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Chapter 2

Author: Lynn Green
“Your parents did not even want you, but you had the nerve to call someone else dead weight?”

The color drained from Brady’s face.

His parents had divorced when he was little. Neither one had kept him, and both had started new families without him. He had been raised by his grandparents, and no one in the family ever dared bring it up around him.

He shoved me. “You really just said that to me? I am going straight to Uncle Phil. I will make sure you humiliate yourself in front of everyone. They will all laugh at you.”

“Go ahead.”

My voice came out flat, but my fingertips shook harder than ever. It felt like there was always going to be one last thing that broke me, and someone was always going to be the one to put it there.

The relatives finally left, and I followed Dad home.

The house felt too quiet. Dad spoke first.

“Does the back of your head still hurt?”

I lowered my eyes and shook my head. Every small movement sent pain shooting through the nerves at the base of my skull.

It hurt. A lot.

I had lied. I did not dare say it hurt, because that would give someone a reason to laugh.

Dad stared at me, then let out a sudden sigh. He set down his utensils and walked over.

My back went rigid. My fingers curled into my palms. The fear was physical, faster than thought. I was terrified he was about to say something, terrified those two words were about to come out of his mouth again.

He crouched beside me and gently touched the swelling on the back of my head.

“Kellen, your dad had a hard life.

“When I was growing up, there were too many kids, and your grandparents never cared much for me. Then I finally built something with your mom, and she passed before we had enough time together.”

His eyes reddened as he spoke.

“I raised you on my own all these years, and people talked behind my back the entire time. Everyone waited for something to laugh at.

“All I wanted was to hold my head up. I just did not want to be looked down on anymore.”

The word came without warning. My whole body flinched.

Dad did not notice. He kept going.

“You are my son. If you behave, if you mind your manners around other people, they will say I raised you right. Then nobody will have a reason to laugh at your dad.

“Everything I do is for the two of us.”

The word kept circling back, triggering the same response every time. My hand wanted to claw at my palm again, but I was afraid he would see, so I clenched my fist as hard as I could and tried to hold the shaking still.

The tears came anyway.

Dad blinked, caught off guard. He started to raise his hand to wipe them away, but I spoke first, my voice scraped raw.

“Brady said I am dead weight. That wherever you go, people laugh at you because of me.”

Dad’s hand froze in midair. The hand that had been reaching to dry my tears swung hard across my face.

“What are you talking about?

“Brady is well-behaved. He would never say something like that.

“You are the one who causes problems everywhere you go, making people laugh at me. You do not think about anyone but yourself.”

The slap was loud. My head snapped to the side, and my left cheek burned white-hot, the pain bleeding into the throbbing at the back of my skull until it was all one thing.

My ears rang. I could not make out anything he said anymore. The only thing still cutting through was that word, turning over and over inside the noise.

Laughed at. Laughed at. Laughed at.

I dug my nails into my palm as hard as I could. Pain was the only thing that made the sound stop, even for a second.

Dad kept talking, his voice shaking now.

“You remember this. I worked myself to the bone raising you, scrimping and saving to put you through school, all so nobody had a reason to laugh at us. Everything I did was for your own good.”

I could not hear him anymore.

The shaking would not stop. The panic response and the pain in my hands twisted together until I felt like I could crawl out of my own skin.

There had been a time when his suffering softened me, when I blamed myself for being ungrateful and told myself he had it hard enough already.

Now I finally saw it for what it was. None of this was right.

If it was for my own good, why did he hit me and kick me in front of everyone?

If it was for my own good, why did he use that word over and over until it pushed me to the edge?

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  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 8

    "Kellen, you were such a good kid. You did so well in school, always top of your class. Dad was so proud of you back then."He ran his fingers gently over the photograph on the diploma. “It was all my fault. I ground all that pride out of you. I stole every bit of your happiness.”He sat there for a long time, until the sun dipped low and the last of its light came through the window and fell across his shoulders and across my photograph.He stood slowly, walked to the desk, and picked up my urn. He held it against his chest, carried it to the window, and looked out at the lights glowing in every house across the neighborhood.“Kellen, Dad’s going to take you to see the stars. You used to love watching the stars when you were little.”That night, Dad sat by the window with my urn in his arms and watched the stars until morning. He hummed the lullaby he used to sing when I was small, the one he murmured until I fell asleep. I had not heard it in years.The familiar melody and the

