Quincy Bradshaw wrinkles her nose and immediately rubs her eyes. 

A rectangle of light cast from the kitchen windows paints opaque radiance onto the living room floor. The sound of the kitchen cabinet slamming shut pairs with the dull hum of the ancient coffee maker that had been around since before she had even been a thought. 

Her eyes open only a quarter of the way – partly because her eyelashes are threaded together from slept in mascara, halfway because of the fact her contact lenses are living in the corners furthest away from her pupils, and entirely because of the fact she’ll puke again if the light hits her all at once. 

The Leemore naval base sweatshirt she doesn’t remember putting on feels like a straitjacket, and the seams of the jeans she does remember putting on cut into her legs in strange places. 

Her head doesn’t pound, but she doesn’t feel amazing either. The throbbing rocks back and forth and forward and backward. She subconsciously feels herself mimicking the motion of the dull ache in her temples. 

Another slam of a cabinet closing startles her. Her eyes shoot open despite the natural effort her body has exerted to keep them closed. An immediate flux of nausea comes over her as her eyes open completely. She leans over to search for the metal popcorn bucket she knows is full of her vomit from last night. 

A sputtering cough and a dry heave fill the space, and she’s throwing up what seems to be everything she had consumed in the last twenty-four hours to join what stomach contents already reside in the bucket. 

Quincy’s diaphragm is out of sync with her lungs, and she would be in hysterics by now if this were normal. She hates throwing up. Loathes it. Would possibly rather die than ever throw up, but this isn’t normal, and she isn’t sick with the flu or food poisoning or some mysterious stomach virus. 

This is her throwing up because she fucked up and got caught. 

She takes a stuttering breath before gagging again. The glasses in the kitchen cupboard subtly shake as footsteps approach her. She hears a sigh of disappointment over the strangled sound of her puking. 

Fuck my life. Fuck my life. Fuck my life. Fuck my life. Fuck my life. Fuck my life! 

Another item on the list of things she would rather die than encounter happens to be the rage of her father. Nothing can compare to how horrible that feeling is. 

She finally finishes, sitting up straight and wiping the acidity from her mouth onto the sleeve of the sweatshirt that’s swallowing her whole. Bradley stands before her. One of his hands holds a bottle of sugar-free Gatorade and a piece of toast wrapped in a paper towel. The other holds a chipped mug that has her Kindergarten handprint stamped upside down in green to make a plant on it. The whiff of black coffee almost makes her gag again. The vomit rises, but she swallows it down. 

Once is enough this morning. 

She stares down at the popcorn bucket and sees a color she can’t even describe. The contents of it make her anxious the longer she stares, but she would rather look at what she assumes to be the result of mixing copious amounts of alcohol (a Four Locko Sour, a mango Beatbox, a few shots of tequila, and whatever fuck ass shooters her friends pulled from their bras that were bought illegally from the gas station three blocks from her house, if she recalls correctly) than look her father in the eyes. Especially not when she knows that the party she had gone to was off limits, she doesn’t entirely recall how she had gotten home, and the fact that she had snuck out right under his nose on a school night. 

Not to mention, this is the first time they’ve looked at each other since January after her principal called the house and revealed she had stopped going to school beyond second period after the start of October. But if you asked Quincy, the deterioration of their relationship began long before she started ditching school and roaming the city during the day. 

It was subtle at first. Her dad not remembering their conversations when he used to hang onto every word she said with such permanence and accuracy, it was as if the thought came from his own mind. Sometimes he would work late and would miss her soccer games. Then he stopped asking her to tag along with him to surf early on the weekends. Then he just kind of... stopped talking to her altogether.

She doesn’t remember exactly when that pinprick of doubt kicked in. It lingered in the shadows, she assumes. It stained every moment she had when he wasn’t there. When he didn’t call or didn’t text or didn’t remember anything she had said. It changed the way she thought about their relationship. It had always been her and him – Quincy and Bradley, Duckie and Rooster, his baby and her daddy. 

But now it seemed like it was just that. 

Her. And then him. 

Two separate people whose lives are parallel and never touch each other. 

