“You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say?” When she looks back at me, her eyes are strained and watery, making me feel like I’m being punched without being touched. “This isn’t like you.”
“I know.”
That only makes her more upset. She shakes her head and she stirs in her chair. “I don’t understand, Myles. What is going on with you?”
“I wanted to play baseball.”
Her gaze rises to the ceiling and she blinks. “It’s just a game.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand because you don’t talk to me anymore. You’re never home and when you are, you hide in your room the whole time.”
“What do you expect me to do? Adam is always around.”
She flinches, lips falling. “Of course he is. He’s part of our family.”
“He’s your family!” I don’t know why but my throat is getting tight and my eyes sting as I think about seeing her with him. It doesn’t matter how much time has gone by. It’s wrong. “You, me, and dad. That’s my family.”
Her face loses color. “Do you not like Adam?”
“He’s not my dad,” I choke out, unable to keep my tears in anymore.
Her hand touches her lips and tears fill her eyes.
“Everything changed when Adam showed up! You took down all of our family pictures, and our house smells different. We eat different food and we watch different shows.” My body trembles, and my head spins. “I feel lost in my own home. Baseball is the only thing I have left of Dad, and you want to take that away too!”
My chest feels like it’s about to explode. Like my heart is trying to pump too much blood at once and I have no way to relieve the pressure.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My fingers grow numb at my side. “Because you’re happy now.”
But you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She’s crying as hard as I am. “I want us all to be happy.”
“How can I be happy when I hear you laughing and talking in the hallway”—my voice catches, cracking mid-word—“and I have to remind myself it’s you and Adam, not you and Dad?”
I know it shouldn’t bother me when Dad’s been gone for so long, but seeing Adam fill my dad’s shoes ripped the wound wide open again. No one told me how it would feel to see someone kiss my mom and hold her hand like my dad used to.
And no one told me how guilty I’d feel for hating it. For wishing Adam wasn’t around even though it would mean she’d be lonely.
“Myles . . .” Mom says, but she trails off. “Let’s figure this out.”
But how? There’s no way to fix this. It’s not like there’s away to get my dad back, and Adam isn’t going anywhere. All I did was make it worse. Now my mom’s crying and I’ve ruined my chances of playing baseball the rest of the year.
My whole future is slipping through my hands and there is nothing I can do.
The room is closing in on me, and when I try to breathe, it’s like the air can’t reach my lungs.
I aim for the door, but my mom jumps up and holds on to me. “Myles, stop. We aren’t finished.”
My tears are hot on my cheeks when I look at her. I hate that I hurt her, and seeing her cry makes me want to vomit. “Please,” I beg. “Let me go.”
She does.
26
EMMA
