“Turns out you were right.”
“I could have told you that before you came all the way out here,” she says with sass, then crosses her arms. “As much as I like hearing that, I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Romeo and Juliet.It's not all their own doing. It's external forces. How are they supposed to move forward and be with each other when they're trapped in a cage?”
Her expression shifts, and she quietly closes the door. She rests her palm on my arm, my skin warming from the touch. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
She waits.
I back away, but now that she’s here, I don’t think I can leave.
“No. I’m not.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling her taking me in with those impossibly deep eyes of hers. “I don’t know.”
She gestures to the porch swing. “Want to sit?”
Not really. It looks like it might collapse under my weight. I don’t say no, though. I’m too afraid she might leave me alone out here if I do. We settle onto the swing carefully, and it creaks ominously but holds. Laura pulls her knees up to her chest, waiting.
My foot moves the swing slowly.
“What happened tonight?” she asks quietly.
“My dad showed up at my game tonight,” I say finally, not able to look at her.
“That's… good, isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t just him. He came with cameras and a full production crew. He filmed the entire game for his show, and I failed miserably because of it. The arena was chanting… for him. It threw me off my game, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he came into the locker room at the end too. He wanted to celebrate, but all it felt like was he was celebrating my failure at helping the team win.”
“Oh.”
I finally drag my gaze to hers, waiting to see the judgment in her eyes. There isn’t any.
“I love him. I really do. He's the most supportive dad I could ever ask for, but is there such a thing as too much support? He's everywhere, and everyone loves him, so no one gets it. How could I not be happy that the greatest hockey player in the world wants to support me? That I have his genes and look just like him? That maybe I could play just like him. I wish it was that easy and that trying to live up to his legacy didn’t make me feel like I’m drowning. The worst part is he means well. He’s not trying to be overbearing. He genuinely thinks he’s helping and that if he pushes me hard enough, shares enough wisdom, creates enough opportunities, I’ll achieve everything he did and more.”
She’s taking me in, watching every move. That's when I realize I'm babbling to a girl who already thinks I'm a privileged asshole, and I'm probably proving her point.
Fuck. I'm an idiot, but I didn’t want to go anywhere else.
“I'm sorry.”
“Hey. Don’t be sorry.”
She shakes her head a little, wrapping the long cardigan around her. “It sounds like you needed to get that out.” She bites her bottom lip. “You didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No.” The admission feels good to say out loud. “I didn't. I love hockey, I do, but sometimes I wonder if I’d be where I am without my father’s last name.”
Laura reaches over and takes my hand. The simple connection nearly undoes me.
“Does he know how you feel?” she asks gently.
I shake my head. “How can I tell him? He's done so much for me. He built a fucking dorm for me, helped me get an NHL contract, and opened the doors so I had my choice of school. How do I look at him and say 'thanks, but also, please back off'?”
“By opening your mouth and using words?” Laura suggests, but there's no judgment in her voice. “I know it's not that simple, but Scotty, if you don't set boundaries with him, this is just going to get worse.”
She's right. Of course she's right, but whenever I think about that conversation, all I see is my dad’s disappointed face. It’ll probably be the first time in his life he’s ever felt like a failure, and it’ll be because ofme.
“He's dropping hints that the producers of his show want to add an entire college storyline,” I continue. “They want to follow me around campus, film practices, interview my teammates. My teammates were practically salivating at the idea.”