And then she thought maybe they were just one because she wasn’t her own person then. She was an extension of her dad; a person, but a person who didn’t have their own thoughts and feelings and just existed as a shadow. 

It starts with a letdown and ends with abandonment. It sure does fucking feel like it when your parents announce they’re having another baby your Senior year of high school. 

Then that doubt doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. 

After the phone call to the house, there was a silence that ensued. There were no theatrics. No screaming match. No dramatic, “I fucking hate you!” screeched at the top of anyone’s lungs. There had just been a sigh of disappointment from her dad paired with his hand reaching across the kitchen table, palm up, gesturing for her keys to go in his hand. She doesn’t even think he said the words, “You’re grounded,” but he didn’t have to for her to get the message. 

The same way he didn’t have to for her to know that he didn’t care anymore. 

She can’t even remember why she’s afraid because even if the capability of her father’s rage has always frightened her, he doesn’t seem to give enough of a damn to summon it. Part of her knows that it probably won’t even happen at all, and a pang of hurt causes her heart to shrink in on itself. 

I just want you to care. I want you to care. I want you to care. 

“School. It’s a quarter till seven.” 

She peers up at her father. His hand extends the bread and the beverage to her, but she doesn’t move. He stands in front of her, the same eyes and nose and mustache that he had always had. He looks like her dad, but he doesn’t seem like he’s her dad. 

At least not anymore. 

“You need to get going,” he says plainly. His gaze falls to his watch you and her had gotten him this past Father’s Day. 

Quincy rolls her eyes. Her body buzzes with annoyance at the fact that she had done anything nice for him at all. He doesn’t give a fuck about her. Why should she give a damn about making sure he knows she cares? That he gets a gift for Father’s Day. That she says “I love you” before hanging up the phone. That she tells him about her friends at school or the yearbook, or even the fact that she had gotten into UC Berkeley and had already paid the seat deposit on her own. 

Her dad didn’t care that she was her own person. Why should she care that he’s his own person, too? 

Quincy’s anger starts to flourish in her chest, and she starts to shake. She tries to calm herself; her eyes catching on the spindles in the staircase he had just fixed this past weekend, even though they’d been loose since her ninth birthday. 

Following the news that you were pregnant, you had gone on a two-month-long nesting cleaning spree, and to cope, her dad had started hyperfixating on every “handyman” project he could get his hands on. He had never given a fuck about the waterstain on the laundry room ceiling before, but now the task seems to plague his mind constantly. Her dad doesn’t know how to redo tile, but his Saturday afternoon trips to Lowe’s to look for grout say otherwise. 

Both your brains are occupied with thoughts that aren’t her and she knows your hearts are growing in size to accommodate for someone she certainly isn’t. Now, as she’s being stoned with annoyance and disappointment from the “caring” adults in her life, the red-hot anger boils until it starts to burn. 

Fuck them for being pissed at me. Fuck them for not understanding. Fuck them for not seeing me. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Fuck! 

She can feel it in her chest before she can recognize that she’s even angry and is showing it. The curse word doesn’t even feel like a curse word anymore. Her brain can’t even make it sound like a real word, nonetheless. 

Her lips chase after her frustration’s consonants and vowels; the anger so rambunctious she can’t hear herself think over it. 

“Fuck off,” she manages to mutter, teeth clenched and cheeks pink with irritation. 

Quincy’s eyes find her dad’s face. She can see the usual terracotta flush on his cheeks spread down his neck. His face contorts into an expression equal parts angry and awful. His eyebrows are furrowed. The lines in his forehead are pinched. His chest is heaving.  

Bradley’s eyes practically saws her in half on the spot. 

The little five-year-old inside of her, who would rather die than make her dad angry, screeches at her, tells her to say sorry and that she’s a bad person for behaving this way. She screams that Quincy is being unreasonable. Quincy screams back that he doesn’t care anyway. 

Go be with your new kid. I don’t fucking matter anyway. 

“Wh-what? What did you just say to me, young lady?” Bradley asks, half in shock and half enraged. 

