I slammed my fist on the door over and over. I didn’t stop either. Grinning as I did it, I knew it would force Frank to walk to the door. And it would piss him off. A long time ago, I feared pissing him off. But now it didn’t worry me so much.

The door was ripped open and Frank stood there, teeth clenched tight, eyes wide.

“Foster?” he said.

“I’m here to check up on you. Rose has a stomach bug going on.”

“What?”

“I brought us drinks,” I said.

I lifted a brown paper bag and peeled away a six-pack of bottled water.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Frank said.

“Nope,” I said. “We’re going to get hydrated and then go for a walk.”

Frank waved a hand. “I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

“Probably,” I said.

I entered the house without being invited. I knew how stubborn Frank could be. I’d seen it for years. And he’d passed that trait down to Rose.

“Foster, I don’t need anyone here,” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

“I do,” Frank said. He grabbed my shirt. “I…”

“What?”

“I feel weak,” Frank said. “Okay? I don’t like feeling weak.”

“Oh, Christ, Frank,” I said. “You almost died. You need to rest up. You think I’m going to judge you? Tell you what, I’ll go get one of your guns. I get out of line, you shoot me in the ass.”

“How about your mouth so you stop talking?”

“Deal,” I said.

Frank made a growling noise. He took a labored breath. “Give me one of those waters.”

I peeled two away from the holder and twisted off the caps.

I held my bottle out. “Cheers, Frank.”

“Punk kid,” he whispered.

I laughed.

We each took a big gulp of boring water.

I nodded toward the kitchen. “So you decide what’s first. A walk. Or lunch.”

“You’re really doing this?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“Rose is really sick?”

“Threw up in my kitchen sink this morning,” I said.

“Thanks for the visual.”

“You asked,” I said. “No getting out of this, Frank.”

“Right. Let’s go for a walk then. I need to get out of the house.”

“Good,” I said.

I turned and Frank pulled at my arm again.

I stopped and raised an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t know what you two are doing. If things are real or not. But I’m pulling for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “We’re just figuring things out.”

“Yeah. Figuring things out.”

Frank seemed a little off, but I blamed it on his heart.

We were outside, halfway around the block, when he stopped for a breather. He touched his chest and it left me uneasy. I did my best to stand normally and not make a big deal out of it.

“Ready to walk again?” I asked.

“Go get a car like a normal person.”

I laughed. “Nope.”

“You’re a prick, Foster. You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m not enjoying this at all,” I said. “You really gave everyone a scare.”

He eyed me. He nodded. “You know, I sometimes regret not taking you in, Foster. I think about what you could have been. Not that you’re nothing now. I just… I don’t trust your father. I’ll tell you what I told Rose. I smacked him around once in a bar. Then he sweet talked his way into getting money from me. Thought he was going to use it for you and him. He didn’t. He got himself stoned and arrested.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Frank cleared his throat. He stood tall, a hand on the building next to us. “You heard me. It’s bothered me to this day. I made a fucking mistake by believing your father. I’m sorry about that.”

“You gave my old man money,” I said. “And he got himself arrested. When was this?”

“Years ago, Foster.”

I put a hand up. I told myself to stay calm. But my heart was already pumping fast. “Wait, Frank. He was arrested on drug charges and a gun possession… the gun was mine. He took the fall. You remember that?”

“Yeah,” Frank said.

“Was this before or after that?”

“After.”

I turned my head. “Shit.”

“What?”

“So he got out and was doing good,” I said. “Then you gave him money and he got all fucked up.”

“He told me he was going to use it for a place for you and him. I thought…”

“He always says that,” I said. “That’s his best excuse. Me. All he has to do is play the wanting to change father and people just melt.”

“I didn’t melt, Foster. I cared.”

“You cared. You should have just saved him the extra step and bought him the shit directly.”

I threw the words at Frank who really couldn’t defend himself.

Frank stared at me with hurt in his eyes.

I gritted my teeth and refused to back down.

He pushed from the building and held his chest. He took a few heavy breaths as he steadied himself without touching anything.

“You listen to me,” Frank said. “You punk. I saw your father that night throwing back shots that people were buying for him. I grabbed that son of a bitch by the shirt…”

“You know what, Frank? Save the story. I don’t really care. I made it clear to Rose already that he can’t bother me anymore.”

Lie.

“Right,” Frank said.

“Let’s walk back to the house.”

We walked in silence. I had nothing to really say to Frank. Next thing I knew I was inside his house and I was making him lunch. Like he was a child. The entire time I kept thinking the worst thing possible.

What could have been?

That’s what the entire basis of my life was. What could have been if my mother hadn’t taken off? She probably could have helped settle my father down. Or maybe not. Same with all of the families that took me in and kicked me out. What could have been… if I hadn't been such a jerk to everyone? Or a couple of the families that cared about me. What could have been… if my father hadn’t shown back up and taken me away?

