Something Else Entirely

11 - Foster kid to the Foster family. Black sheep to the Wesley family.

"Hey, Dad. How's it going?" I said, trying to sound casual.

"Took you long enough! What were you doing?" said Axel Wesley, greeting his child for the first time in weeks.

"Just cooking dinner. We're having burgers." And where I was previously starving, I am now not at all hungry.

"Right. Well, hope you're having a good time." That's nice. "Listen, I'm not sure whether Ruben spoke to you about the phone call he had with your mother yesterday." Straight into it then . . .

"He did," I interrupted, wanting him to know that Dad and I don't keep things from each other. "How are Jaeden and Jared? Have you heard from them?" I didn't know the exact ins and outs of prison phone call protocols in real life, but I assume they were slightly different to TV and movies.

"They're really struggling, which is why I'm calling." Here it comes. "We don't have the cash to bail them out, Jet, so we were hoping that you or Ruben might be able to help out."

I knew I never should have talked to them the other week about planning to buy my first car. I should have known it would just demonstrate how hard I've worked to save money, and how much I had on hand for that exact purpose.

To ask Dad to help pay for my idiot brothers' bail, however, was so disrespectful to everything he has already done and given me over the past few years, and it wasn't until I heard it myself from one of my own biological parents that I really realised how irritated I was by it.

"Dad, I doubt I have the money you need for that kind of thing and I need it to buy my car for work; and I don't think it's fair for us to be asking Ruben for it either," I said, knowing how necessary it was that I referred to Dad as 'Ruben,' not 'Dad,' to avoid the same issues Madden faced with his bio-mum Bree when he called Sadie 'Mum' in front of her. That was one of the most awful experiences I had ever had in life, which included all the beatings I'd had at the hands of the man I'm currently speaking to and his other kids. "He's already spent enough money on me and our family, Dad."

"So, what you're telling me is that it's okay to take his money to scam a free ride on an international holiday and live on his dollar in his fancy fucking house every day for years, but it's not okay to ask him for a little extra for your own brothers who need your help right now?"

Breathe. Stay cool, Jet.

"That wasn't what I meant. Dad, how am I supposed to ask him for something like this? It's fucking embarrassing that my adult brothers are still doing this kind of dumbass shit at their age. It's not Ruben's fault or responsibility that they haven't got their shit together by now."

"How can you be so selfish, Jet? They're fucking rotting away in jail while you are living it up in luxury, refusing to help them return home where they're safe. You have no idea what its like for them in there," my dad's voice raising with every word spoken.

"No, I don't. Because I wasn't stupid enough to end up in their situation, making moronic decisions like attacking a cop, dealing drugs and driving a fucking car on shard. They could have killed someone, Dad!" I'm definitely losing my cool a little now.

"They wouldn't have killed anyone. For fuck's sake, Jet. They're your brothers. They'd do the same for y—"

"Do not even think about finishing that sentence, Dad," I growled over him, my temper flaring dangerously. "That's a load of shit and you know it. They were the ones who bailed on me when I was busted for painting, running like the fucking cowards they are from the cops, and none of you came to help me out while I was stuck at the station for days. So, don't even try to sit there now and say they'd do anything for me. We both know they wouldn't."