He’s positive he heard her correctly, but also not sure if he’s dreaming or not. Quincy has never openly rebelled like this, nor has she ever spoken to any adult in her life in that way. Not his girl. Not his sweet, precious, precocious baby girl. 

She rolls her eyes and moves herself to sit upright. Bradley can see her attempt to conceal a gag at her sudden change of position, but he knows she’s too stubborn to let him see what effect it has on her. She’s like that and he’s like that too, he supposes.

“Fuck. Off.” Her voice drips with certainty and cruelty. 

She surprises herself with how hateful it comes out. Bradley’s hands move from his hips to apply pressure on his temples. 

“Are you being serious right now?” he snaps. 

The sound of the groaning floorboard outside the door of the master bedroom announces itself, and both their heads snap up to glance at the staircase. They know you’re listening to their conversation. 

How could you not be? Curse words and tension don’t exactly knock on your household’s door before 8 AM. 

“Would I fucking repeat it if I wasn’t?” she snaps back. Her head tilts to the side and her eyebrows scrunch on her face in disgust. 

Bradley feels the challenge she’s trying to present; equal parts pissed off at her from last night’s incident, pissed from her earlier comment, and looking to be pissed off at whatever else she’s gearing up to say. 

“You’ve got,” he looks down at his watch before fixing his gaze on his teenage daughter, “Thirty seconds to lose your attitude and turn this shit around or I’m getting on your ass and you’ll wish you never grew the balls to go to that party.” 

She rolls her eyes with such fervent dismissiveness before stomping her feet on the ground and grabbing the metal popcorn bucket on the floor. Her feet stomp away upstairs to her bedroom. She makes a point to brush past her dad with force and agility; making sure he knows her fury and hoping the pungent odor of her vomit finds its way to his nostrils. 

Quincy stomps so loudly that the newly repaired spindles in the staircase vibrate with each step. Bradley stands in a state of dissociation before his brain catches up with the events unfolding in front of him. His conscience removes itself from his body as he embarks on what he feels will be the most catastrophic parenting moment he’ll ever have. 

“Hey! We’re not done talking!” he yells. He spins on his heel, not daring to reach out and grab her before she can fully ascend up the stairs, but his voice is loud and alarming enough to make her stop and turn around to face him. 

“I walked away, Dad. I don’t wanna talk.” 

Bradley rolls his eyes, leaning his back on the wall near the bottom of the staircase. If you had asked him seventeen years ago on that fateful November night, he would have never considered being in this position. His new baby, nine pounds of sweetness and a head full of dark hair, would never ever make him feel this way – angry and frustrated beyond belief. 

Now, seventeen years later on a random Friday morning in May, he feels like an idiot for thinking he could survive the years of teenage terror. 

“That’s not an option. This isn’t a choice. We’re talking because you’re being disrespectful and this is my house,” he winces internally as he says it (partly because he sounds like his mom way back when, but mostly because he knows he sounds like Maverick), “And you don’t get to talk to me or treat anyone like that ever.” 

She puts the bucket down on the stairs in front of her and crosses her arms to sit on her chest. 

“Insane that you’re saying “this house” as if you give a fuck about anything I do ever,” Quincy snides, “You can’t only care about me whenever it makes you look bad.” 

Something about that sends an arrow straight through Bradley’s heart. Instead of recognizing the ache, instead of realizing that it hurts for a reason, he does the opposite and pulls it right back out. 

His rage knows no allies. The exception used to be his daughter, but now he’s not so sure. 

“Yeah, you’re right, kid,” his hand comes up to wipe at his face before he completely comes unglued, “You’re right because how would it look if you got arrested at that party? If you drove home and got a DUI? If your little dumbass friends got you in that car and you ended up with a fucking stop sign through your neck and dead because you’re so desperate for friends?” 

“What happened to the girl I raised? Huh? To having some fucking common sense?” he sighs, finally coming down from his rage-induced rant, “You’re so fucking smart but so fucking stupid sometimes.” 

Bradley knows he shouldn’t; he knows this will kill her alone, but the monster of fury in his chest forces it out of him before he can resume thinking. “I’m so damn embarrassed to be your dad right now that it makes me fucking sick, Quince.” 