  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 7

    He could not accept that it was his own fault, that his obsession with appearances and his terror of being laughed at had driven his own son to death.The day of the funeral, snow fell thick and heavy and blanketed everything in white. Not many people came. Only Uncle Ray’s family and a small group of relatives attended.Dad wore black and sat at the front while he held my photograph in both hands. In the picture, I was ten years old and grinning with my eyes crinkled as I clutched a lollipop. It had been taken the year before Mom died, at a park Dad had brought me to. It was the happiest photo ever taken of me.He stared at it while tears ran down his face and murmured under his breath. “Kellen, Dad’s taking you home. No one will ever laugh at you again. No one will ever hurt you again.”His voice was barely there, soft and gentle, like he was soothing a sleeping child.After the funeral, Dad brought my ashes home and placed the urn in my room, on the desk. Every day he wiped the

  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 6

    Those whispers drifted into Dad’s ears, but he did not snap back the way he always had before. He sat with his head down, both hands pressed over his face, his shoulders shaking.The thing he feared most in his life was being laughed at and being talked about behind his back. He had become exactly that. He was the man everyone whispered about, the father whose obsession with appearances had cost him his son.It was probably the cruelest punishment he could have received, being destroyed by the very thing he cared about most.Brady sat in a corner and gripped the hem of his shirt with both hands. Tears streamed down his face in silence. Uncle Ray sat beside him, sighed, and did not scold him. He patted the boy’s back gently.I knew Uncle Ray understood. If Brady had not made that accusation, I might never have been pushed this far. But it was too late now. Blame would not change anything.Dad stayed at Uncle Ray’s house for a long time, until the sky began to lighten. He rose slowl

  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 5

    The moment my body left the bridge, cold air flooded my nose and throat, and the ice-cold water swallowed me whole.Yet all I felt was relief. For the first time in my life, I felt light.The wind screamed past my ears, and it sounded like it scattered every time I had ever heard those words. The last thought that crossed my mind was the sentence I had never said out loud.“Dad, this time, no one will really laugh at you anymore.”I did not know how much time had passed before I drifted up from the bottom of the frozen river. I floated slowly into the air above it.Near the bridge, Brady was slumped in the snow. He wailed so hard the sound barely came out human. His voice shook apart between sobs as he called my name over and over, choking on the words “I am sorry.”I drifted closer. I looked at his ashen face, the tears and snot smeared together, and I wondered if he would carry that guilt for the rest of his life the same way I had spent mine trapped by those two words.Before

  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 4

    I was left in the freezing hallway.Wind howled through the gaps and cut straight down my collar. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached.The pain in my arm, the throbbing at the back of my skull, and the hollow ache in my chest did not compare to the physical revulsion those two words triggered. The response had been carved so deep into me that it had become part of my body.I pounded on the door and sobbed through apologies. “Dad, I am sorry. I will not do it again. Please let me back in.“I will never embarrass you again. No one will ever laugh at you because of me.”Dad did not make a sound.I crumpled into a ball against the cold wall and listened to his voice drifting out from inside.“I am sorry, Ray. I have not done a good job with this kid. He is greedy and he lies. I have embarrassed everyone.”Uncle Ray objected right away. “The gift card was in my coat pocket the whole time. I never put it in my bag. Brady must have been mistaken. This had nothing to do with Kellen

  • Dad, No One Will Laugh at You Anymore   Chapter 3

    Then I did not want that kind of good.Dad finished yelling, dragged a hand down his face, and stood up. The anger settled back into its usual exhaustion.“That is enough. Go to bed. We are visiting family again tomorrow, and I do not need you embarrassing me and giving people something to laugh about.”There it was again.I lowered my head and went to my room without a word. Tears hit the floor with every step.My fists hung at my sides, and my fingers traced the raw lines on my palms.I could not do this anymore. I was done living like this.We went to Uncle Ray’s the next day.The living room was packed. People picked at snack bowls, chatted, and bounced kids on their knees. The noise filled every corner.I pressed myself into the edge of the couch, too afraid to speak or move. All I could think about was not giving Dad a reason to feel humiliated, not hearing those words again.Soon enough, it was time for Uncle Ray to hand out gift cards. He passed them to each of the ki

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