But it’s unfair, the way he projects his childhood trauma onto me.
“Yes,” I mumble. “I’ve been listening to you for the last hour and a half.”
“Hand your phone over,” my dad says, as if I hadn’t responded to him. “That way, you’ll have no distractions.”
I suppress a groan and focus on quickly typing a message to Zach. Who knows when I’ll be granted the privilege of my phone again.
Me
I’m counting the minutes until I see you again
Then I click over to my text thread with my brother and blast out an angry message.
Me
I’ll never forgive you for not having my back
Then I block him. If he respected me, Matt would’ve handled this situation with me directly, not ratted me out to our parents, jeopardizing everything I’ve been working toward.
I place my phone in my dad’s waiting palm. I feel sixteen again.
The two people in the front of the car hurt my faith in myself. They’re biologically designed to think I hang the moon, but instead, they think I’m not capable of caring for myself.
My mother turns, her head leaning against the seat while she watches me. “Honey, we want what’s best for you, you know that.”
“I know.” I bite the inside of my lip to keep tears at bay. “But Mom, I’m happier now than I’ve been in years.”
“You look tired,” my dad says. “Too much time doing flips and staying out all night with your brother’s teammate.”
“Matthew.” My mother says his name gently, but there’s an unmistakable warning in it.
“Doing flips?” I repeat. “You mean the incredibly challenging sport of gymnastics? Unless we’re boiling down all sports to their simplest form, in which case, your three sons move around on knives, smashing people against a wall. What noble careers they have.”
“Same career as your boyfriend,” Dad retorts.
“I don’t want to talk about him with you.”
I lean my head on the window and watch the world zip by. It’s how I felt the last two years—stagnant, witnessing everyone else taking steps toward their goals. I’m not going back to that existence, even if it means losing my family. I love them—of course I do—but I can’t love them at the expense of my mental health.
“Too bad, because tomorrow we have a session with Dr. Warren.”
Fantastic.
My parents and I sit on the familiar green couch in Dr. Warren’s office. This couch and I bonded over the years I came here for therapy—daily in the beginning, then twice per week, eventually dropping to weekly.
“It’s good to see you in person, Finley.” Dr. Warren crosses her legs, resting them on a footstool in front of her. Black frame glasses sit on top of her blond curly bob; she only uses them when taking notes in the book in her lap. “Did you have a nice holiday?”
The weight of my parent’s stares burn the side of my face, but I keep looking straight ahead. “It had its moments.”
Waking up next to Zach Briggs, for one. He slept with a smile on his face, and I hoped it had something to do with telling him I love him. I could picture every day like that, opening my eyes to see him beside me. I want it so badly, it hurts to think I might lose him. The decision he needs to make about our relationship isn’t an emotional one, it’s logical. It’s why I’m forcing him to think it through while I’m gone.
“What’s that smile about?” Dr. Warren probes.
Unsurprisingly, my dad interrupts, impatiently tapping his foot. “She has a secret boyfriend—anotherhockey player—and went back to gymnastics without telling anyone. Unless she told you?”
Dr. Warren shakes her head once. “You know I can’t answer that, Matthew.”
“I didn’t,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and sinking further into the couch.
