Tom was 12 when he and his parents were a car accident. They got hit by a semi. It rolled the car, flinging his father out of the car. That was 3 years ago. 3 years ago his father died. He is 15 now. It's been 3 years but everyone still gives him that kicked puppy look. Then his mother started bringing David around. She introduced him as her co-worker. "Honey, this is David. He's a co-worker of mine." But Tim saw the way he made her smile. He could tell it was something more. Exactly 1 year after David was fist introduced, they sprung the news on him. They were getting married. Tim didn't show up, instead he spent the day with his father at the cemetary. David came and found him after the wedding. "You okay son?" He asked Tim. Tim glared at him. "David, let's get one thing straight here: You're not my dad, you're my mother's husband. My dad is dead, and you are not him. You can't replace him." Tim stormed away leaving David standing there in shock. Tim hardly came home and when he did it was only for a short time. When he was home he acted as if David didn't exsist. On his 18th birthday he came home for the last time. He "parents" weren't home. He packed his things and left, vowing never to come home again. Tim drove off and wasn't seen again by David or his mother for 15 years. Tim was 33 living a wonderful life in LA when he got the call. It wasn't a number he reconized yet he answered it anyway. "Hello" he said. Then, a voice answered him it was a voice he hadn't heard since he was 17. "Tim, it's your mother. She's gone" The voice was David. "I'll be there soon" Tim said be fore hanging up. Tim drove the 4 hour drive home, but it seemed to take forever. Those words kept repeating in his head. "Tim, it's your mother. She's gone" He let his grief over take hime suddenly his visioned blurred. When it cleared he couldn't tell where he was, but he looked over and saw his parents standing next to him. He realized they were in his favorite park when he was little. "Mom," Tim asked not believing what he was seeing. "This isn't possible your both gone." His mother smiled. "We are never truly gone, we are beside you always. But you have to wake up. It's to soon for you to die my little boy." Then everything went black. This time when his vison cleared he saw smoke and the road. He couldn't remember where he was. Then he rembered the call from David. He crawled out of the smoking rubble of his car. He had no idea where his phone was or what happened. He blacked out again. This time when he woke it was brief he saw the pristine white hallways. A hospital he guessed. He didn't wake up again. The weeks following Tim's death David was consumed with grief. I should have tried harder to be a better person to him.

The way things look is important to my mother. You could almost say she’s obsessed. After my father died, she felt compelled to redecorate the entire house. She’d pour over DIY magazines and lose her shit if the idiots at Home Depot gave her eggshell paint when she’d asked for pearl. Yes, everything has to be perfect and in its proper place—which is why I can never understand why she married a loser like David.

He’s the perfect example of what this town can do to a person. Apparently, he was some kind of big shot athlete in high school. He was the king of this town, once. He clings to those days as if the memory of them is dipped in gold. The glory years when the world was his oyster and everybody would fight and claw just to stand beside him. “That kid’s going places.” I’m sure somebody said about him back then. But he made a tragic mistake: he stayed. He grew old. Those people who used to worship him moved away or moved on, and he was left behind with only the faded image of a world that used to belong to him. Decades of freeloaded beer have plumped out his once fit physique, and his “Best Hair” accolades from the class of ’83 seem less and less relevant as the years go on.

I hate him. I hate him for so many reasons, not the foremost being that he latched onto my mother before my dad’s body had even gone cold. He hates me too. He tries to hide it when my mother’s around, but it’s obvious that he does. His reasons are the same as everyone else’s in this town—I’m weird. I don’t fit. I don’t belong. Not that I mind much what the StepDave thinks of me. He’s a world class asshole with an allergy to hard work and a penchant for day drinking.

"You're not going out of the house dressed like that." I hear him bark from the kitchen table.

I can’t help but roll my eyes. His half-assed attempts at “parenting” could almost be seen as a joke, they’re so ingenuine. His favorite line--an old standby--is my personal favorite: “If you’re gonna live in my house. You’re gonna live by my rules.” Never mind the irony that this isn’t his house at all. This is my dad’s house. And the only rule I aim to follow is the one I made up myself years ago: Make the StepDave miserable, at any cost.

I do this by playing fun little games--like wearing outlandish clothes I know he hates or by hiding his liquor bottles when he's passed out in his recliner.

What can he do to me? My mom is his meal ticket and he can never show her the true monster that lives beneath his mask. This gives me the freedom to fuck with him with absolutely no fear of retribution.

The Stepdave will never be my dad. Not ever. Not even close.

It's insulting that my mom even pretends.

"David, let's get one thing straight here: your not my dad, your my mother's husband" Beth said, I was coming in from the back patio after finishing a delicous piece of coconut creme pie, "congrats.." I said but saw Beth shouting at my uncle David. Quite a scene to come into, of course let me backtrack to earlier that day. (que flashback music) My grammie has a summer cottage on a lake, my mom hates that place because she had to spend every summer there as a teenager and there was nothing to do. We go every other summer, and I look forward to driving up that dusty gravel road, and seeing a tiny cottage in the middle of the woods. I was expecting a normal trip, well it didn't go as planned. My mom told me that one the drive up there, that was my uncle was dating a nice woman named Anne, and that she had two kids- Beth and Peter. Beth was a year younger than me, and Peter was my age. Anne's husband had died from cancer years ago and my uncle and her had been dating for awhile. My mom explained that if her brother David married Anne, they would be my step-cousins. So, my uncle David would be my step-uncle? no I would have step-cousins. Beth and her mom decided to take a canoe trip around the lake. Grammie had just cut a watermelon, and I couldn't resist and got a slice. My mom told me that she wanted to tell me something, but I was really focused on my slice of watermelon. Peter and my uncle soon set up the tennis net and played bad minton against each other; Peter was no match for my uncle. We had a nice dinner and my mom pulled me aside, she wanted to tell me something, she didn't want the others to know so she whispered it in my ear. I scarfed down my pie, and went inside, to where you the reader come in. "Now Bethie, calm down" her mother said. Calm down, calm down? her mother was going to marry this guy, and they had finally gotten over her father's death. It was as if, her father did'net exist and she was marring someone else. I hugged her, which probabily didn't help. "Welcome to the family" I said. Beth crossed her arms, "Don't I have a say in this?" she said. And a year later, my uncle David married Anne. My mom attended the wedding, and that Beth had quite a sourpuss expression on her face when they took a picture of her and her brothers and the new bride. It took a while for Beth to warm up to my uncle, but now the two are close. I now have step-cousins, I would see them right now, but Beth is expecting her first child and Peter is studying to be a lawyer. I hope that when this is all over, I can see them.