We turn back to the game. I watch dust motes hover in the air and look through the doorway to the kitchen. The same old microwave, plastic all yellow with age, still sits on the counter. The damn thing looks like hell, but it hasn’t died yet. It just keeps living and living, heating up food with a crackling sound and a little rattle where the glass plate isn’t quite even. My dad doesn’t care about that. He won’t buy another one until this microwave burns out and all the wiring melts together.

“Dean.” His voice is thick. The emotion he’s trying to control makes me want to get up and leave, but I don’t.

“Yeah?”

There’s another long silence. Emotion fills the room, but it’s outside of me. It doesn’t make any difference what my dad feels. There’s a twinge, I guess, somewhere deep down, but that’s just as likely to turn into anger.

Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I still expect to see myself at sixteen. I still expect to see him how he was, not this older, grayer version. Some of those years feel like they never went by at all and I hate looking at the evidence that they did.

“Look at me,” he commands and I do.

My dad’s face falls, his eyes shining.

“It has to be—” His voice is even thicker with sorrow. It’s impossible to ignore now. “You know, I’m sorry.” He clears his throat. It’s always easier for him to sound angry rather than sad. That’s fine with me. I don’t need weepy apologies. “I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t know.”

“You already told me that,” I say confidently, offering him solace. It’s true. He has told me that. He’s told me that while he’s crying and yelling and whispering. He was a wreck when he found out what they did. They closed down the school although no one was ever charged. Everyone got away with what they did.

He clears his throat again. Sounds like it hurts.

Part of me softens. Enough that I can make my eyes soften, too. “Dad.”

He meets my eyes. I can tell he’s trying to keep a straight face. I can also tell he wants me to bail him out of all the guilt. I don’t want to see him like this, so I will.

“There’s no way you could have known.”

The breath goes out of him like he’s never heard me say this before. He has. I tell him the same thing every time this comes up. He lives with the pain like I do. It’s just different.

“Does it bring up… anything?” My dad tries. “Hearing that news.”