Page 31 of Jaded

Day River, I said,will suck you in if you stay too long. And then you’ll never leave.And I won’t see Syd wind up like all the other sad, broken people in this town.

I’ve always wanted more for her than that.

But we’ve never talked—seriously, anyway—about what that really looks like. About college or trade school or . . . whatever comes next. About what she truly wants from her life.

It’s a conversation I’ve never known how to have.

How could I, when my own life has been a series of ill-trodden paths leading me around and around the same rutted circle? It’s not like I’ll ever leave Day River.

“My future.” Syd’s gaze tilts towards the darkness through the window. Gives me the faintest outline of her reflection: her curved lips and prominent cheekbones. “Whatever that means.”

She looks like her mother, sketched in soft, faded lines like that.

“Do you have any idea what you mightlikeit to look like?” I ask, fumbling a little to find the right words. “I mean, if it could look like anything . . .”

“I don’t know.” Syd shakes her head, ponytail catching on the leather seat. Makes my chest feel too tight, the way she won’t look at me. “Ican’t even figure out what I want to do for my damn senior project. Let alone with the rest of my life.”

But who really knows what they want, at seventeen? Aside from kids like Jesse, with futures rolled out in front of them like a red carpet, who are any of us to say at seventeen what we’d like for life to hold?

Would I have chosen Syd? No. Hell no. No kid with any kind of sense wouldchoosethat.

Not until I first held her in my arms.

Now, if I could go back, would I change anything about her, about us? Hell no. Even if I could have had the option to wait until I was old enough, to raise her alongside her mother, I’d still pick the broken little pea pod Sydney and I made for ourselves instead.

If Syd hadn’t popped so unexpectedly into my life . . . what the hell would my life have become, would I have become? An addict, maybe. No doubt an alcoholic. Maybe worse: incarcerated, dead.

The pressure in my chest builds so it almost hurts, like fluid in a lung that needs puncturing.

“Well, what about hockey?” My words relieve some of that pressure. “You want to keep playing?”

In this town, it’s not really a question. Everybody here grows up playing hockey. Wanting hockey. Dreaming of hockey. Aside from Jesse Taylor, most of us stop wanting it when reality catches up.

Syd’s answer is obvious too: “Of course I do.”

“Okay, so that’s something.” It’s not, though. It doesn’t mean anything about Syd’s actual future. Most of us keep playing it—open hockey, hack leagues, beer leagues, pond hockey, Ice Out . . . there’s always something.

It’s not afuture,though. It’s a way to forget, for a few minutes, that you don’t have a true future.

“So . . .” Again, I’m fumbling for words, the pressure building up inside me. Fingers too tight on the wheel of the truck. “What about work or school?”

“I dunno, Dad.” Syd sighs. Tired of this line of questioning—tired of thinking about it. “I’m still trying to figure out how to put together some kind of project that will be worth half my Social Studies grade.”

I wince. Try again. “Well, I’m sure you don’t want to work part time at the Dairy Queen for the rest of your life.”

Something in me would die, to watch her slowly fade into the tapestry of this town.

“No.” Syd snorts, and pale relief washes through me. “But that doesn’t mean people don’t do it.”

“No,” I agree, trying to sort through all my thoughts. “But if there’s something else you want, or want to learn . . . I’m paying for your school, Syd.” I finally blurt the words out. “Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, I promise you, I will get you there. Okay? You tell me what you want, and I will make it happen.”

My hands grip the wheel so tightly, a light puff of wayward wind nearly nudges the tow truck off the road. My headlights cut a yellow trail through the dark beige desert around us.

I’m paying for it. Whatever it takes. Whatever that looks like. Even if it means leaving the rink behind—and yet, my mind flashes back to Olli, sailing over the ice like a ship cutting through the waters of a calm sea.

“I know,” Syd murmurs, tilting her head against the cold glass. “But I don’t want to ask for something like that.”

“You don't have to.”

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