Page 104 of Jaded

“I know it’s not easy . . . being. Well. My kid.” My kid, and motherless to boot. Brenda’s done her best, but I know how even the best step-parent won’t erase the doubt, the questions.

My own mother walked out when I was seven. Left me practically parentless, because Dad was so caught up with Jesse, his golden child. With living his own broken dreams vicariously through his son.

He barely saw me until Jess left, and suddenly, he saw me too much.

“You’re a good dad,” Syd says, her voice a low hum, and she leans slightly to rest her head on my shoulder. “Most of the time.”

Her arms still hold her knees against her chest, but she’s softened slightly, with her hair tickling my cheek. Reminds me of when she was a kid, and we’d sit like this on the couch watching cartoons.

“I’m a rough human,” I admit. “Who’s trying to cut it as a single parent.”

But having Syd here with me, soft and vulnerable, makes me soft and vulnerable too. Melts something inside of me, something jagged and broken.

“Is that why you fight?”

I blow out a long, slow breath, ruffling the hair atop her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve always been like this.”

I’ve always been a little broken, a shadow kid. Unplanned, overlooked, perpetually angry. Torn between wanting something so desperately I couldn’t see past it, and knowing it was never mine to take.

Unlike Jesse, I’ve always known I’m not better than this town.

I’ve been hovering like the ghost of a dream, neither here nor there, not quite cracked enough to break, not quite whole enough to move on.

“Look, I got something to tell you.” More words to ruffle the dark strands of hair across her face.

I don’t know what makes me decide that this is the moment. But maybe with everything that’s happened—with the Dingoes winning, with Olli’s play for attention and my belief in him, with the fight bothAvery and Syd witnessed—maybe I’m realizing I’d rather they heard it from me than from the rest of the town.

“What?” Syd asks, sitting up off my shoulder. The way Avery shifts next to her, I think he’s not asleep after all.

Good. He should hear this too.

“I play in the Ice Out.”

Avery sits up like he’s been electrocuted.

“What?” Syd asks, her voice barely a breath. “You . . . what?”

“I didn’t want you to know that,” I admit, and it feels like throwing off a weight, speaking the words aloud. Throwing off a weight, leaving me unanchored, unmoored. Like I might just float off into space and never find my way back down. “I’m not proud of it.”

“You’re Forty-Seven, aren’t you?” Avery asks, but it’s barely a question.

“I don’t want to know how you know about that.”

“You are, aren’t you?” He leans over to look me dead in the eye. “You’re Forty-Seven. I’m right. Tell me I’m right.”

“I’ll tell you you’re definitely a little high—”

“But right.”

I sigh. “You can’t talk about this shit, Avery. For one, I could get in a lot of trouble. And for another,youcould get in a lot of trouble.”

Avery sits back, a huge white smile blooming over his face. “Holy shit, Syd. Did I ever mention your dad’s kind of a badass?”

“Oh, God,” Syd groans. “You’re gonna have some kind of weird celebrity crush—”

Avery, still laughing, reaches out to smack the underside of her backwards hat’s brim, sending the front careening downwards over her eyes. “Shut up, Sydney.”

Syd squawks, but reaches over to steal his hat even faster than he can retaliate. Nobody ever said she was a pushover. “I’ll kick your ass, Avery Bennett.”

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