What did I ever do aside from want the best for you?"

"You didn't care!" I screamed. "You only cared about what our neighbours thought of us! You never cared about what I wanted, what I dreamed about. I didn't want some law degree or medicine practice. I wanted parents who didn't compare me to my perfect brother. I wanted you to accept me as I was."

I watched as the pain filled up in my father's eyes. His body, already so broken and bruised, was nothing compared to what I saw in those eyes. Endless guilt and pride and longing, snapping all the heartstrings, and for a moment, I thought he might even cry.

"But you couldn't accept me, could you?" I said softly, my own pain seeping through my words. "Even now, you still can't. And you might love me, who am I to guess, but you never liked me. And that is why I don't want your help, because I'm not letting you dictate my future anymore. What happens, happens. But at least it'll be me who calls the shots."

Dad, silent and stern and steaming with anger, gulped and took a step towards me. With his top lip up in a sneer, he looked me dead in the eye.

"No," he said. "It'll be the judge calling the shots. And when you're locked up with nothing to blame but your own pride, you'll think about this moment, and you will wish you could go back and change what you said."

"Even if I do," I said, meeting his glare unflinchingly. "Even if I try to sell my soul to change what happened here, at least I'll know that I finally, finally told the truth."

And with that, Dad broke his sharp cutting glare, stormed down the hallway, and I knew, in the way I knew things others couldn't, that this was the last time I'd see him for a long, long time.

© A.G. Travers 2015