The veil of apathy falls, and she can feel the fire in her throat and the flames licking her tear ducts; tempting her with how amazing it would feel to cry. She’s feeling something that she’s never been made to feel before. She knows it’s not embarrassment, but rather something different. 

It’s more humiliating. It’s more disheartening. It’s more saddening. 

She’s feeling ashamed.  

But she can’t show weakness now. Bradley can recognize the look of fury in her eyes and kicks himself for it. She is her father’s child and she not only inherited Bradley’s huffiness, but also his need to have the last word. 

“Why does it fucking matter if you’re gonna go have a new kid anyway? You get to be a dad to someone who doesn’t make you fucking sick in a few weeks so don’t waste your precious time pretending like you care about me or that you give a damn about anything I say or do.” 

“Quincy –” he tries to interrupt her, but she shakes her head and continues to rattle on anyway. 

“I got into Berkeley, Dad. I got into fucking Berkeley and you didn’t even fucking care enough to hear about it.” 

His jaw drops open in shock. He didn’t even know that she applied. The last he had heard about college decisions, she was headed up the road to UC San Diego in September. He’s not prepared to send her eight hours away at the end of the summer. He doesn’t even know how he could have missed something as amazing and exciting as her getting into the school of her dreams. His heart begins to splinter on the spot. 

Quincy is hurting and he didn’t even open his eyes wide enough to notice. 

“Babe –” 

“No! No, you don’t get to try and get me to shut the fuck up,” she shrieks. She begins her descent down the stairs with her finger pointing into her father’s chest accusingly. “You don’t care about me, Dad. That’s what this new baby is, right? You’re trading me for something shiny and new and for something that fits whatever fucked up idea of a family you have in your head because yours got totally fucked by the “War on Terrorism” or some other military propagandist bullshit.” 

He backs up from her knowing that she’s doing exactly what he does – poking the bear until it bites that person’s head off. 

If she knew what was good for her (and she seems to not know that, as of late) she would back off. But Bradley knows that pride is her Achilles' Heel.

Fuck, it seems to be for every seventeen year old. He can’t wait for her to grow out of it. 

“Go to your room. Now,” he says. Quincy screams and slaps the wall; truly unlocking a different kind of anger she had never reached before. 

“No!” she bellows, “You’re being a coward. Tell me you don’t love me! Tell me that you should’ve given me up! Tell me you should’ve made my mom get an abortion!” 

Bradley grabs her arms, holding her still in front of him. “That’s enough!” 

She laughs cruelly in his face, wrangling her arms out of his hold and stomping up the stairs until she reaches the top. “That’s just your solution for everything, isn’t it? To ignore me? To make me go away when I say something you don’t like?” 

Bradley rolls his eyes, trying not to entertain her goading because he knows nothing good can come from it. 

“You just gonna ice me out like you did Papa Mav because – because I’m not letting you live out some fantasy you have about how your life should be?” 

He walks away and paces around the living room. He can feel his heart thumping in his chest and his mouth itching to say the magic words he knows will shut her up. He hopes and prays that Quincy decides to give it a rest, but he knows that she won’t. He doesn’t know if he should call it father’s intuition or looking in a mirror. 

“I hope you fuck up this baby as much as you’ve fucked me up so you’ll finally see that you’re the problem,” she says, half hoping for a response but half craving for more of a fight. 

She hears her dad return to the bottom step of the stairs and prepares herself for the satisfactory feeling of knowing she won the verbal battle she just put up. 

He looks up at her with a look that she has never seen before and the calmness in his demeanor shoots her down. 

“I can’t believe I raised someone as fucked up as you,” he says, the casual cruelness slitting the throat of any ounce of hope she had left. 

Bradley can’t bear to witness the pain she wears on her face and returns to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water; begging and praying that the ice-cold gulps he takes will help him wake up from the nightmare he just experienced. 

The slamming of her bedroom door vibrating the house and the pained sobs echoing trap him in the deepest circle of hell he can feasibly imagine.