He nods. "Well, I figured you'd assume I was the one who started that rumor, but—"
"Wait… it wasn't you?"
He sighs heavily, looking down at his feet. "I don't blame you for thinking that. It's shameful really, but I get it. It wasn't though, Drew. I swear. When I saw you at the cemetery, it all clicked for me. Something else overdue, I guess. The fact that you talk to a tombstone more than your father probably should have been a hint all along… not that it's a bad thing. You know what I mean." Dad cracks his neck to one side and nervously rubs his arm. "But I haven't seen you laugh like that since freshman year. Then, after the last few games, it all started to add up. The play changes, the hair, the girl… it's like I saw a glimpse of who you were before… when your mother was still around."
I want to say so many things. Ask so many questions. But I can't seem to sort them out. So, instead, Dad continues. "This person you've become—the one I've forced on you—that's notyou."
My shoulders fall, the weight I once carried instantly gone. "It's not, Dad. It hasn't been for a really long time. I'm not sure it ever was."
"No, I know," he says, brushing the tip of his toe across the rubber flooring. "And I'm sorry for not seeing that. When your mother died, I… I didn't know what to do—how to carry that grief and still be there for you. I think it was easier for me to just get lost in it all. To avoid my new reality. To convince myself that I was doing what was best for you so that you didn't have to acknowledge it either. Like if you were just bigger, better, more successful, that you'd somehow manage to forget that your entire world was uprooted when you were supposed to be at your most carefree."
The locker room door slams shut, and only then do I realize that we're alone in the tunnel—the two of us left to soak up the silence. I picture Brooke again for the same reason as I did with Burns—who apparently was right—and I tell him exactly what I'd say to her.
"I didn't need to get lost in it, Dad. I needed to feel it. To live through it in a way that would make her proud."
"Oh, she's proud of you, son. That I'm sure of. And this..." He flicks his fingertips through the top of my hair. "This would make her happier than anything."
"The hair?" I ask, brushing my glove past my fringe.
"All of it."
I swallow hard—pain, happiness, frustration, peace—all of it passing through me at once. "I don't want to leave Golden City, Dad. I'm not going to."
"I know, son. And I'm done pushing for that. Hell, I'm done pushing for any of it."
His words settle over me, and for a second, I'm a teenager again. My mom is gone, but my dad's still here. And despite all of my disheveledpieces, it's as if he's helping me to press them back together. All of them but one.
"I don't know what's going to happen."
He looks at me, his eyes full of emotion, and the corners of his lips curled slightly. "With the girl, you mean." It's not a question. It looks like my dad still knows me after all.
"Brooke."
"Brooke," he repeats, and I'm taken back to the day I first heard her name spoken out loud.
"Yeah," I sigh, remembering how much has changed since then—since she came back to me. "There's just a lot of shit going on."
"Has she seen the rumor?"
I inhale, narrowing my eyes. "She might have."
"Well, is she mad?"
"It's possible."
He pauses, squinting at me. "Okay… what'd she say when you talked to her about it?"
My face scrunches up as I respond. "I haven't." Dad's lips fall open. "No phone, remember?"
He scratches the back of his head, then heaves out a deep breath. "Drew… do you love her?"
I smile genuinely for the first time all day. "I definitely like her," I answer coyly.
He purses his lips and smothers a laugh. "Then I think you should get the hell out of here."
"Dad, I can't just—"
"Yes," he says bluntly. "You can."
