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year: laptop, iPod dock. After Mark’s first college football game, Mom had someone take a family picture on the field. He’s taped the photograph on the wall next to his practice schedule. Some things are the same. Others are not. “Do you hate football?”
“No. I love football and want to play. In fact, I want to become a high school football coach.
Dad knew that. He didn’t agree with me, but he knew it. I thought if I played along, that if I pretended that—” He cuts himself off.
I came here. I brought this up. I can finish the statement for him. “They’d accept who you are?”
Mark nods. “Yeah.”
The two of us sit in silence. My stomach
twists and turns like I’m on a boat on the verge of capsizing. My life was perfect and I enjoyed every second. Mark’s two little words “I’m gay” tipped my world. Maybe I get why he left. Maybe I don’t. Either way, anger still festers, and if I’m doing this, I’m doing this.
“You left me.”
“What did you want me to do?” Resentment
thickens his tone. “I can’t change who I am.”
I need to move. Hit something. Throw
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something. I stand instead. “Not leave. You said you pretended before. Why couldn’t you pretend again? Or you could have stayed and fought and, I don’t know, convinced Mom and Dad to let you stay.”
Mark calmly watches as I pace the length of the narrow room. He clears his throat.
“Someday, you’re going to see how Mom and Dad controlled and manipulated our lives.
You’re going to notice how they made us
believe that their dreams were our dreams.
They dictated our every breath. Think about it—do you have any idea who you are without them?”
Mom sat me next to Gwen last night and she specifically asked me to take care of Gwen’s needs during the evening. Just like she asked me to take care of Gwen when I was fifteen.
After that first dinner, Mom encouraged me to ask her out and I did.
But baseball is my choice. It always has
been. Dad understands baseball. Because of that, he’s managed every part of my baseball career: the coaches, the leagues. Hell, he even stands up to umps. He does it all for me.
Right?
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Mom and Dad’s concerns, all of their
pushing, they do it because they love me. But they flat-out told me not to date Beth, regardless of my feelings for her, and they expect nothing less than compliance.
“You’re going to wear a hole in my carpet,”
Mark says.
No, Mark’s wrong. He has to be wrong. “I’m a good ballplayer.” I am. The best.
“You are. Dad did that right. He didn’t force us into a sport we had no talent in. He took his time and found the one sport each of us was good at. The question is—who are you playing for, Ry? You or Dad?”
Between the door and bunk beds, I freeze.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Dad wants perfection. Scratch that. Dad
wants perfection on the outside so everyone else can see it. Mom too. They could care less if we’re torn up on the inside as long as the rest of the world envies us.”
Everyone in Groveton assumes Mom and
Dad have the perfect marriage. The
homecoming queen married the star
quarterback. Behind closed doors, Mom and Dad hate each other. I thought they’d get over HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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it. Now…
“I’ve learned a lot playing college ball,”
Mark says. “What you do in high school
doesn’t mean shit. You can be the best
ballplayer in your high school. The best in the county or state, but when you get to college, you’re going to meet fifty other guys who can brag the same thing. You’ll meet guys better than you, stronger than you, faster than you, and then you’re up against better teams. The world changes when you leave Groveton.”
When I leave Groveton. Decisions need to
be made before that can happen: pros, college, literary competitions, scholarships. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I wish someone would have told me, but I had to figure it out on my own. You’re not alone, Ry.”
“Yeah, I am.” And my eyes burn. I close
them quickly and suck in a breath. He left. And Mom and Dad’s marriage is falling apart and everything I have ever known and loved is disintegrating into ashes.
“I never left you.”
“But you didn’t come home. You never
answered my texts.” The voice falling out of HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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my mouth isn’t my own. It’s strained. Tight.
On the verge of breaking.
“I’m sorry, but you have to understand, until Mom or Dad reach out to me, I can’t go back.