Thanks for the reminder. I tried to forget about that night. I had to clean up piss stains the next morning.
FOSTER
I know. That’s what makes us a family.
23
AN UNWANTED CALLER
KNOX
After months of being tortured by the worst possible scenarios—an almost vehicular manslaughter charge, a failing literature grade, and nearly being demoted to the Mustangs’ resident benchwarmer—life has finally given me a fucking break. In fact, I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but life seemsperfect.
Spending the night with Staten made me realize that careless hookups and bored exchanges belong in the past. For the first time in forever, I feltseen. Admired. Wanted on a molecular level that extends past the impressiveness of my physique. It wasn’t just a one-and-done kind of thing; it was a goddamn gateway drug into a world where I didn’t have to tie my worth to how many conquests ruffled my sheets.
I never expected Staten to trust me like that. I was so afraid of breaking her, you know? I break a lot of things.
I can’t get her out of my head—not a new development, I’m aware. I find myself counting the seconds when I get to see her again. I find my mind running counterpoint to my percussive heart, both yearning for the only person who has the ability to erase my past and rewrite my future.
Staten, believe it or not, has shown me that there’s more to life than shiny trophies and mending bridges with a shit-for-brains father who doesn’t deserve a second of my time anymore. She’s shown me kindness when I wasn’t deserving of it, and I’m going to return that favor no matter how long or how many grandiose romantic gestures it takes.
Speaking of Staten, I’m just about to call her as I lop out of my last class of the day, fighting the three-p.m. traffic of newly awakened night owls and exhausted early birds. A particularly frenzied student nearly pancakes my body when I step too far into the main path without looking both ways.
My brain is always the consistency of soup after Normative Ethics. Ugh, soup sounds so good right now—or, you know, anything with more than two-hundred calories. Since I’ve started bulking, those little granola bars that the on-campus vending machines dispense only satiate my appetite for so long.
Dark clouds sulk in the sky, casting a greater net of pre-rain humidity over MU’s grounds, just waiting for the right lull in the chaotically busy afternoon to baptize the parched loam. Stomach achingly empty, phone in hand, I’m about to suggest a late lunch date with my girl before my father’s caller ID flashes across the screen, pinching off the line of electricity that sparks up my neural pathways.
My neck grows hot, and there’s a tingling in my fingers that isn’t due to hypoglycemia. Why would my dad be calling me right now? What could he possibly want? I don’t have the patience nor the interest to deal with whatever he wants to complain about. My father never calls me unless he has some unwarranted criticism to spew.
I contemplate not answering. I contemplate pretending like this problem of mine doesn’t exist, but I blame it on my lack of critical thinking courtesy of the aforementioned soup brain when I pick up his call anyways.
“Dad?” My throat strangles the single word, and there’s a taste of bile on my tongue that can’t be rinsed.
My father’s sharp tone—pulled from the pit of his barrel chest—is spiked with condescension. “Knox, I’ve been keeping track of your grades, and I have to say that I’m glad you’re finally taking this whole college thing seriously.”
Only he could turn a compliment into an insult.
I don’t have it in me to play nice. He engineered this ambush over the goddamn phone. He knew that a single call from him would ruin my entire day.
Indignation curls under my ribs, and I’ve become so conditioned in overusing my anger that I scrape my molars against each other in an effort to swallow a barb.
“Why are you calling me?” I ask, my thoughts going faster than the mechanical shutter on a vintage camera.
“I can’t check in on my son every now and then?” he replies, switching tactics and playing the victim.
“You haven’tcheckedin on me at all. Not when I got into that car crash, not when I started hockey practice, not even to just, I don’t know, reconnect and actuallytryto be involved in my life. All I’ve heard from you is radio silence, and maybe it’s best if we keep it that way.”
The Mulligans are a well-known family in Maple Grove. Benefactors of the poor, local celebrities, well-respected donors—all hiding under this good-guy guise of cultivated perfection that couldn’t be more fake. The curtains are drawn to the outside world. What they hide is so much worse—shadows rigged to the dark corners of a failing house, moving like silk in water over the vaulted walls. A creature that’s universally feared by the general population. A boogeyman of sorts; a child’s worst fear that gorges itself on the lies and the envy and the greed that runs rampant amongst the mounds of bloodstained cash stuffed beneath rickety floorboards.
He drags an irritated breath through his teeth. “Stop beingso dramatic. I called you to congratulate you, and this is how you treat me?”
“You called me because you want something,” I retaliate, my belly a swamp of acid, and my hand clenching around my device so tightly that I wouldn’t be surprised if I broke it.
“I don’t want anything from you, son. I thought I was doing you a service by calling before I show up to your next hockey game.”
Hold up…what? My dad has only attended a token game in the past, and it was to serve himself,notto support me. I begged him on the phone to come to more, and he refused. Even when he had time off. This has to be some twisted joke.
I know my father better than he’d ever like to admit. The only reason he’d take an interest in seeing me play is because he wants to take credit for shaping me into the man I’ve become. A son with NHL-stardom is something to brag about, especially in a hockey-run state like Minnesota.
