Page 1 of Misguided
ONE
Dog
“You’re a fucking embarrassment to my name,” my father yells across the dinner table, the glassware rattling with the force of his fists as he slams them down.
My name.
Sums it up perfectly, really. If you asked my father, the von Essen name belongs to him. I bet if the asshole could copyright it, he would.
Me? It might be mine by birthright, but as he likes to remind me, I haven’t earned the perks that go with it yet.
Not sure I ever will.
“I told you I’m not interested in enlisting.”
“So you turn up to the interview I set up, drunk?” He scoffs, leaning on one elbow dramatically. “The things I do for you …”
Correction: the things he thinks he does for me. Rollan von Essen does nothing for anybody else, only things that’ll help him. Me enlisting was one of those.
“Imagine the esteem that would come with my son being in the army.”
He wants a general, something distinguished to add to the family tree. Only problem is, I’d actually have to give a fuck long enough to reach that status. Not going to happen.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, and considering,” I snap, “that I wanted to get my ass booted out the door as quick as I came in it, I’d say the plan was a success.”
“Show some respect,” my older brother mutters as he slices delicately into his rare steak.
I swing my gaze right to the pretentious asshole and then drift a little further to his waif of a wife who picks at her salad as though she’s not surrounded by a testosterone filled room of hate. He trained that one well.
“Mind your fuckin’ business,” I snarl.
“Your constant degradation of our name is my business,” he growls, slamming his fisted knife onto the tabletop.
His wife doesn’t flinch.
“Can you comprehend on any level how awkward it is when the first thing a shareholder says to me is, ‘I see that brother of yours got arrested again. Must make family dinners awkward, huh Derek?’” His nostrils flare, my father watching on with sick interest from the far end of the table. “What am I supposed to say to that, Koen? You tell me.”
“Same thing I said before.” I give him a tight-lipped smirk. “Mind your fuckin’ business.”
His face flushes red, his fists clenched so hard on the oak tabletop that his knuckles turn white.
“Boys, please,” Dad roars, despite the fact we’re two grown men capable of holding our own. “Koen, I tolerated your pastime at the start because it seemed like a phase, a passing curiosity, but now …”
“Now, what?” I challenge him, pissed he’s brought up my real family.
“Now, it’s proving to be a bad habit you need cleansing of.”
Oh, no he didn’t.“Fuck this,” I snarl, tossing my pretentious napkin down on the table. “I don’t even know why I came here today.”
He’s got no right to tell me what’s right and wrong. No business to look down on my choices simply because they aren’t the same as his. Neither of them does.
“You know why you’re here,” Derek says. “What today means.” His eyes are hard, his heart probably even more so.
“Yeah,” I scoff as I push my seat out and stand. “I do. Question is, why the fuck did I decide to come here and celebrate it with you?”
This time last year, I witnessed my father show weakness for the first and only time in his life. This time last year, I held my mother’s hand as her grip fell lax, waiting on her to pull the next breath, to fight to stay with her family.
Yet she didn’t.