My hands fisted. He wasn’t wrong; I was drowning in self-pity. However, I couldn’t figure out how to pull myself out of the deep end without exposing myself to worse elements—like whatever was causing me to engage in the self-destructive behavior Scarlett accused me of.
But I wasn’t going to admit any of that to my father. I was wound tight from weeks of pent-up emotion, and I was spoiling for a fight.
“You should be happy,” I said. “You don’t have to watch your son play against—instead of for—Holchester anymore. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
My father’s nostrils flared. “What I wanted? You think I want a son who gets sidelined and fucking lambasted by the press because he can’t keep his emotions under control?”
“No, you want one who wins, but only if it’s for your team,” I shot back. “Tell me. Have you attended a single one of my matches since I transferred to Blackcastle? Have you ever called just to talk to me like I was your son instead of using it as an opportunity to criticize everything I did on the pitch?”
“For fuck’s sake, what do you want me to do?” he shouted. “Coddle you like you’re a fucking baby? You can’t improve if all I do is pat you on the head and say good job every time you kick the bloody ball!”
“I’m not asking you to coddle me. I’m asking you to act like my father and not my bloody coach!” The emotions exploded past the dam I’d spent years constructing and poured through my mouth, flooding the room with a lifetime’s worth of resentment. It wasn’t just the past month, and it wasn’t just my father.
It was everything. Scarlett, Coach, Teddy, Vincent, my critics and my fans, my triumphs and my mistakes. Sometimes, the weight of it all was so great I couldn’t breathe.
My home was supposed to be my haven, and I didn’t even have that.
“I have a coach already. I don’t need a second one,” I said, unable to keep the furious tremor out of my voice. “What I need is a family, and you took that from me!”
My father and I glared at each other, our chests heaving from the force of our anger.
We’d tiptoed around this conversation our entire lives. Our argument in the hospital had revealed a slice of it, but this? This had been decades in the making.
“You think I took your idea of a family from you?” my father spit out. “I’m not trying to be your fucking coach! I’m trying to make you into what you’ve always wanted to be: the greatest footballer in the world. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t push you to your full potential?”
“One who cares about his son more than his team.” We’d circled back to square one, but we’d never really left. “If you were trying to help me achieve my goals, you would’ve kept the same energy after I transferred to Blackcastle. But you didn’t, did you? You could only focus on how I betrayed you and Holchester by switching teams. You couldn’t even congratulate me when we won a match. Not once.”
He stared at me, his hand clenched tight around his cane.
I expected him to bluster and yell some more, but to my surprise, he seemed to deflate before my eyes. The anger drained from his face and body, making him look smaller and older than he had minutes ago.
“I’m not saying I act perfectly all the time,” he growled. “Was I upset when you transferred to Blackcastle without telling me first? Of course. Holchester wasn’t my team. It was our team. When you were a kid, they were all you talked about. We went to every match together. We strategized how to get you a spot in the club. I thought you loved them.”
In the face of his unexpected calm, my anger leaked out too, leaving a hollow cave in my gut.
“I did, but we can’t stay in the same place forever, even if we love it. We have to grow.” I swallowed. “I didn’t tell you beforehand because I was afraid you’d somehow convince me to stay before the paperwork went through. I needed to leave Holchester to become my own person. I couldn’t do that with you in my ear all the time. I couldn’t make a single move or celebrate a single win without you disparaging me. I can take criticism, but not if it’s the only thing I hear.”
My father’s mouth formed a thin slash across his face. “Your mother always said I was too harsh on you about football, and maybe I was. But I didn’t push you to win for me. I did it for you.”
“Bullshit.” We may be having a civil conversation, but I wasn’t stupid.
“Think what you want, but it’s true,” he snapped. “You need that title, son. You need the validation. You were so afraid of proving your critics right that it would’ve killed you to fail, especially after Teddy died. So I didn’t let you. And look at you now.” He nodded at the trophies and medals and expensive gadgets surrounding us. “Do you think you would’ve made it this far if I hadn’t pushed you from the start?”
I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him.
I’d spent so long constructing my narrative for our relationship that to alter any piece of it would mean altering my worldview, and that was unthinkable.
But I heard the whisper of truth in his words, and even if it wasn’t the whole truth, it was more than I’d expected.
My father sighed, his face softening again. “You were inconsolable after Teddy died,” he said. I flinched. We hadn’t talked about Teddy since I was a teenager, and I preferred it that way. Some memories were better left in the past. “You blamed yourself for what happened to him. The night after his funeral, you took my car and stayed out all night. Your mother and I were frantic with worry. But you finally came home at four in the morning, smelling like ale and cigarettes. You couldn’t imagine…” His voice trailed off. “It was like you had a death wish and you were punishing yourself for surviving when he didn’t.”
My breath stuttered beneath the blow of my surprise. “I don’t remember that.”
Honestly, the days and weeks after Teddy’s death were a blur. I either blacked out or repressed them, but my father’s words dredged up a vague recollection of cheap beer and the rev of the engine as I floored it through dark, empty streets.
“I don’t suppose you would, but it’s not something a parent forgets.” My father’s jaw ticked. “We grounded you. Yelled at you. Lectured you. But I could tell the only thing that kept you going during that time was football. You were doubly determined to succeed for yourself and for Teddy. So I focused on that. I pushed everything out of the way and made it the only thing you thought about.”
An overwhelming pressure spread from the base of my skull to my temples. I couldn’t parse truth from fiction anymore, and I suspected he was making his motives sound more pure than they were.
However, he was right about one thing—Teddy’s death and the role I played in it had sent me into a dark spiral. Football saved me, but…
Something is driving those stupid, impulsive decisions of yours.
It was like you had a death wish and you were punishing yourself for surviving when he didn’t.
My heart stopped for a beat.
No. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?
“You can believe me or not. It doesn’t matter. What’s past is past,” my father said, dragging my attention back to me. “But I came here to remind you of that boy who would’ve done anything to sit where you’re sitting right now. Do you think teenage you would’ve come this far only to squander his dreams on a few stupid, bloody mistakes? He would’ve fought to play again.”
He stood, leaning heavily on his cane as he did so. “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, though Lord knows I’ve tried. But think about what I’ve said tonight. Think about what you’re tossing away if you don’t pull your head out of your ass soon.” He stumped toward the door. “I’ll see myself out. It’s late, and if I don’t get back to the hotel soon, your mother will have my hide.”
I almost let him leave without further comment, but there was one more unresolved issue hanging over us.
I stopped him just before he reached the doorway. “You never answered my question from the hospital.”
Your team or your son?
