Page 94 of Hard to Score

“Drew.” My dad’s head jolts when he sees me standing there.

“There’s the man of the hour,” I say. I don’t give a shit that I sway as I walk into the family room where he sits with his reading glasses near the tip of his nose and his iPad in his lap.

“Drew?”

I chuckle as I shake my head and ask, “Do you know what I did today?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Apparently, drink.”

“Bingo.” I snap my fingers. “Do you know what else I did?”

“I don’t have time for this—”

“I watched the team I was traded from, the team I was a starting QB on, win the fucking Super Bowl.” The words feel like I’m chewing broken glass to get them out.

“It happens.” His voice is measured.

“It should have been me.”

He sets his iPad on the table beside him and sighs. “It could have been a lot of people.”

“No, Dad. Me. Fucking me,” I shout. “But it wasn’t. You want to know why? Give you three guesses.”

But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say a goddamn word other than look at me with that irritated look on his face. The one that says I should just get over it. I feel like I’ve been just getting over it for seven fucking years without an explanation why.

“All because of something that I had nothing to do with but that has affected me my whole goddamn adult life.”

“We’ve talked about this before.”

“No. Actually, we haven’t. You stood there. You said you quit. You said it was never to be talked about again. Well guess what? I’m here to fucking talk about it, Dad.” I walk from one side of the room to the other, my hands itching to grab him and shake the damn answer out of him. “Did you do it? Did you fucking slip off that perfect throne you sit on every damn day, judging all of us, and actually do it? Because you walking away without a fucking word says you did. You pretending like—”

“That’s e-goddamn-nough,” he thunders.

“It’s never been enough. Not for Maggie, who’s a fucking wreck. Not for Mom, who stood by your side like a puppet on a string. Does she even know the truth? And sure as hell not for me, who you glare at every time I walk in this house. Why? Because you can’t handle the fact that I’m trying to live out a dream you fucking walked away from.”

“You could never be me,” he shouts, knocking me back.

I stare at him, completely stunned by his words.

Hurt.

Crushed.

Sobered.

I blink as I process and the realization of what it is he’s just said plays over the expression on his face. Anger. Disbelief. Awareness.

“That’s not what I meant, Drew.” He pushes up out of his seat but I’m already heading toward the door. “Drew. It came out wrong. It—”

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I yell, as I yank my arm from his grasp and spin around with my fist cocked and no hesitation over willing to let it fly. A fury like I’ve never known before races through me. A debilitating feeling—one foreign to me—chases right behind the rage.

“Drew. Please.” There are tears in his eyes, as if the ice man has thawed.

But only from regret.

Only out of fear.

“I hope to God you are never like me,” he says, but it’s too late. He’s already said the words.