“No, it’s just, I’ve been stressing about this and you’re all ‘oh, okay cool’ like I just told you I don’t like sweet potato pie or something.”
He jokingly narrows his eyes at me. “Sweet potato pie is a staple in this house, boy. NowthatI would take issue with.”
My shoulders sag with relief. “So you’re not mad?”
“About the pie? Jury’s still out,” he teases.
“Uncle Nathan…”
“Ryne.” His voice is more serious now. “Why would I be mad that you’re making a choice about your life and what you want to do or not do with it?”
“Don’t you think Dad would be disappointed if he were here?” I look up at him and his eyes soften.
“Is that what’s really bothering you with this? Because your dad had aspirations for you to follow in his footsteps?” I nod. Nathan strokes his beard and then gestures toward the other side of the garage with his head. “I want to show you something.”
We walk over and he pulls down a plastic tub from one of the shelves and takes the lid off. It’s full of photo albums. He digs through until he finds the one he’s looking for and pulls it out, then opens the front cover and runs his fingers down the first page.
I take it when he hands it over, and start to flip through the photos. There are a lot of me and Rylee at various early ages, and about halfway in, start photos of Dad with each of us. There are photos of Dad and me at my first swimming lesson, after the third-grade spelling bee with me holding up my ribbon, and of my old t-ball team with dust and sticky popsicle all over my face. Those are just a few of the ones that jump out at me.
Nathan taps the page I’m looking at. “What do you notice about this?”
I scrunch my nose up and shrug. “I don’t know. We look happy? And sticky?”
He chuckles. “Well, yes, but happy is what I’m talking about. Your Dad loved you so much, Ryne, and was always so excited and proud to watch whatever it was you were doing. Even if you failed at something, he was proud of you for trying. Not only with soccer, with anything and everything. Sure, it would have been fun for him if you played pro soccer too, but he would have been just as proud if you were a mechanic, a doctor, a fast-food worker, whatever, as long as it makes you happy he would have supported it. So, no, Ryne, I don’t think that your dad would be disappointed to hear you don’t want to play soccer anymore.”
I close the photo album and clutch it tightly. “Thanks, Nathan.” I choke on the words. His eyes are red-rimmed as he draws me into his arms for a hug. Mine tentatively wrap around him and squeeze back. I always forget how hard all this is for him, too. Rylee and I lost our dad, but he lost his little brother. He’s not exempt from the pain of loss just because he’s an adult and has his shit together. Tears prickle in the corners of my eyes. I haven’t really cried in nine years. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I threw up my shields and shut down inside, not long after the funeral. So the tears now, it’s yet another foreign feeling. The depth of emotion it draws to the surface would typically have me puking and running for cover. But as a single tear drips down each cheek and I wipe them away quickly, an overwhelming sense of calm washes over me.
I love soccer, I truly do. It’s kept me close to Dad, but it’s not the only way to do that. I realize now that remembering my dad, honoring his memory, and making him proud, none of these things hinge on whether or not I follow in his footsteps. I don’t have to walk a path that leads somewhere I don’t even want to go in the first place to stay connected to him. I swallow hard and blink rapidly. Nathan squeezes my shoulders once and then lets go. With a deep breath in and a forceful exhale, I feel like I’ve drawn in a fresh start and finally let go of the past. I give myself permission to be who I want to be and do what I want to do. The last of my stupid reservations about being fully present with Dacen are also long gone.
Now I have to convince him to give me a second—Third? Fourth?—chance. That sounds completely daunting.
Nathan tilts his head to the side at my sigh and rubs his beard again. “It’s Dacen, isn’t it? The other thing bothering you?”
I really am as transparent as a window.
“Yeah. I really screwed up again. This last one was a doozy, but it was also really just the tipping point, the last snowflake that finally sent an avalanche careening down the mountain.”
“What happened?” I give him the Cliff’s Notes version, but don't worry, I still come out looking like a dickhead at the end of it. “You have to let people in, bud. It seems like you started to with Dacen, and then you got in your own way, tripped yourself up. You’re quick to assume the worst in certain types of situations. But to be overly frank, not everyone you let yourself care about is going to die or leave. Sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt and take a chance. Now you have to ask yourself, what do you really want?”
“Dacen.” The answer is fast off my lips before he finishes the question.
Nathan pats me on the shoulder. “Then you need to apologize from your heart, tell him how you feel. You have to be vulnerable, Ryne. The hard part is he might not forgive you, but if you don’t put yourself out there why should he?”
I nod and then squint at him. “When did you get so good at this advice shit?”
He shakes his head and flicks my ear. “Ah, boy. I’ve always had good advice. You’ve just been too pigheaded to really hear much of it before now.”
I chuckle and then forget all about the hunting gear I was searching for and jog back inside and head upstairs to grab my phone. I’ve got my work cut out for me and I need to call for reinforcements. Of course, some of those reinforcements will also take some convincing which means putting myself out there, but Dacen’s worth it.
46
Dacen
It’s kind of a relief that soccer season is over, not something I thought I’d find myself saying but here we are. I’ll no longer be subjected to Ryne’s hotness while he changes in the locker room because I one hundred percent am the creeper that continued to check him out on the sly. I can’t help it. His body is the definition of perfection. I close my eyes and flop back against my pillow, but all that does is bring all the x-rated memories we made to the forefront of my mind. I wrench my eyes open and groan.
“Stop it, Dacen,” I smack myself on the cheeks lightly. “Stop thinking about him.”
Much easier said than done. Mostly because I don’t want to stop. I make my way out of bed and get ready for school, going through the motions on autopilot. My mind is preoccupied with Ryne the entire time.
