good I can be and how good I can make him look. I truly think that, in his mind, he feels better as a person, as a father, if his sons are successful—like me being a good football player makes him a better dad. What a joke. And if I think about it, that makes him a pretty shitty father in my book.
“You did the right thing, letting her go. I don’t want you to slide back into bad habits.”
Fury rises in me, and I want to punch him in his smug fucking face, but I rein it in. I suppress it, like I usually do.
Lily could never be a bad habit. She is the best part of my life.
Truthfully, my dad likes Lily. His desire for us to be apart has nothing to do with her as a person, but it has everything to do with my future success. His philosophy is very straightforward. I should be the best quarterback that his alma mater has ever had while getting a prestigious degree at the same time. In his eyes, there is no time for anything else.
I stand up straighter. “I don’t need your advice where Lily is concerned. I’m not getting back together with her. We are watching a movie. That is all.”
I cannot wait to return to school. Although he hounds me there as well, at least I can use the excuse of being busy with football and my studies as a valid reason for not calling him back. But, here, with him standing in my face, staring at me with judgment and disappointment, I can’t escape.
Since freshman year, I started using football and practices as an excuse to come home less during holidays and summer vacations. I felt guilty because it meant less time with Lily, but the time with her here would have been tainted with my dad’s ugliness anyway. I’d rather see her twice a month up at college, away from his negativity, than here every day.
It looks like I’m going to cut my time here short this holiday break, too. I have to get out of here before I blow and do something I’ll regret.
My dad stares at me for a few moments longer. “Okay,” he says. “Just remember, no girl is worth becoming a failure, son.”
I nod, but in my head, I’m flinging a slur of choice words his way. I just don’t understand him. He’s always been tough on Landon and me, but he’s getting worse.
I watch my dad walk away, down the hall toward his bedroom. I stand in the kitchen for a few beats and compose myself. I exhale, releasing all the anger threatening to burst out of me. I don’t want the little time I have with Lily to be tainted with any residual damage from my father.
I make my way downstairs to our theater room. Upon entering, I see Lily and frown. She’s all the way over on the very far end of the sofa, stiff as a board. She is sitting in a way that is meant to look relaxed, but she isn’t fooling me. She looks so uncomfortable that it’s almost comical.
I plaster on a grin and walk around to the front of the couch. “You okay?”
“Yep, fine,” she answers in a forced cheerful voice.
I scan the room for some reason, unable to keep my eyes on her. There’s an awkward tension, making me feel very uneasy. I see the message light flashing on my cell. I hand Lily the bowl of popcorn and walk over to my phone on the table.
Swiping my finger across the screen, I see a message from Stella.
Stella: Miss you.
I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. She told me earlier that she was going to study today because her dad would be working late at the office. Since he wouldn’t be home, they weren’t going to be doing anything special for Christmas Eve.
Stella got sick the last week of school and missed a few finals, getting incompletes in those classes. She and I were in the same economics class last semester, and we always studied together. Stella is paranoid about her grades and likes to study a lot. I guess we have that in common. This is the first time since September that she has had to study for an econ test without me, and I know she wasn’t looking forward to it.
I type a quick reply.
Me: Ha! No, you miss my flawless study techniques! LOL. You will