The Man Who Didn’t Want Anything From Me

Trevor doesn’t go to school on Father-Son Day.

He lies and says he’s sick. Stares at the ceiling long enough to memorize the swirl in the plaster that looks like a snake eating its tail.

The house is quiet, which means his mom's at work and there’s no one around to ask questions. He’s gotten good at not being asked things. The kitchen smells like burned toast and lemon-scented floor wipes. He doesn’t touch the toast. He drinks water from the tap and doesn’t bother with a glass..

There was a time he would have waited by the window on this day. Eyes wide. Shoes laced. His little heart stupid with hope. His mom used to say, “He might surprise you this year.” And every year, Trevor believed it. Every year, Trevor got smaller.

Now, he doesn’t wait for anyone. He walks. Down the road, past the mailbox that still has Mitchell written in peeling letters. His father's name. Not his. Not anymore.

He takes the long trail through the woods behind the park, stepping over roots, letting branches scratch his arms. He likes the way they sting. It makes everything inside feel sharper. Real.

People think when dads leave, it’s a clean break. A disappearing act. But Trevor knows better. His dad didn’t disappear. He exploded. Left pieces of himself lodged in walls, in Trevor’s voice, in the way Trevor flinches when anyone raises their hand too fast. Trevor's not mad his father left.

He’s mad he ever came back, those three nights last winter, drunk off his ass and looking for something to blame.

He keeps walking until the trees start to thin out. There’s an old maintenance shed near the edge of the woods, the kind they probably forgot about when the city stopped pretending to care about this part of town. Trevor kicks a rock at it and hears the hollow clang of rusted metal. Feels good. Feels loud.

He sits down on the grass and pulls his hoodie tighter. The wind's picking up, pushing against his ears like a whisper he doesn’t want to hear.

His mind does that thing again—pulls up scenes he didn’t ask for.

A glass ashtray flying past his head.

The sound of his mom saying “Stop it, he’s just a kid.”

The way his father laughed like that meant something funny had happened.

Trevor swallows hard, tries to blink it away. But the memories don’t ask for permission. They come anyway, dragging their broken shoes and cigarette smoke in like they still own the place.

Why do people always talk about forgiveness like it’s a prize you win?

He’s supposed to forgive a man who never said sorry? A man who taught him how to walk on eggshells before he could even spell the word “sorry”? No.

Trevor doesn’t want to forgive. He wants to forget. Wants to scrape the blood and booze out of his childhood and rewrite it like it was never his.

But the problem with ghosts is—they linger. Especially the ones that called themselves "Dad."

He lies back and watches the clouds drift by. One of them looks like a fist. Another like a house on fire.

Trevor smiles bitterly.

“Fitting,” he mutters to no one.

Then a creak. Soft. Like a branch. Or maybe not.

He sits up and sees someone—an old man hunched over a bicycle just a few yards away. There’s a backpack next to him, a thermos, and a long piece of cloth with tools lined up like little soldiers.

The man doesn’t look up. Just keeps working, chain clinking, gears spinning.

Trevor watches him for a while. The man’s hands are dark with grease. His knuckles are rough. But there’s something careful in the way he works. Like he’s not fixing a bike—he’s mending a wound.

Eventually, the man glances up.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. His voice is low and scratchy, like gravel in warm tea.

Trevor shrugs.

“You didn’t.”

The man nods once, like that’s all he needed.

“You good?” he asks.

It’s such a strange question. Not the words, but the way he says them—no weight, no digging, no attempt to mine him like a broken vein. Just… a question.

Trevor wants to lie.

Wants to say, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

But instead, he hears himself say, “No.”

The old man doesn’t react right away. Doesn’t try to fix the moment or fill the silence like most adults do. He just nods again, like “no” is a perfectly fine thing to be.

Trevor sits back down. He’s not sure why.

The man works in quiet, looping the bike chain into place, testing the pedals. After a while, he wipes his hands on a rag and pulls the thermos from his pack.

“Tea?” he asks, holding it up like it’s a peace offering.

Trevor hesitates. Then nods.

The old man pours into the cap and hands it over. It smells like something floral and old.

Trevor drinks without saying thank you.

“You skip school?” the man asks, not looking at him.

“Yeah.”

“Special occasion or just hate it?”

Trevor snorts, then shrugs. “Father-Son Day.”

The man makes a quiet noise, somewhere between understanding and disgust.

Trevor waits for the usual script. Maybe your dad's just struggling. Maybe he loved you in his own way. Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead, the man says, “What’d he do?”

And Trevor almost laughs.

Not "Where is he?" or "What happened?" But What’d he do.

Like it’s obvious there was a crime. Like Trevor isn’t crazy for carrying it like a coffin on his back.

He looks down at the grass. Plucks at a dandelion stem.

“He hit me,” he says quietly. “Not all the time. Just... enough.”

The man nods. Still doesn’t look surprised.

“People say that’s normal,” Trevor adds. “Like... dads hit. It’s just what they do when they’re mad.”

“People say a lot of shit,” the man replies. “Doesn’t make it true.”

That catches Trevor off guard. He looks up. The man’s watching him now, eyes steady.

“You’re allowed to be angry,” he says. “World’s full of folks telling kids to ‘move on’ from things they ain’t even healed from.”

Trevor swallows hard.

He thinks about the notebook under his bed, where he used to draw his father as a monster—fangs, claws, blood dripping from his hands.

He thinks about the way his mom flinched every time the phone rang for a year.

