Rue

I clutched that plush tiger against my chest all the way home, and then sat down heavily on the couch and stared down at it. I never would have bought something like this for myself even if it had been damn near free, which this sure hadn’t been. Just a pointless object to take up space. But as a gift from Ethan after the past couple days we’d spent together? This little tiger was now the most precious thing I owned. 

I put it on the couch and snapped a pic to send to Ethan, doing my best to angle the camera to avoid all the stains and thin spots on the fabric. I cringed when it still looked exactly as awful as it was, lay down, and took a picture of the tiger tucked against my chest instead. Some of the grunge of the apartment still seemed to seep into the image from the lighting or whatever, but I called it good enough and sent it anyway.

Half an hour later, he sent me a macro picture of a ladybug. It hadn’t been in his photos when I’d looked through them yesterday, so I liked to think it was just for me. Maybe it was. The tiger had been for me.

I went for a walk just to get out of the stale air of the apartment, came back home, and heated up some rice and beans for dinner. It was hard to say whether the burger I had today made the monotony of it more or less bearable, but it was definitely a little harder to clear my plate when I wasn’t being chased by the desperate edge of starvation. Not that I was actually close to death, but what was weight loss if not slowly starving?

I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, the tiger cuddled against my chest.

The sound of the front door slamming shut jarred me out of sleep, but the foggy feeling in my head told me it was late enough that my dad would probably go straight to bed. I pretended to still be dead to the world as he rounded the couch and flicked the TV off.

There was a moment of stillness which I fucking hated, because I couldn’t tell where exactly my dad was, and then a murmured, “What the fuck?”

The tiger was torn out from under my arm and I abandoned the pretense of being asleep in an instant, my hand darting out as I sat up to try to grab it back—too slow.

“This shit is what you’re spending all our money on?” my dad demanded, shaking the tiger so that the beans in its butt rattled. “Toys? The fuck is wrong with you?”

I snatched the tiger back with enough force that I surprised him into letting go and tucked it behind me so he couldn’t take it again. “Fucking relax. It was a gift, okay?”

His glare only hardened. “From a girl?”

There was no right answer to that one, only wrong and wronger ones. I shrugged.

“You having sex?”

“No.”

“If you aren’t now, you will be soon if a girl’s giving you gifts like that.”

I considered for one very stupid moment just telling the truth so that we didn’t have to have the world’s most pointless argument, but I knew I wouldn’t like what I got in exchange any better. “She’s only here on holiday with her family for a week, so I doubt anything’s gonna happen.”

My dad snorted. “Yeah, nobody’s ever had a holiday fling. That’s a whole fucking trope, idiot.”

It was easy to forget that my dad actually grew up middle class, but every now and then he’d throw out something like knowing what a trope was and I’d be reminded. Of course, I also knew what a trope was, but I was lowkey kind of a nerd. Not that any of my teachers probably would have thought so, I guess, but I had a smart phone with shit all data and no social life, so yeah, I read a bit.

I gave a sharp shake of my head. “I don’t think that’ll happen.”

He smacked me over the back of the head, but it was less violent than usual, almost fond. “Moron.”

He stomped off into his room, and I hoped the conversation was over, but I wasn’t surprised when he came back out a few moments later. He tossed a small stack of condoms at me. “If anything happens, use them. If you need more, ask me. If she says she’s on the pill or infertile or whatever bloody excuse not to use them, run. Or at least use one anyway.”

I nodded along as he talked, tucking the condoms away in a pocket in my bag. I’d give him lip about all kinds of things, but not this. It wasn’t a smart thing to cross him on. Besides, he probably had a point. Or he would’ve, if there was any chance of me having sex with a girl.

At least condoms were good no matter who you were having sex with, but I seriously doubted Ethan was the kind of guy to move that fast. I didn’t even know what I was the kind of guy to do. Fall in love with someone in the space of two days, I guess.

My dad raked his fingers through hair the same dark brown as my own and let out a sigh. “Listen, I know I always got on you with this stuff when you were younger, but you’re old enough now that I’d be more worried if you weren’t getting out there. I just don’t want you to make the same stupid mistake I did and wind up saddled with a kid.”

Funny how this almost felt like it was supposed to be a bonding moment, a heart to heart, and it all still yet again came back to reminding me how much he’d never wanted me and having me had ruined his life.

“Putting a condom on my dick isn’t that complicated. I got it.”

My dad sat down next to me on the couch. Oh boy. “It can get more complicated than you think when you’ve got a girl begging for it but she doesn’t want you to make the right choices. Or a woman. How old is she?”

“My age, Dad. You taught me better than to get caught up in anything else.”

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement. “Everyone’ll tell you it doesn’t matter if you’re a guy, but you still watch out, okay? You’re still young enough to get in over your head with someone older than you.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice softening. I pulled the tiger out from behind my back and tilted it from side to side in front of me so he could see. “It’s not like that, okay? I know the toy means she likes me, but it’s also kid shit. And I’m not gonna scoff at that, ‘cause it’s sweet from a girl, but she’s not any of the things you’re worried about. She’s not my mum, that’s for sure.”

My dad scoffed. “Well you wouldn’t know if she was, besides her being too young, would you? That bitch didn’t stick around long enough for you to know her face.”

We’d already been right on the doorstep of the topic, but bringing up my mum had been a mistake. It always was. As he started in on a rant I’d heard a million times before since I was way too young to be hearing it, I resigned myself to not getting back to sleep any time soon.