Page 144 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“Like, I never felt like a kid,” I tell her. “I was always treated like I needed to grow up so fast, needed to learn how to do everything for myself so young. Didn’t really get to be a kid.”

“Even when…your mom was alive?”

I don’t know why I hate that word so much, like part of my brain still pretends she’s not actually dead, that she’s still somewhere, even if it’s not with me. She has to be.

I take another hit, trying to give myself more time to shake off the shitty feeling of reality.

“Um, she did her best to give me the childhood I probably needed to experience to stay sane…but he also did just as much to take that away.”

“I hated being an only child,” she says quietly, trying to sort through her own thoughts with the same question. “Everyone always expects you to be perfect because there’s no backup.” She laughs a little. “You can’t be the fuck up kid when you’re theonlykid.”

I lean back, nodding. “Yeah, my dad made that very clear from as early as I can remember.”

“I can’t imagine how that felt for you,” she tells me, looking into my eyes so I can see the sincerity behind her words. “I put so much pressure onmyself. I don’t know how it would feel to constantly have someone else in my ear telling me out loud all the things I already tell myself.” She pauses for a second, and I can see the emotions in her expression, how angry thinking about the things I’ve told her makes her. “I hate that you don’t have a better father. You deserve that.”

“You do too,” I tell her.

“It’s not the same.”

“It doesn’t have to be the same to still affect us.”

She thinks about it, nodding. “Yeah, but I’d still take my reserved, quiet, emotionally unavailable dad over a mean and overly critical—basically verbally abusive dad.”

“How about all dads just get their shit together?” I say, jokingly.

She shakes her head. “It’s so annoying how much our childhoods affect us. The time in our lives we get no say overis the time that shapes us the most. Like, what if I’m such a perfectionist because I subconsciously think it’ll make him notice me more? Make him interested in me…?”

“Maybe he is, and he just doesn’t know how to show it,” I say, trying to reassure her. “Maybehewas never shown that.”

“Do you want to be that for your kids one day? Present? Overly loving?”

“Of course,” I say. There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to give my future kids everything one day. And I don’t mean material-wise. I mean, I want to give them love. I want to be there for them. I want them to never question if I love them, first and foremost, over everything else.

“Exactly,” she says, eyes starting to get low. It’s cute how she starts using her hands more as she’s talking when she’s high. “You weren’t shown that, yet I have no doubt you’ll do everything you can to give your kids that. So why couldn’t our parents figure it out?”

“I mean, Iwantto do all of that…but what if I still don’t have the tools when the time comes?”

She shakes her head. “No, you will. You’ll be a great dad. I see how you are with your brothers, how much you love them, and want to give them what they’re not getting. You’re gonna be the same way for your kids.”

That makes me smile. That’s all I want. For Ash and Easton, for my future kids…for my future wife. I just want the family I never got. I want to be what my mom would have been for me if she were still here.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks, noticing my silence.

“Um…my mom,” I tell her, honestly.

“I would have loved to meet her.”

I pause at that, smiling into it. “She would have loved to meet you. She probably would have tried to make you fall in love with me so you could be her daughter-in-law.”

She looks out at the water, and I almost miss her words. “It wouldn’t be hard.”

“What was that?

She looks back at me, her expression softening. “Just…you wouldn’t be hard to love. Any girl could easily fall for you. You just have to stop being such a playboy. Once you do, some girl’s gonna be really lucky to get you to settle down.”

I let that sit, trying not to read too much into it.

“I’m not a playboy,” I tell her.