Page 129 of Practice Makes Perfect
He’s right, and I know it. But the thought of facing Em after how I left things makes my chest tight with fear. Not just fear of rejection—though that’s definitely there—but fear that I’ve damaged something precious beyond repair.
“What if she won’t even talk to me?” My voice comes out smaller than I intended.
“Then at least you’ll know you tried.” Dad leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “Regret is a heavy thing to carry around, son. Trust me on that.”
Something in his tone makes me look at him sharply. There’s a story there, but this isn’t the moment to ask for it. Not when he’s here, in the middle of the night, giving me exactly what I need when I didn’t even know I needed it.
“I’ve really screwed things up, haven’t I?” I say, more to myself than to him. “Em… the team…”
“Probably.” He gives a small shrug. “But you’d be surprised how many screwed up things can be fixed with sincerity and time.”
“You think?”
“I do.” His certainty is oddly reassuring. “But it starts with showing up. Facing the music. Having the hard conversations.”
I nod slowly, feeling something settle in my chest. A sense of purpose, maybe. Or just the simple clarity of knowing what I need to do next, however difficult it might be.
“Thanks, Dad.” The words feel inadequate for what he’s given me tonight, but they’re all I have.
He nods once. “Anytime.”
On impulse, I lean over and wrap my arms around him. It’s awkward, both of us on the bench, but I can’t remember the last time I hugged my father. Certainly not in years, and that suddenly seems like the most tragic thing.
“I love you,” I say, words I haven’t said to him since I was maybe thirteen and decided I was too cool for such childish displays.
He stiffens for a second—surprise, not rejection—before his arms come around me. “I love you too, son,” he says, voice rough with emotion.
When we pull apart, there’s a shine in his eyes that matches the dampness I feel in my own. And, at this moment, I realize something important: I’ve spent so much time this year worrying about what others expect from me—Mom, Coach, the team, the scouts, even Em—that I’d lost track of what I expect from myself.
Now, for the first time in a while, I feel like I’m heading in the right direction.
thirty-two
EM
3:17a.m.
The digital clock mocks me with its red glow, each minute ticking by like a personal insult. Three hours and seventeen minutes of a brand new day, which I’m experiencing horizontally on the floor of the living area of my doom room, staring at the ceiling like it might offer answers.
I’ve been down here since midnight, after realizing that my bed—a place where I normally pass out within minutes of my head hitting the pillow—has transformed into some kind of medieval torture device designed specifically to deny sleep to the recently dumped.
The hardwood presses uncomfortably against my spine. Good. The physical discomfort feels appropriate somehow, like my body is just catching up to what my heart’s been feeling since last night, when Linc looked at me in that hockey rink hallway and said those four words that keep replaying in my mind.
I can’t do this.
I curl my fingers into fists. The anger that’s been building for hours heats my blood, making my skin feel too tight, too hot. My jaw aches from clenching it so hard.
That absoluteasshole.
I trusted him. I let him see parts of me—literally and metaphorically—that no one else had ever seen. I let him be my first. I told him I loved him, and he said it back. He looked me in the eyes and said those three words, and I believed him.
Everything about us felt real. And then, not even twenty-four hours later, the second I mentioned meeting my family, he goes all wide-eyed panic mode and dumps me in a hallway.
Ahallway.
“Pressure,” he’d said. “Need some space.”
Space.
