Stepbrother With Benefits 11 Read Free Page A

speak louder than words or something.  I'm pretty sure this is how that works.
    Yeah, well, we're both bad with that.  We don't really talk, and our actions have always spoken volumes, except none of it's been very good.  Yeah yeah, my dad and I get along well enough, but I wouldn't exactly say we're close.
    We have an understanding.  I think that's how he'd explain it if this was business-speak.  This isn't a "You Scratch My Back and I Scratch Yours" type of understanding, but a "You Leave Me Alone and I'll Do the Same For You" kind of one.  In a friendly as fuck way, though.  Companionable silence or some shit, just staying out of each other's hair.
    I don't want to get into this right now, but I just don't want to deal with my dad or our current situation, so here you go.  When my mom died, my dad tried to make it work, but he just couldn't.  He couldn't really deal with it, and I didn't know what was going on, so he left.  I wouldn't say he abandoned me, because he was always technically there , but I couldn't talk to him, couldn't do much with him.
    We lived in the same fucking house, but we might as well have been worlds apart.  This lasted for awhile.  We'd go do stuff, go out to dinner sometimes, but neither of us was really there.  I didn't know how to be there.  I was just some little kid, didn't even know what was going on, except people kept telling me my mom was gone and she wouldn't be coming back.
    How the fuck do you deal with that?  I don't know.  I still don't really know, but it's a decade in the past and I guess I've just gotten used to it.  It's not like I'm ever going to forget, but sometimes it's hard to remember, too.
    I remember my mom used to pack a swirly straw for my juice box back in elementary school.  It wasn't anything crazy, just some goofy as fuck straw, but I liked it.  It was different, and none of the other kids at school had one, so I felt cool.  You know how kids are, when you get some new toy or whatever and you just feel like a badass?  Yeah, that was me.
    The first time I went back to school after my mom died and my dad made me my lunch, he forgot the straw.  Actually, I don't even think he knew the straw existed.  And then it's like... holy fuck, are you serious?  I'm never going to see my mom again, and now you forget my straw?
    It's not even important.  I guess it was never about the straw.  I don't know.  I really loved that straw and it sounds stupid as fuck, but there you go.  I went home and I was angry and my dad just kind of looked at me like he didn't know what to do.  I marched into the kitchen, ripped open the cabinet where my mom kept the swirly straws, then I grabbed them all in my fist and stomped over to the trash.
    I threw them away in front of him.  He just looked at me, listless and slightly confused.
    I know he didn't know what the straws meant to me.  If I'm being real fucking honest, I'm not even sure if I know what the straws meant to me.  They're just straws, you know?
    That's me and my dad in a nutshell, though.  I've learned that he doesn't understand me, and I've realized I don't understand him.  It's easier that way.  We can work with that, and we can get along.  It doesn't need to be anything more than that.
    Yeah, he's still my dad.  I love him, because I'm supposed to love him.  I actually do love him, too, but it's just... I don't think we'll ever really know each other.  We'll never be as close as Ashley and her mom are.
    I'm not sure if that's a bad thing.  I don't know if it's anything , to be honest.  It's just the way it is.
    I realize we've been walking in the woods for awhile now without talking.  I'm not sure where we're going.  We went along the shore to the river at first, then crossed it by jumping over some rocks further up, and now we're heading into the great unknown.
    There's a path, so it's not exactly completely unknown, but neither of us has been here for awhile.
    "Hey," my dad says.  "What do