“I’m serious.” Dad frowns, his blue eyes like looking into a mirror. “I need to help Colt and Dylan with their drills, and it’s supposed to pour in the afternoon. Morning would be the best time to get outside.”
“I don’t care if Colton’s flying to the moon tomorrow,” Mom says with an eye roll. “Youaregoing to that appointment. I’m driving you myself.”
I grin at my father. “Don’t worry, Dad. Dylan and I will try not to kill each other while you’re gone.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” he grumbles.
“We’re practicing over here. So when you get home, you can pop into the backyard and clean up any carnage.”
“Sometimes I wish you boys had fallen in love with a less violent hobby,” Mom says. “When Ayden, Jenson, and Cameron come out to Montana, it’s like a bloodbath in the backyard. I never knew teenagers could be so brutal.”
My mother’s the same age as my dad, but her blond hair hasn’t started graying. With her hair up in a ponytail and hardly any makeup on, she easily looks ten years younger than she is.
“You’re exaggerating,” I tease her. “Ayden and Cameron are too young to inflict much bodily harm.”
“Yet,” she warns me. “Just you wait—those boys are growing quickly. Soon, they could be bigger than you.”
I laugh. “That will just make our games even more competitive.”
Ayden and Cameron round out my other two cousins who are also my close friends. And Jenson’s my best friend. We met at football camp one summer, hit it off, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. All three of them live out of state, but we make sure to get together annually, sometimes more frequently.
“How about we play some poker?” I ask Dad. “If I take enough of your money, maybe it will distract you from trying to get out of your appointment tomorrow.”
“Ha, ha. You may have gone past me on the football field, but I can still beat you in cards.” Dad grabs the deck of playing cards off the counter, and we head for the back porch.
Life is pretty good right now. Simple. Between family and football, I can’t imagine ever needing anything more.
Chapter Four
Skylar
I don’t want to go home after school. Mom’s usually at the house by three, but not always. She works so hard to make sure we have food on the table because my father’s unreliable. He spends a lot of his money on alcohol, and she never knows how much he’ll have left over for the rest of us.
Ben and Nick both have football practice, so they won’t be back for hours. After what happened last night, the idea of being alone with my father makes me sick to my stomach.
Not that it doesn’t always make me sick.
But things have escalated over the past year. His new job pays better than his last one, but he doesn’t like the work. Maybe that’s why.
I nearly throw up at the way I’m excusing him even when I’m alone and no one’s around to hear me.
I snuck into a support group last month, and the leader of the session talked about how a victim of domestic abuse always finds a way to blame herself rather than putting the responsibility on the abuser.
I do this far too often, but the thing is, if I stop blaming myself…
I have no idea where to go from here.
Ben and Nick tried to get me to promise I’d sit in the bleachers and watch their practice this afternoon so we could all take the bus home together when they finished, but I’d rather do something fun for me. So I told them I had plans and that I’d see them tonight.
I call the animal shelter where I volunteer on Saturdays and ask if they need any help.
They’re thrilled for an extra set of hands, so I hop on the bus and take it downtown. I have to change lines twice, but it’s worth it to get to spend time with the animals.
As soon as I step into the one-story brick building that doubles as an animal clinic and shelter, Dina greets me with a big smile.
“I’ve got a surprise for you!” Her short black curly hair bounces as she hops up and down. “Come see.”
She leads me through the lobby and large room of crated animals and down the hallway into a back room.
