It was the standard response, and one that no one tended to question.
"People in this line of work don't have families."
It wasn't strictly true. Certainly, it posed challenges to any sort of close relationship, but there were those who found a way to make it work. You do what you have to when someone is important enough to you. Relationships tend to complicate just about everything in your life, and it was true that the last thing I needed was one more complication. My job was complicated enough, thank you.
I sighed and grabbed the bottle of water in the seat next to me. Being stuck in a car doing surveillance gets old really fast. Unfortunately your mind tends to wander; sometimes in directions that you'd rather not go. It was anyone's guess why this line of thought was stuck in my head. Still, I appeared to have plenty of time to kill tonight…
Honestly, the real reason I had decided that I wasn't the "relationship type" was because of my Dad. I had spent so many years proving that I wasn't a thing like him. Truth was, I had a bit more of him in me than I would ever admit, and that scared me more than anything. I could stare death in the face and not even flinch, did it every other day. The idea that I could ever become the type of guy my Dad was utterly terrified me.
That's why at 17 I'd run as far in the opposite direction as I could. I did everything in my power to strangle that part of me that could become him, because I would never let that happen.
I'd considered a serious relationship once, briefly anyway. In the end, I couldn't shake the image of what living with Dad had done to Mom. She deserved better. Was repeating the mistakes of our parents inevitable?
I recalled something I'd overheard once, "It can stop with you."
A bit of movement caught my attention. Time to get back to work.