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“Come in.”
“How was your first day?” Sam asks sitting backwards on my desk chair like some wanker in a teenage movie. I groan again.Here we go.
“Fine.” I level him with a stare. “Did Mum send you in to check on me?”
He shakes his head. “I came to tell you I’m heading back to Melbourne tomorrow. My boss needs me back at work earlier, one of the other guys quit.”
“Okay.”
Sam rubs the back of his neck. “I was going to stay another week, you know, spend a bit more time with you, Jake, and Mum– ”
“We’re fine, Sam,” I interrupt him. “You don’t need to hang around and baby-sit. Jake and I can help out around the house. We’re not little kids.”
Sam blinks at me, and I catch a glimpse of hurt in his eyes. “Yeah, I… uh… I didn’t mean it like that.” He stands up, hesitating. “Whatever.” My stomach rolls, and I want to take back what I said, but it’s too late.
Glancing around my room, his eyes fall on the signed Geelong football guernsey draped on top of my dresser. He picks it up, tracing a hand over some of the signatures.
“Footy pre-season starts tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Have you heard from any other AFL clubs yet?”
I shake my head.
“If you get picked up by a Melbourne club, you could move in with me. It’d be nice to have a roommate to hang out with.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I stare up at my ceiling hoping he’ll take the hint and leave. I feel like shit, and I just want to be left alone.
“Who knows, Jake might even come up there for uni, too.”
“Uh huh.”
He sighs. I’m not making things easy for him, but I’m not exactly in the mood for conversation when my whole world is upside down and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with me and Hannah.
As if reading my mind, Sam clears his throat, “It was really nice of Hannah to get you this. I haven’t seen her around since your birthday.”
I shrug. I love the gift, but it’s yet another reminder Dad’s not here anymore.
“Did something happen between you two? You both kind of disappeared around the same time.” He grins at me. “Jake and I always thought–”
“Nothing happened,” I lie. “We’re just friends.”
“She’s pretty awesome.”
“Yeah.” I glance back over at my phone, feeling even more guilty about not replying to her message this morning. I suck on my lower lip, remembering how my lips had tingled for hours after she’d left. I definitely don’t regret kissing her. I just wish I hadn’t pushed her away.
I’m such an idiot.
Knowing I’m not going to give him much more, Sam makes his way to my bedroom door. “I’ll be back for Easter.” He hovers with his hand on the doorknob. “But if you need me before then, just call.”
I nod and breathe a sigh of relief as the door clicks shut behind him. It’s like they can’t just deal with their own grief, so they obsess over me because I’m the one who survived.
∞
“This is a big year for some of you boys,” Chris says. The team crowds around him, listening attentively to his usual start-of-season coach’s speech. “There’s a few AFL clubs scouting around, but it’s important to push that to the back of your mind and focus on getting the job done. Executing skills effectively, that’s what it’s going to take. We have a good list, on paper, and if we keep our priorities – working as a team and working hard – at the forefront of everything we do this year then we can take it all the way and bring home the premiership flag.”
Everyone around me cheers, slapping one another on the back, but I just look at the ground, still questioning why I came. Footy just doesn’t seem as important when Dad’s not here anymore. But footy meant a lot to him and he’d be gutted if I gave it up because of he’s gone.
