We’ve spent some awkward holidays and car rides together since my fuck-up, but it’s never been for more than a few days at a time, and we’ve been able to avoid each other for the majority of the last eight hundred and twenty-nine days. Not that I’ve been counting.
Now, I’m back in her space. In her family. In the one place that ever felt like home to me.
And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to rebuild what I broke.
Or if this time, staying will cost all of us more than leaving ever did.
2
SLOANE
If I keep moving, nothing can catch me.
That’s the rule.
I’ve lived by it long enough that my body doesn’t question it anymore—up before my alarm, shoes on without thinking, hair pulled back tight enough that it won’t fall loose no matter how hard I cut across the court. I like routines because routines don’t ask questions.
They don’t look at you like they know.
Practice runs long today. Coach pushes us harder than usual, drills bleeding into scrimmage, scrimmage bleeding into conditioning. My calves burn. My lungs scrape. Sweat drips into my eyes and blurs the lines on the court until everything narrows to motion and breath and the sound of sneakers squealing against hardwood.
Good.
Pain like this is clean. Earned. It makes sense.
Coach blows the whistle and finally lets us off the floor. I bend forward, hands on my knees, forcing my breathing backunder control. A freshman throws up into a trash can near the bench. Someone laughs. Someone else hands her water.
Normal.
I check my phone as I grab my bag.
Three missed calls from Pops.
That’s not normal.
I glance at the time. Mid-morning. He had an appointment today with oncology. I know the schedule by heart, even though I pretend I don’t.
My chest tightens with nerves, sharp and unwelcome.
It’s probably nothing, I tell myself immediately. He forgets where he parks. Loses his keys. Calls because he wants to ask if I’ve eaten breakfast, even though he knows the answer.
He worries about minor things like that.
I can’t really blame him for his slight overprotectiveness over the years. If I came home from getting dinner with my kids one day to find that my wife had disappeared, leaving nothing but a note behind, I’d be overprotective too.
She left that night, and we never heard from her again. No birthday check-ins, nothing. Cameron and I were only three and four at the time, so we’ve never really known anything else.
I shove my phone back into my bag and head for the locker room, forcing my steps to stay steady. I don’t call him back until the door is shut, the noise is muffled, and I’m alone with the echo of my own breathing.
“Hey,” I say when he answers, breathless on purpose. “Sorry. Practice.”
“That’s okay,” Pops says easily. Too easily. “Just wanted to make sure you were coming home tonight.”
“Well, I do live there,” I reply, towel slung around my neck as I start peeling off my practice gear.
“I know,” he says. “Just…dinner. Thought we’d eat together.”
Uh…duh?Pops hates eating alone, so I’ve always made it a priority to be there when I can for meals with him.