He thinks about that night in December when he found his dad outside their apartment door, yelling, drunk, trying to break it down. And how Trevor had locked the bathroom and held a hairbrush like a knife while his mom called the police.

And even after all that, people still said: You only get one dad.

Un-fucking-believable.

Trevor stares at the old man, feeling something hot and sharp building behind his ribs.

“What if I don’t want one?”

The man leans back on his heels.

“Then you don’t need one.”

Trevor blinks. “But... everyone else has—”

“Everyone else ain’t you.”

The words land soft, but sure. Like he’s handing Trevor permission to let go of something he’s been clutching so tightly his fingers bled.

Trevor doesn’t respond right away.

The tea’s gone lukewarm in his hands, but he keeps holding it like it’s anchoring him. He watches the man pack up his tools—each wrench, each screwdriver slid into its own little sleeve like it matters where it goes. Like order is possible.

“I used to think he’d come back,” Trevor says suddenly.

The man pauses, but doesn’t look up.

“I used to imagine... not like a movie reunion or anything. Just that he’d show up and be... different. You know? Not drunk. Not mad. Just—normal.”

Still, the man doesn’t interrupt.

Trevor lets out a breath that shakes at the end.

“But every time he came back, he was worse. And I kept thinking maybe I was doing something wrong. Maybe if I’d been better... quieter...”

He trails off.

The man finally stands, brushing his hands on his jeans. “They get in your head like that,” he says. “People like him. They mess you up so bad you start blaming yourself for their violence.”

Trevor looks up. “You knew someone like that?”

The man’s jaw tightens.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

There’s something in the way he says it—past tense but still raw.

Trevor nods slowly.

The wind picks up again, and for a second it feels like the world is holding its breath.

“Do you think... some people just aren’t meant to have fathers?” Trevor asks.

The man meets his eyes. “I think some people are born into storms. And then they spend the rest of their lives figuring out how to build a house that won’t blow down.”

Trevor turns that over in his mind. It makes sense in a way nothing else ever has.

“What if I don’t know how to build that house?” he whispers.

“You start with what you’ve got,” the man says. “Even if all you have is anger and memory. That’s still something.”

Trevor presses his sleeve to his face, wiping away tears he hadn’t noticed until they hit his lip.

It’s not a flood. It’s not cinematic. Just one tear. Then two.

But it’s the first time he’s cried without feeling weak.

The man doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t offer a hug or a pat on the back.

He just sits back down next to Trevor and starts fiddling with a loose bolt on the bike, letting the silence stretch between them like a blanket.

They sit that way for a long time.

***

When Trevor gets home, the sky’s already turning that strange shade between gold and bruised blue.

He walks slowly, hands in his pockets, shoes scuffed with dirt. The door creaks the same way it always does, and the hallway smells like old laundry and dryer sheets. Familiar. Lived-in.

His mom is in the kitchen, leaning on the counter with a mug of tea and an exhausted look in her eyes. She startles when she sees him.

“Hey,” she says, too casual. “I was just about to call.”

“Sorry,” Trevor mutters. “I went for a walk.”

She nods, then hesitates. “You missed school.”

He shrugs.

“I know,” she adds, softer. “Today’s hard.”

Trevor leans against the doorframe. Watches her for a second.

She looks tired in a way he never noticed before. Not just from work or bills—but from carrying both their lives on her back for years. And still, she made him lunch. Signed his permission slips. Kissed his forehead when she thought he was asleep.

Trevor clears his throat.

“Do you... ever miss him?”

His mother doesn’t answer right away. Just exhales and sets her mug down.

“Sometimes I miss who I thought he was,” she says. “But not the man who was here. That man...” Her voice catches. “I don’t miss him.”

Trevor nods slowly.

“I think I used to wait for him to come back and fix everything.”

“I know,” she says quietly.

“But I don’t want to wait anymore.”

His mother walks over, touches his face. Her fingers are warm. Steady.

“You don’t have to,” she says. “You never did.”

Trevor leans into her hand for just a second.

And it’s not that everything’s healed. Or perfect.

But he feels something settle inside him. Like the click of a puzzle piece. Like the first brick of a house that won’t blow down.

***

A week passes.

The house doesn’t change, not really. The couch still sinks in the middle. The bathroom light still flickers when it rains. His mom still hums sad songs when she cooks without meaning to.

But something in Trevor does.

He doesn’t flinch as much when someone calls his name. He laughs once in class and doesn’t feel guilty. He even writes a journal entry for English titled The Man Who Didn’t Want Anything From Me.

Then, on Saturday, he goes back to the woods.

The same path. The same tangled roots. He expects to see the shed again, rusty and leaning, maybe catch the old man with his toolbox and thermos, like some strange guardian of lost boys.

But it’s gone.

No shed. No tools. No thermos.

Just the space where it used to be—flattened grass and the soft echo of the trees.

Trevor’s heart stutters a little, like he’s imagined the whole thing.

Then he sees it.

A bike. Clean. Shining. Fixed within an inch of its life.

Leaning perfectly against a tree with a red ribbon tied to the handlebars. A bow. No note. Just the bow.

Trevor walks up slowly, half-expecting it to vanish if he blinks.

He runs his fingers over the handle, the cool metal smooth under his touch. The tires are new. The chain doesn’t creak.

It’s just... there. Like a gift. Like a goodbye.

He looks around once more. The wind rustles the trees but says nothing.

Trevor smiles, small but real. Swings his leg over the seat.

And for the first time in a long, long while, he rides.