“Honest to Christ, I’m actually shocked you had it in you to pull yourself together at all.”

I was so surprised, I couldn’t say anything.

Mickey didn’t feel the same way and kept speaking.

“Grew up, you know I had money, not like you but in this town we were part of the elite,” he told me. “Dad got offered membership to the Club. Granddad didn’t because he was Irish and he was Catholic and they were assholes. They were still assholes when they offered membership to Dad, who’s also obviously Irish and Catholic, but by that time, he made so much money, they felt they could lift their racist, bigoted, unwritten rule and offered it to him anyway. He took it just so he could find ways to shove it up their asses.”

When he stopped speaking and didn’t go on, without anything else to say, I said, “Okay.”

With this prompt, Mickey continued, “So Dad went and got drunk and loud and obnoxious and loved every minute knowin’ those arrogant fuckers hated it. Dad let his boys go knowin’ we’d get drunk and loud and obnoxious too. We upped it by doin’ that as well as gettin’ into fights with any stick-up-his-ass asshole who looked at us funny, and you probably get there were a lot of them. He also probably knew we’d go all out to get whatever rich bitch pussy we could nail, which is undoubtedly why he snuck us condoms, puttin’ ’em under our pillows.”

I emitted a soft gasp at this but didn’t respond verbally.

So Mickey kept going.

“And we did. Had my fill of spoiled little rich girl, Amy, and none of them were near as well-off as you. They grew up and some are still around, and not one of ’em has it in ’em to learn a fuckin’ thing except to think they’re entitled to have what they want and do whatever they wanna do and they don’t give that first fuck if it’s right or wrong or hurts anybody.”

“I—” I started but stopped when his arms got extra tight and he dipped his face so it was close to mine.

“You stumbled,” he stated firmly. “Then you picked your ass up, opened your eyes and saw what was important and started fightin’ for it. So you fucked up. Now you’re makin’ it right. And that’s the only thing that means anything.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Do you…really think that?” I asked.