Page 103 of Puck You Both

It hasn't changed at all.

I take a slow breath and close my eyes. “B— Both, actually."

The radio plays. I can hear the presenter turn a page. Then my father exhales through what is unmistakably a smile. "You always were an overachiever."

A laugh rips out of me, wobbles halfway through, then stops pretending to be just a laugh. I press the heel of my hand against one eye and hold it there until words are possible again. "How did you know?"

"I guessed."

I lower my hand. "What do you mean, you guessed?"

"I have eyes. And there are many videos."

Many videos. I spent months tracking every camera in every building, and somehow forgot that there exists one watcher who has known my face since the day it existed.

"You skipped the difficult part."

"Which part?"

I open my mouth. Whatever I spent years bracing for, it never had a shape. Just weight. "I— I don’t know, actually. I just thought there would be one."

"Did you want a parade? It is late, and I do not own a trumpet."

Another laugh gets out, wetter than the first. "No parade."

"Good. The neighbors would complain again."

The joke settles, and his voice comes back quieter beneath the radio."Were you afraid of me?"

"No." The lie is out before the truth can catch it, and it hangs there, sounding exactly as hollow as it is. I stare at where my palm is clutching me knee. He has never once, in my entire life, shown me the thing I was supposedly guarding against. The fear was never him. The fear was the second after the words, when the outcome would belong to somebody else. "Yes," I say. "But not because of you. Because saying it meant I couldn't control what happened next."

"And what happened?"

I wipe under my eye with my thumb. "You made a trumpet joke."

"A very good joke."

"That’s debatable."

Theo's laugh comes through the door again, and my father's radio keeps playing on his end, and both of my lives are running at once, one on either side of me, with no wall between them anymore.

"Do they make you brave or careful?" my father asks.

My mind drifts to Theo on one knee in the corner, keeping the puck alive with two defensemen on his back. To Wall's A, and to the plate under foil, portioned by men who watched me long enough to learn which piece of chicken is mine.

"Brave," I say. "Terrifyingly."

"Good. Careful was your mother's job."

My eyes close again. He gives me time to breathe and doesn't comment on my needing it.

Finally, he says, "Bring them over for pierogi."

Them. No names demanded, no labels, no further explanation required. The whole thing granted in one sentence about dumplings.

My throat closes around the first try. The second gets out rough. "Okay. I'll call tomorrow," I manage.

"Send a thumb. Save your strength."