Page 103 of 10 Signs You Need to Grovel

Another shot of pride lifts me up, because I like running these hikes. These preteens are fun to be around. The work isn’t frivolous, like I kept telling myself—my constant, droning self-sabotage. Teaching kids makes a difference. And I’m good at this. Actually, scrap that. I’m not good at organizing activities. I’m fucking great at it. I’m a grunter and a happy hiking leader and a father willing to lay his life down for his kid, and I don’t want to go to law school. Not anymore. It’s not who I am now.

I want to run these programs, work harder at them, help Lennon build his business. Access my drive and determination and convince him I have good ideas and value and can work as a team with him. I mean, yes. I’ll also pester him and toss Maggie Edelstein’s name out on a whim, but I love my brothers. Working with Lennon would be fantastic.

I cut a glance at Sadie.

Her back is to me, but she’s not watching the kids. Her attention is on some middle distance, her expression so despondent my chest twists.

She barely ate this morning. She hasn’t smiled once today. She ignored me on the drive. She forgot to pack Max’s snacks. She’s avoiding my eyes now, evading talking to me. Wiping the edges of her eyes. Not even interacting with the kids. She’s biting her lip so hard I’m worried she’ll break the skin.

Jesus.

That’s not one subtle reaction to our tough situation. Those are ten glaring signs that I need to grovel. Show her I’ve finally figured out who I am. That we’re a family who makes decisions together, instead of me going off half-cocked, forcing my opinion on her without fully understanding myself or her motivation.

I need to pull out all the stops and grovel so thoroughly my knees are skinned from the effort.

An idea forms, the perfect way to apologize and reach Sadie. Accomplices will be needed to pull this off—Max and E and Delilah—and I’ll have to grab some stuff from my rental house. If all goes well, Sadie and I will have brighter futures than we’d ever imagined. At least, that better be how this ends.

THIRTY

Lying to Sadie is worse than drinking milk. After the hike, I told her I needed to do school prep at my Ruby Grove apartment, which is still rented until the end of this month. The only thing I’m prepping is my groveling, and my stomach is now cramping something fierce.

I keep picturing her on this morning’s hike, how despondent she was, going through the motions of participating, barely interacting with the group. Except when I declared Max the garbage-collecting winner.

He ran in circles screaming, “Oh my God! I get all the candy!”

Sadie finally smiled, laughing at his antics. Then I handed out the end-of-program bracelets to everyone, and Olivia nearly knocked me over with a rib-cracking hug.

And Olivia. Not But Olivia. Wonders will never cease.

After that tearjerker, Sadie approached me for the first time all morning and touched my arm. “I’m not sure I told you, but you’re amazing at this. In all the after-school programs Max has been in, I’ve never seen kids get so involved and care so much.”

I took her hand in mine and laced our fingers together, exhaling through the heaviness in my chest. “That means more than you know. And we’ll get through this, honey. Everything will work out as it should.”

She bit her lip and nodded, still looking heartbreakingly sad. I nearly broke and explained my plans, but I needed to do groundwork first. Speak to people and make sure my proposition had legs. Hence my lying and gut cramping since this afternoon.

Freshly showered and wearing a nonsuctioned, nonyellow T-shirt, I hop in my Camaro and put my phone on speaker to call Mom, since my piece-of-crap car doesn’t have Bluetooth.

“To what do I owe the honor,” Mom says when she picks up.

“I’ve made a decision and need to talk to you about it,” I say as I drive, aware I’m about to disappoint my mother for the millionth time. But I have to start honoring myself. “I’m not going back to law school. I’m pulling out before classes start, which means I get a full refund. And I know you wanted this for me, but I’ve been doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do, not what I wanted to do. I was afraid to let go of who I was, worried about what people would think of me. But it’s not what I want anymore.”

Her pause has me gripping my steering wheel tighter.

“Thank God,” she finally says.

I blink at the stoplight in front of me. “What?”

“I’ve been biting my tongue for the past two months, dying to tell you I don’t think you should go back but not wanting to undermine your choice.”

A car behind me honks. Right. Green light.

I ease forward, grappling to follow Mom’s revelation—an echo of E’s not-so-subtle talk this morning. “You don’t think I should go back?”

“You’ve just changed so much. The idea of you being confined in an office all day, working that grind after all you’ve been through, doesn’t feel right. You’ve become so kind and thoughtful during WITSEC, worrying about me in your quiet way. Reading books you wouldn’t normally read just to get my mind off my worries. I pictured you doing something more motivational like that. Kind of how you were as a quarterback captaining your team.”

Seems my family knows me better than I know myself.

“I actually have a new plan,” I admit, completely at ease with this decision. No weird freezing up or procrastination putting this into effect. Talking faster, I explain my plan to ask Lennon to consider joining forces with me, building his business together, along with the more complicated issues concerning Sadie’s job, and the possibility of me using the school money for this new business venture.