And now he wants my sympathy? Fuck that. If I had any compassion to give, I sure as hell wouldn’t offer it to him.

I loop his arm around my neck, grabbing his wrist with one hand and holding onto his waist with the other as I maneuver him into his house. He grumbles incoherently as I deposit him on the bed, his voice muffled by the pillow before his body goes lax.

I’m never in this house except for nights like this; when darkness and dead silence surround me. It might as well be vacant it’s so eerily quiet. We moved here when I was five years old, and after my mom died, I thought my dad would sell it and we’d go somewhere else. Just him and me. But he couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t leave the house she fell in love with and all the memories of her it held. And I think that makes him worse, because every time he looks around, he sees her. Standing at the stove cooking a meal, or sitting in her favorite chair and working on the blanket she had been trying to finish for years. He never changes anything about this place, either. It still looks exactly how it did when she was alive, down to the smallest detail. Even the bedroom they shared remains the same. Her clothes are still hanging in the closest, her favorite book is still on the nightstand, and I know seeing that shit every day drives him to drink. He’s weak; he can’t even handle the memory of my mom without letting it pull him under.

My dad hasn’t been living here. He’s been slowly dying here.

I open the door to my old bedroom and step inside, flipping on the light. I took most of my stuff with me when I moved out nine years ago, except for the twin bed I was too tall for and a few things I didn’t want. I grab the guitar case that’s leaning against the wall in one of the corners and set it on the bed. Turning around, I open the bottom drawer of my old dresser and take out the Mason jar full of guitar picks I’ve always kept in there. I rattle it around a bit, seeing some of the old ones my dad gave me from when he used to play, before tucking the jar under my arm and picking up the guitar case. After leaving with the only two items left in the house that mean something to me, I lock up and head home.

***

I drop the case on my bed and stick the Mason jar on my nightstand with my phone and keys. The case is covered in Pearl Jam stickers, some faded to the point of being almost unrecognizable, while others are peeling and frayed at the ends. I was obsessed with them when I started playing, learning almost all of their songs and idolizing Eddie Vedder. I could play them pretty good, but I always sang for shit. That used to be my dad’s role.

A familiar nudge against the back of my leg nearly knocks me over as I’m pulling my shirt off.

I turn and reach down, brushing my hand through the fur. “Where you been, huh? You fall asleep in the bathroom again?”

Max, my Golden Retriever, sits and lifts one paw, thudding it against me and scratching down my leg with it.

I knock his paw away, rubbing my knee. “Stop, that shit hurts. You need to go out or something?”

He runs out of the room, answering my question with his abrupt exit. I walk down the hallway, descend the stairs, and open the back door, letting him dart outside into the yard. After smelling every goddamned blade of grass out there, he finishes up and runs back in, brushing past me.

I walk back into my bedroom and find him sniffing my guitar case.

“Watch out, Max.” I pop the four locks and open it up, dropping the lid back and causing him to startle. He moves to the edge of the bed and lies down, the hair on his back standing straight up. I can’t help but laugh. “Christ, is there anything that doesn’t scare you?” I rub his head, as his big eyes stay glued to the case.

I doubt there is anything he isn’t afraid of. I ended up with the biggest chicken shit of a dog when I rescued him four years ago. He’s scared of everything—lawnmowers, garbage trucks, basically any noise. Thunder sends him running for the bathroom and hiding in my tub until the storm passes. If someone ever had the balls to break in here, he’d be no help. I’d put money on him hiding under my bed until I handled things. Which I would. If anyone makes that mistake, it’ll be the last thing they ever do.

I stare down at the guitar, a gift from my parents on my fifteenth birthday. The last thing either one of them ever gave me. I lived and breathed this thing, playing it every day for seven months until my fingertips calloused over to the point of being numb. My dad taught me how to play on his old Gibson several months before I was gifted this. We’d spend hours in the basement together, going over chords and listening to music that inspired him. He’d tell me stories about playing on the road with his band and some of the crazy shit they’d get into. It was always a hobby for him, but he talked about it like he was born to do it. And his passion for it fascinated me. He told me about the time my mom came to watch him play and he saw her in the crowd, and how he’d been staring at her ever since. He treated that guitar like it was a part of his soul, and I wanted that. And when I finally got mine, it absorbed me completely, quickly becoming my entire world.

Then it was always us playing together, no longer just me watching him in complete awe. He taught me things I didn’t know, and I showed him a few things I picked up on my own. For those seven months, we were closer than we ever were. He wasn’t just my dad. He was my best friend.

I haven’t touched this thing in twelve years. I couldn’t even look at it right after she died. It stayed locked up, hidden in my closest or under my bed. A couple of months later, I got it out and asked my dad if he wanted to play like we always used to. I was suffering just as much as he was, and I needed him. I needed a fucking parent to help me deal, and he always told me music could heal a person. I thought we could get through it together. So I stood there, shaking—I was so fucking nervous to hear his voice. The voice that hadn’t said one word to me since before the funeral. And he looked up at me like I was the guy who shot my mom, and not the son he shared with her. Like I was the reason for his sadness. It was the first time he had acknowledged my existence in two months, and the first time I wished it were me who died instead of her. There was nothing but hatred in his stare, pure revulsion directed solely at me before he grabbed his old Gibson from where it was perched against the chair, swung it behind him, and smashed it against the wall.