Andrew's POV
I banged the door behind me and headed down the stairs toward my bike.
My dad was at it again, making me feel like the most useless human being to ever walk the earth.
"You don't have anything to offer to the world. Music? What is that? Rubbish! Complete nonsense! You're just hotheaded. Don't you think it's time to grow up and face your responsibilities?" He had said all of that and more.
It hurts. God, it hurts. But I would never admit that to anyone. My only response to pain had always been rebellion, acting out, pretending I didn't care, when the truth was that I cared more than I could stand. I had tried, genuinely tried, to be what he wanted. But engineering, or anything that required sitting quietly with textbooks and equations, simply wasn't in me. It wasn't my calling, no matter how many times he said otherwise.
I wasn't like my elder brother Vincent, my father's pride and joy.
Aside from our looks, Vincent and I were complete opposites. He was reserved; I was all over the place. He had lighter skin; mine was dark. He dressed simply, corporate at work, neat casuals at home, while I dressed however I felt. He thrived in structure. I suffocated in it.
But the biggest difference was this: Vincent loved medicine. It came naturally to him, the same way music came to me. The problem was, our father only recognized one as legitimate.
He had enrolled me in Electrical Engineering at Federal University, Albana because it was the closest acceptable substitute to medicine he could tolerate. He also insisted I live with Vincent, convinced I couldn't handle living alone.
He wasn't entirely wrong about that last part, but I didn't live there often. Vincent knew, and he never pushed the issue. He was always the buffer between my father's anger and me, that steady presence who somehow kept the peace without losing himself. Though I knew the pressure he carried. He just never showed it.
Today, my parents came to visit. Vincent wasn't home, which meant I had no buffer. My father descended on me the moment he saw me, and I got every word of his disappointment at full volume, with nothing between us.
My mother loved me. I knew that without question. But she loved my father more, or maybe she was just afraid of losing his approval. With the way she worshipped him, you couldn't always tell the difference. Whenever things got heated between Dad and me, the most she ever did was hold his arm to keep him from going further. She wouldn't take my side outright, not when it was Dad.
So I left.
I went straight to a friend's, where a party was already in full swing by eight in the evening. That was where I always ended up when the walls at home got too tight. Loud music, free drinks, strangers who didn't know my name or my father's expectations became my solitude.
We danced, drank, and spent time with the girls at the party. That night, more girls came at me than I could count. Some even pulled me aside and made their interest painfully obvious. But as much as I enjoyed female attention, I had a personal rule: no sex at parties. It wasn't really about morality, just a preference. I liked knowing who I was with. Most of the girls at these things had already been with two or three other guys that same night, and that thought alone killed any desire I might have had.
As the night progressed, I noticed something was off. The more I drank, the angrier I got. I was trying to drown my father's voice, just bury it for one night, give myself a break, but it wasn't working.
Every glass pushed his words closer to the surface. Every beat I had heard earlier about having nothing to offer the world resurfaced with more force. Every memory of being beaten, belittled, and dismissed came back sharper.
This had never happened to me before. Alcohol had always been my off switch. Tonight, it was doing the opposite.
I grew frustrated. Everything around me started feeling like a source of irritation, the music, the heat, the girls who kept pressing themselves against me like I owed them something.
"Get away from me!" I snapped, shoving one of them aside. She cursed at me. I didn't care. My skin was crawling and I didn't know how to make it stop.
Around one in the morning, I gave up and left. I couldn't go home, my parents were still there. I decided I'd stay at my friend Paul's place, but I left my bike behind. I wasn't stupid enough to ride in my state.
Paul and I staggered down the road together, arms around each other's shoulders, singing off-key and swaying like trees in the wind.
"Hey, Andrew," Paul said suddenly, slowing down. "Check her out."
I followed his gaze and saw a girl walking toward us from the opposite direction. She had on loose clothing and a beanie pulled over her head. Even from a distance, you could tell she was tense, walking quickly with her head down.
"Night class," I muttered.
Paul nodded slowly.
Something about that word, night class, twisted in my chest. She's out here taking her life seriously. She has everything figured out. I bet her family is proud of her.
The thought arrived the way poison does, slow at first, then everywhere.
I hated it. I hated the thought, hated that it came so easily, hated what it meant about how I really felt about myself.
"She looks pretty," Paul said. "I wouldn't mind spending some time with her tonight."
I looked at him.
Paul had always had a taste for recklessness. Hard drugs, women, the kind of fun that are questionable. His suggestion didn't surprise me. But normally, I would have laughed it off, or walked away.
Normally.
I looked back at the girl. She had noticed us and picked up her pace..
And that simple act, her walking faster when she saw us, cracked something open in me.
How dare she assume we're dangerous?
The alcohol turned that thought into something darker. She doesn't know us. She's already judged us.
I was drunk. I was furious. And my father's voice was still circling my head like a vulture.
You don't have anything to offer this world.
I snapped.
"Since she's already afraid of us," I said, "why don't we scare her a bit more?"
Paul understood immediately. He rubbed his palms together excitedly.
That night, with my father's condemnation playing on a loop in my skull, I did the unthinkable.
"I'll show you, Dad."