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PROLOGUE
Find beauty in the broken pieces. That’s what my mother used to tell me. My father would scoff and say life is about accomplishments, not beauty.
Given the fundamental difference in those two ideologies, it’s not a massive surprise their marriage crashed spectacularly, but my five-year-old self was not expecting to leave for my first soccer game with two parents and come home to one.
Maybe I should have hated the sport after that; resented it for the loss that took place during the hour I kicked the black and white ball into the goal for the first time, clueless to the fact that my mother was speeding out of the town limits at that very moment.
I did the opposite.
I shut out everything except soccer.
After we became a family of three, my older sister Hallie retreated into normal things like friends, boys, and school.
My father withdrew into destructive things like alcohol, insane work hours, and a series of flings with women half his age.
I played soccer.
If my teachers had gotten ahold of my father, they probably would have passed on their concerns that my obsession with soccer was unhealthy. That I sketched passing drills on the sides of my worksheets and read biographies about legends in the sport during class.
If my coaches had been able to get ahold of my father, they probably would have informed him I had heaps of natural talent and a work ethic that put the Energizer Bunny to shame.
Instead, I shrugged at my teachers and informed my coaches of all the things I still needed to work on.
Before she left, my mother would say she named me Saylor because it sounded bold.
Fearless.
Brave.
It was the only thing she left me with that I took to heart.
To Hallie’s credit, she tried to fill the gaping hole left by our mother’s literal departure and our father’s metaphorical one. Even so, we were never close, due to both our six-year age gap and our polar opposite personalities.
And it wasn’t just Hallie. I didn’t let anyone in. Not my many friends, not my soccer teammates, not any of the boys I’d kiss under the bleachers.
I never wanted to.
Until him.
CHAPTER ONE
I tend not to think before I speak.
“Yellow is really not your color, Anne,” I inform my redheaded housemate as she enters the kitchen through the opening to my right. “Red and yellow should only be combined on a hot dog.”
Anne rolls her eyes as she grabs a hard seltzer from the fridge.
“Don’t be a bitch, Saylor,” Cressida chastises. She doesn’t look up from the chocolate cake she’s icing as she scolds me. Multitasking at its finest.
“Saylor can’t help it. It’s her default setting,” my best friend and co-captain Emma Watkins contributes as she mixes whatever gross cocktail she’s come up with tonight.
I flip Emma off. “I’m just being honest,” I retort from my perch on the kitchen counter as I drum my bare feet against the cabinet below the butcher block. My body is thrumming with excess energy. The last time I missed my daily run was three months ago, thanks to the snowstorm that hit right before the start of winter break.
If only extreme weather were at fault today. Instead, there was my father’s unexpected phone call, followed by a half-hour lecture from my older sister Hallie to detail the many, many ways in which I did not respond appropriately to the news that our father is getting remarried sixteen years after our mother zoomed off solo into the metaphorical sunset.
Actually, lecture is probably the wrong word.
Hallie made it clear my lackluster “okay” wasn’t what our father was hoping for, but most of our conversation was her going on about how wonderful it is that our dad is finally settling down with an age-appropriate, stable woman who’s just as boring as he is. I added the last adjective—boring—in my mind while I painted my nails bubblegum pink and scrolled through social media on my laptop. I wouldn’t have even indulged the conversation if not for the fact that Hallie’s eight months pregnant. She’s a worrier, and I didn’t want sending her into an early labor on my conscience.
