“Horrible,” Mom chokes out, bringing a finger to dry tears before they fall. “Finley, being a parent never stops… and I don’t want it to stop. You—and your brothers—are my greatest joys in life. Nothing you can say or do will ever change that. You have to know that.”
Her arm wraps around me, pulling me to her as she squeezes my shoulder. My head rests against hers. All I can think is how lucky I am to have their support, but it also generates a familiar stab of guilt for the problems I bring to their lives.
“Matthew?” Dr. Warren prompts.
“We love Finley, and we want what’s best for her. Deep down, she knows that’s not what we think.”
Dr. Warren tilts her head. “Does she?” She waits for a beat, but my dad doesn’t answer. “I’d like to explore this a bit more next time. How does that sound?”
“Good,” I say, and I mean it.
My dad holds up a hand. “Wait—we came here to talk about how to get her back on track. We had an agreement in place. She went behind our backs to the sport that almost killed her. And now she’s dating another hockey player. We all remember what the last one did.”
Dr. Warren clears her throat. “What I’m hearing from Finley is we need to rethink that agreement.”
Dad launches out of his seat, raising his arms in the air. “That’s bullshit. These rules keep her safe.” He strides out of the office, the door shutting loudly behind him.
My mom places her hand on my knee. “He’s scared, honey. He doesn’t want to see you hurt again.”
I take a steadying breath. “Ironic, right? Since that’s what your rules are doing.”
“We’ll talk this through,” Dr. Warren says in her patented calm voice. “I’m proud of you, Finley. You’ve made so much progress. It’s not easy, speaking your mind.”
My mom squeezes my hand. It’s the first gesture from any of my family that doesn’t smother me for as long as I can remember. All I can do is hope Dr. Warren can help us work through this predicament. My family loves me. I don’t want to lose them, but I also can’t keep living my life on their terms. I need to make decisions and take risks again.
I need them there when I failandwhen I succeed, even if they don’t agree with every choice I make.
I don’t remember how I withstood this before. It’s been a week and a half of journaling my food intake, sitting for an hour in the sun while life passes by, and talking to Dr. Warren about my mood. It’s plummeted since coming here as I mindlessly follow the routine set for me. But I listen to my parents until I can figure out what to do.
No solutions have come to me yet.
Despite multiple therapy sessions with my parents, we’ve come no closer to reaching an understanding that would allow me to go back to North Carolina, continue training for gymnastics, and dating Zach. At least not one that involves my parents paying for college, and I’ve checked—my second-semester payment remains outstanding, so this isn’t a bluff.
With exactly zero credit to my name, I’d need a cosigner for a loan. With a corporate accountant and a school principalfor parents, our family doesn’t qualify for financial aid, so my parents never applied.
Let’s not forget that I burned a bridge at Casa Matt, Jr., which means I don’t have a place to live.
And I have exactly a week and a half to figure it all out before my life constricts to this meaningless existence for the foreseeable future.
32
Zach
Finley promised she wouldn’tdisappear, but since going home with her parents two weeks ago, I’ve barely heard from her.
The logical part of my brain tells me to stop messaging her, to let Finley come back to me when she’s ready, but I’m struggling to stay away, especially when she might need me.
Jennings snatches my phone. “If you’re debating it this long, it’s a bad idea.”
My head drops into my hands. “I don’t know what to do, man.”
“How’s this? We demolish those assholes, then get stupid drunk.”
He holds the phone out to me, but when I go to grab it, he pulls it away and lifts it above my head. I can’t reach it from where I sit by my locker, not when Jennings stands with my phone at his eye level. And I don’t want to play along.
Shit. This isn’t the attitude I need heading into a game with Justin Ward—the asshole who flattened my head on the ice and ruined the beginning of my season.
“Do you have smelling salts?” I ask.
