My dad is a hero.

  Everyone always talks about some medal he won or someone he saved. He came to my middle school’s career day and gave a talk, and of course everyone loved it. He spoke about how he does his best so he can come back to us every day, how he can’t stop fighting to create a world his son can live in.

  Bullshit.

  What world? What son?

  As far as I’m concerned, he’s no one.

  The idol everyone in the neighborhood looks up to. Anyone would think he’s the best—but I know the truth. He’s obsessed with the attention. The only reason he ran into that burning building was because he knew the news would be there. He never would’ve enlisted if he hadn’t known we’d worship the ground he walked on just for coming back alive.

  He doesn’t do things for good reasons. He’s just a conceited, vainglorious poser.

  He says he does it so he can come back to us?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  My mother and I haven’t seen him in weeks. On the mornings he is here, she’s crying, begging him not to go.

  Some hero.

  What kind of hero makes his wife cry?

  What kind of hero misses his son’s basketball games?

  “You must be so proud.”

  “You’re so lucky.”

  I always smile and say, “I am, thank you,” even though it makes me want to throw up. I wish he were gone—or better yet, someone else’s dad. Maybe then I’d get a father who actually cared about me.

  Everyone glorifies him so much, but they don’t see that he gave up his family to make them happy.

  “I do it for them.”

  Bullshit.

  “I love my family more than anything.”

  Not more than yourself.

  “My wife and son mean the world to me.”

  As if.

  I wish he’d just leave us alone. At least then we wouldn’t have to deal with that fake, remorseful smile he gives every time he says he won’t be there.

  He loves the attention so much he even had to die for it.

  You’d think the world going to shit would finally show us who he really is—but no. Someone starts a fight outside the house and there he is, rushing in to play the hero again.

  I wish he wasn’t a hero.

  Then he wouldn’t have had to die.

  He should’ve let them fight, but of course he didn’t. He had to step in. And of course it’s our luck that these two psychos could turn their hands into spikes.

  Somehow, he made it back to us.

  But of course, he isn’t here to stay.

  “I don’t think I’ll be back in time again, bud,” he said—still using the same old lines. Forever the attention seeker. Forever the hero.

  .....

  I miss my dad.