work he did. But he took pride in his work, and that made him happy.”
“Well, if they all drive like you, I’m betting your dad gets lots of work.”
I chuckle. “Touché.” I stretch my knee out, the tension it gets when sitting still for too long makes it start to ache.
“Do you want an ice pack?”
I shake my head. “I might try and get some injections.”
Her head pulls back like I’ve slapped her. “Injections? You can’t. That isn’t going to help. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a cut artery. You’d still bleed out.”
“But I need to get out there and practice.”
“You need to heal.”
“I will. I’m not going to be out there running plays and stuff. I just need to get well enough that I can strengthen and start preparing for the fall. If I don’t, I’m going to lose whatever small chance I have of being drafted.”
“But what if you re-injure it and can’t walk? What if you hurt it even worse?”
I clap my hands together, my frustration so great it feels like it’s running through my bones and my blood, trapped as I remain still. Why can’t she be on my side about this? “So, I just don’t try? I kiss all my dreams away? I can’t do that. I worked too damn hard and too damn long to let someone tell me how to live the rest of my life.”
Her eyes narrow, a flicker of pain hiding behind anger. “Are you insinuating something?”
“My life was good. My life was great, and then I got hurt, and everything has gone to shit. Don’t you understand that? I’m healthy and young. A few shots to help me forget the pain so I can get back into shape is nothing.”
“You’re a mess,” she says, shaking her head. “While you’re at it, why don’t you ask for some pain killers to get addicted, too? You act like you’ve been personally fucked over. You haven’t. You got hurt. You’re going to be fine. Put on your big boy panties, and get over it.”
“Like you’re one to talk. You act like leaving Texas was the worst thing in the world. If you hate it here so much, then why don’t you go back? Why’d you ever leave?”
“Because my mom died, you asshole.”
Her words feel like an explosion in my chest, a realization of so many things and a question for many more that leaves me frozen in place as a myriad of emotions hit me at once as she stares at me, her narrow nostrils flaring before she turns and stalks out the door.
24
Olivia
I head out to the living room and grab my coat, my throat thick with emotions, and my eyes blurry with tears.
“Liv,” Arlo says, stepping out into the living room, his voice gentle, sullen. “I didn’t mean that. I was an asshole. I’m so, so, so sorry.”
I shake my head, willing the tears to leave as I debate where I’d go right now if I did leave. Not to my dad’s, that’s for sure.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Arlo asks. “I mean, it’s your business and your life, so you get to decide who to allow in, but, I don’t know, I thought we were friends.”
A tear slides down my cheek. Another one follows, faster, bigger, and warmer than the last. “Because having a parent die—having a loved one die—it’s like you’re suddenly part of this club, and everyone looks at you differently, talks to you differently—acts differently. Jokes become filtered, and whenever someone says die, or death, or dead, everyone looks at you, waiting for you to break, so even if you felt okay upon hearing it, you can’t now that everyone’s waiting for you to prove you’re fine.
“My mom, my friends, my school—everything I knew changed in less than a week. I went from worrying about boys and what I was going to wear and drama practice, to leaving everyone I loved and knew to live with strangers. My dad bought me new clothes and a new bed and this whole new life—this picture-perfect life with a white picket fence and family barbecues on the weekends and vacations abroad. Eventually, I felt like I was becoming two people—the me from before and the me from after—and I still feel like I’m walking a tightrope between those identities, which makes me sound absolutely crazy, and I had no idea how to tell you part of it without telling you all of it, and all of it is just