One Apple A Day #21
He is among the audience. Why is he here? Jason didn’t tell anyone of this event. He did everything possible to keep his debut a secret. It’s hard enough to go out there and talk to a bunch of unknown people. If everything goes wrong he will have to avoid that city for the rest of his life. Not a big deal. It won’t affect his life so much. He’ve never been here in his first 40 years of life, he can’t see any good reasons why it can’t do the same for the following 40.
But he is here. And this is bad. The mere knowldge of his presence is affecting his anxiety. From the expression on Lucy’s face he knows that the effects are already visible. It’s always the same, since he was a kid at school. The racing heart, the red chicks, the hands rubbing on the hips.
“What’s going on Jason? It’s just your father. Your are ready, you prepared for this for months. You’re going to nail it. Don’t let him affect your performance. You won’t even be able to see him out there.”
“You don’t understand. It has always been like this. Nothing I do is good enough for him. For him I’m a constant failure affecting the reputation of the family. It doesn’t matter if I can’t see him. I know he’s there and that’s enough.”
Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know that in the middle of the audience, someone has a solution to all his fears. A solution he won’t like.