But the one that stuck with me was what Frank had done. I remembered that time. My father had been out of jail for a little while. He actually had a real job. He got paid a shit wage, which was perfect for him. Barely enough to scrape by. He lived in a halfway house, had a room with a roommate. But that little bit of cash that Frank gave him… it was like putting the devil in his hand.

Rose checked in through texting, which was good. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. To anyone. I asked her how she was feeling and she said fine. She wasn’t sleeping. She was working. I took that as a good thing. At least she wasn’t throwing up and unable to move.

When I heard Frank’s phone ring, I knew it was Rose before he took the call.

“Yeah, I’m fine here,” Frank’s voice said. “Just fine. Yeah, he’s here. I don’t need anyone here, Rose. I’m fine on my own.”

The conversation ended shortly after that.

I ended up standing just outside the living room. “Frank, do you need anything else? I have to get going in a few.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “Don’t let me hold you up.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay. If you need anything…”

Frank looked at me. “Hey, Foster. I know how it feels. To want something that will never happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father was like yours. He was a really bad alcoholic. Rose and Vivian never got the chance to meet him. No matter how hard I tried, he just hurt me. Hurt everyone in his life. Until we just stopped caring. I’m not telling you to stop caring or trying, Foster. I’m just telling you I know the feeling. That hopeless, yet hopeful feeling. It drains the pit of your stomach.”

“Did someone give your father money to go and get wasted and arrested?” I asked.

Frank sighed. “Right. If I could go back I wouldn’t have done that. I thought I was helping you, Foster. Helping Rose. You two…”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, Frank. You keep resting. Get back on your feet soon.”

I left that as my goodbye and exited the house. My chest felt heavy. My gut twisted up.

I knew one thing for sure.

I wanted to be alone tonight… hopefully just for tonight.

* * *

I sipped the warm whiskey from the glass as I sat in a metal folding chair in the basement of the church turned coffeehouse. If Stephanie knew I was crashing there and getting drunk she would have been pissed off. But what the fuck did I really care? I played a quick five song set and told her I needed to get some work done. So she told me to finish up and lock up when I was done.

I just didn’t want to go to my place. Even if my bed was empty of Rose, I didn’t want to crawl into the bed and smell her on my sheets. She’d done nothing wrong to me, but my heart was messy again. The right thing was to distance myself so that I didn’t end up hurting Rose.

But sitting alone with a bottle wasn’t the right thing either.

I strummed my guitar for a little bit, but traded it for the glass of whiskey. When I killed it off, I grabbed my guitar and my laptop. I opened my recording software and just started playing. For a few minutes it was almost like an out of body experience. Playing a song as I wrote it. Something that had been burning inside me for the last couple months. Getting close to Rose again. Teetering on that dangerous edge where we’d offer each other forever and then find a way to fuck it up and lose each other. And now this bullshit with my father again… getting out, showing up, bothering myself, bothering Rose, and then her father saying that he gave my father money that one time…

See, what nobody understood was that that time my father got arrested, I was shipped off to a house right outside of town. Which meant a new school. Not that I gave a shit about that. Being the new kid sucked. Being a foster kid sucked. I stood my ground in school. But at that house… no. There were three of us and we took turns taking beatings. I stood in more than once for the only girl in the house. Her name was Dani. She lost her parents in an accident and was thrown into the system. She wasn’t a bad kid but was forced into being one. I took three of her beatings because I didn’t like to see her cry. After the last time, she checked on me and confessed that she loved me. That I was her protector. That she and I should run away together. All we had to do was lay low for a little while and then we’d be old enough to do whatever we wanted. The crazy part was that she really believed it all. She believed she loved me. She believed I could get her out of the hell we were in.

I had to explain to her about Rose. There was nobody else but Rose…

I didn’t mean to break Dani’s heart that night. I didn’t mean to make her walk into the bedroom we were all forbidden to be in. I didn’t mean for her to have a knife and decide to take her stand that night. I didn’t mean for her to take her own life…

Shutting my eyes, I whispered the last few apologies and then shut off the recording. I let the guitar slip from my hands and it hit the floor with a gong type sound that echoed through the room.

If Frank hadn’t given my father that money… he would have never gotten himself into trouble and I wouldn’t have been tossed into that house of hell…

I gritted my teeth as I ran my hands through my hair. I turned in my chair and exported the new recording and sent it to Carl. I sent him a text and within minutes, Carl text back.

Brilliant, Foster. We need to get your schedule cleared as soon as possible. I have a few sessions lined up. Say goodbye to that shithole town and shithole coffeehouse.

I didn’t reply.

Instead, I grabbed the whiskey bottle and tossed my phone to the table. I heard it vibrating more than once. I knew it was probably Rose checking on me. I told her I was taking care of some stuff and would get home late.

I wasn’t going to get home at all.

My comfort was the bottle. So I could wash away fate. Because fate put me in that house of hell. Fate put me as my father’s son. Fate put Rose in my life.

And fate wasn’t done messing with me yet.