·caught between myself and me·

[❀ Melíssa]

      “I don’t even know her,” Nate spoke of his aunt. “Can’t I live with Uncle George instead?”
      “George and I haven’t spoken in over a year,” Nordin Larcombe coughed. “And Jessénia has always been the one designated to take you in if anything ever happened to me.”
      “Uncle Jeffrey?” Nate suggested
      “Don’t make me laugh, son. It hurts.”
      “Why’s that funny?”
      “You think I would send my twelve-year-old son to live with my twenty-six-year-old little brother?”
      “We’d have more in common.”
      “No. You’ll have more in common with your cousin Troy, since he’s two months older than you, which is why it makes even more sense to send you to Jessénia. Jeffrey lives at home, which mean I’d be sending you to live with your grandmother. She’s already raised four kids and just got the fifth one out. I’m not going to force a sixth one on her.”
      “I don’t even know Jessénia,” Nate repeated. “Or Troy.”
      “Unfortunately, that’s no one’s fault but mine. Your aunt comes to London every chance she gets, but I’ve never taken you home visit her. I guess it never occurred to me how important it was to know your family.”
      “I don’t care whose fault it was. I don’t want to go,” Nate narrowed his eyes at his ailing father. “I’ll become emancipated. Then I can do whatever I want.”
      “Yeah,” Nordin snorted, “good luck with that. George, Jeffrey, and Jessénia and Tatum are on their way here, they’re gonna stay until… And then Jessénia and Tatum will take you back to New York.”
      Knowing he wasn’t going to get his way, Nate stormed out of the room. “I hate you,” the words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop them, but all the guilt in the world couldn’t prevent his rage and fear from manifesting itself.
      He wasn’t mad at his father for choosing an aunt he didn’t know to raise him.
      No, he was mad at his dad for dying.