Inverted Hedgehog

I am 18.

I ask my father if he can drive me to the city, I want to see my friends.

He sighs, annoyed, eyes glued to the television he loved more than us. “Can mom take you?”

“She’s not home”, I say. “Didn’t you notice?” I want to add, but don’t.

He sighs again and looks at me with his always tired-of-life eyes; the puppy face of bad parenting.

“Look”, I say. “Either you drive me, or you tell me you love me.”

“I love you”, he says for the first and last time, his face unchanged.

Sometimes you take what you can.