Arc One [13]
Author: Homer
Title: Untitled
Rating: G
Word Count: 468
He slept for a long time. A very long time. To the point that when he finally did wake up, he wasn’t really sure what day it was or if it were five in the morning or five in the afternoon.
His phone was mercifully silent, though he wasn’t sure if that was because the battery had died or Eva had finally given up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was surprised that he didn’t wake up with her in the hotel room.
His mouth tasted like something had died in it. Did hotel rooms come with complementary tooth-brushes or was he out of luck?
God, he was useless. Why did anyone put up with him? Surely Nora had offered to let him meet her daughter out of some sense of responsibility and no real want. He was pretty sure he could infect someone with bad parenting just by being near them.
But was lying here going to make any sort of difference? Pretending the world didn’t exist hadn’t made that much of a difference after Eva’s ‘death’.
And that just made him a worse parent. He’d stolen his son’s childhood even before the war had. Made Marco grow up and take care of him because he couldn’t deal with things like an adult.
Just one more reason he should stay far away from the little girl.
But was that fair either? Shouldn’t he at least try to be a parent to her? Didn’t he have an obligation for playing such a minute part in her creation? Shouldn’t he feel connected to her?
Right now he just felt tired and guilty and miserable. He didn’t know how to be a parent. His failed attempt at taking care of Marco proved that.
Lying here in a hotel room hugging a pillow and not even sure what day it was proved that, didn’t it?
So what was he going to do? Pretend Nora hadn’t told him, pretend he didn’t know the child existed and fail by simply never being there? Or risk failing her on a more personal level by letting himself care about her?
He felted cheated by his education that had never bothered to teach him these things.
The first thing he was going to do was grab a tooth brush and evict the fuzzy disgusting thing from his mouth. And the second…
He was going to go correct that oversight in his education and read as many parenting books as he could get his hands on. He’d failed Marco as a parent, and he’d failed this little girl to this point, but only an idiot kept trying to do the same thing the same way and expecting different results.
He was many things, many terrible things. But an idiot had never been one of them.
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Title: Untitled
Rating: G
Word Count: 468
He slept for a long time. A very long time. To the point that when he finally did wake up, he wasn’t really sure what day it was or if it were five in the morning or five in the afternoon.
His phone was mercifully silent, though he wasn’t sure if that was because the battery had died or Eva had finally given up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was surprised that he didn’t wake up with her in the hotel room.
His mouth tasted like something had died in it. Did hotel rooms come with complementary tooth-brushes or was he out of luck?
God, he was useless. Why did anyone put up with him? Surely Nora had offered to let him meet her daughter out of some sense of responsibility and no real want. He was pretty sure he could infect someone with bad parenting just by being near them.
But was lying here going to make any sort of difference? Pretending the world didn’t exist hadn’t made that much of a difference after Eva’s ‘death’.
And that just made him a worse parent. He’d stolen his son’s childhood even before the war had. Made Marco grow up and take care of him because he couldn’t deal with things like an adult.
Just one more reason he should stay far away from the little girl.
But was that fair either? Shouldn’t he at least try to be a parent to her? Didn’t he have an obligation for playing such a minute part in her creation? Shouldn’t he feel connected to her?
Right now he just felt tired and guilty and miserable. He didn’t know how to be a parent. His failed attempt at taking care of Marco proved that.
Lying here in a hotel room hugging a pillow and not even sure what day it was proved that, didn’t it?
So what was he going to do? Pretend Nora hadn’t told him, pretend he didn’t know the child existed and fail by simply never being there? Or risk failing her on a more personal level by letting himself care about her?
He felted cheated by his education that had never bothered to teach him these things.
The first thing he was going to do was grab a tooth brush and evict the fuzzy disgusting thing from his mouth. And the second…
He was going to go correct that oversight in his education and read as many parenting books as he could get his hands on. He’d failed Marco as a parent, and he’d failed this little girl to this point, but only an idiot kept trying to do the same thing the same way and expecting different results.
He was many things, many terrible things. But an idiot had never been one of them.
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