I leaned forward, hands clenched on the table. "You made me hate myself before I even understood who I was."
His jaw flexed, just barely, but he said nothing. I kept going.
"You turned me into someone I could barely look at in the mirror. I lied to my wife, convinced myself that what I did at work had nothing to do with who I was at home but it wasn't separate. It never was. I tried to be tough and determined because every time I tried to be soft, your voice in my head screamed that I was pathetic."
My throat burned.
"You hit me. You told me it was discipline. You humiliated me and called it 'character building.' I was a kid and you..." I swallowed the thickness in my throat. "You were the first man I ever wanted to love me and you made me think I had to earn it by breaking myself down."
My voice cracked, just once, but I didn't stop.
"I thought if I worked hard enough, succeeded enough, you'd finally see me. Be proud. But the truth is, you only saw me as a reflection of your own failures. You hated what I was because you hated yourself and when I started becoming something better, someone who tried to be gentle, who tried to feel things..." I shook my head. "You saw that as betrayal."
I stood, then leaned over the table slightly, my voice quieter, but sharper. "You know what's worse? I almost became you. That... that's what keeps me up some nights. You destroyed every part of me that wanted to love you. You made me into a man who almost lost the only good thing in his life, my wife and kids, because I was too busy chasing your approval like a beaten dog."
Still nothing.
"I came here today because I needed to look you in the eye and say this: I'm done. Done waiting for the father I deserved. Done carrying guilt that never belonged to me. You wrecked things in me I'm still trying to rebuild, but you don't get to wreck anything else."
Finally, he looked up. Eyes empty, expression flat.
Then, with the same cold, calculated voice he always used when he wanted to cut straight to the bone, the one that never rose, never needed to, because the venom was always in the precision, he leaned back in his chair like this was all just a dull inconvenience.
"Are you done?"
My whole body stilled.
There it was. That flat, unfeeling tone I knew too well. The one he used when I was a kid and crying too loud. When he dragged my mother's shame through the dirt like sport. When he punished silence as much as he punished words.
He looked at me like I was wasting his time.
"Do you feel better now?" he added, his voice dry as ash. "You got your little speech in. Got to be the wounded son with the righteous rage. You feel like a man now, finally?"
My heart was hammering in my chest, beating so hard I could feel it in my throat, behind my eyes, in the corners of my clenched jaw but I didn't move. I didn't give him the satisfaction of blinking. Not yet.
Then came the chuckle. A soft, brittle sound, sharp as broken glass and just as cutting.
"I thought, naively I admit, you might have actually come here to help me," he said, with a bitter shake of his head, like I had disappointed him. "Stupid, I know but you surprised me, and not in the good way, son."
He said son like it was a joke. Like it tasted bad in his mouth.
"You always were the soft one," he continued. "The weak one. Always crying. Always needing. You were born needy. Christ, you were barely a month old and already exhausting. Clinging to your mother like a tick. You were in the way before you could walk."