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“Yeah, well, turns out it still hurts.” I sip my coffee, hoping that act glosses over any emotion in my voice.
Dad rubs his hand over his face. He looks tired. I wonder if I’m doing that to him. It can’t be easy to be loyal to both of us, although he’s the one who kept Wes under his wing all these years despite knowing how I felt. Still, if he’s caught in the middle it’s sort of his own doing. I won’t try to make that worse, but I’m not up to making it better, either.
“Help me understand that.” Dad rests his hands on the counter behind him. “Why does it hurt?”
“Are you really trying to work your relationship voodoo on me?” After several successes over the years, Dad thinks he’s a relationship whisperer. I’m not looking to be his next project.
“What can I say? It would be nice if our family could be in the same room together.” He sighs heavily.
Of all the reasons he could give me, that’s the one that can sway me. I know he’s not the only one who wishes for that, and I don’t want to keep disappointing everyone.
“Fine.” I rub my temples. “Wes said I was a mistake.”
“Is that what he told you?” Dad frowns.
“It’s what he toldyou, when he came over right before we left the country. I heard him.”
“Then you heard wrong. What he actually said was he made a mistake.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Me.”
“No.” The corners of his mouth turn down, which is unsettling because it so rarely happens. “The mistake was listening to me.”
“You don’t have to tell me he idolized you enough to follow in your footsteps.” I try to spare him the blame he’s placing on himself. “I already know. He didn’t want the burden of a girlfriend while he was playing the game, same as you. He could’ve just told me that instead of pretending to love me.”
Dad has an almost glassy sheen to his eyes, which is starting to freak me out. I rush on.
“I mean, I still would’ve been pissed that he chose the game over me, but at least that way I could’ve respected his honesty. Instead, he waited until the last minute and gave me some lame excuse about the timing being bad and not wanting me to put my life on hold while he chased his dream. That’s on him, not you,” I ramble.
“Sweetheart, he wanted that future with you.” A tear slips down Dad’s cheek. “I told him he needed to focus and that he could give you the future you deserve….just after football.”
A sharp pain spears my chest, trapping my breath in my lungs. Dad…No. I must have heard him wrong.
“You wouldn’t tell him to pick the game over me,” I insist.
“You’re right. I told him there was plenty of time for you to have a life together when he was done with the game. Or at least settled with it, after college and when it looked like he might not get traded for a time. You needed to find yourself, too.”
“No.” I shake my head, although I’m not sure it’s him or me I’m trying to convince.
“It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.” His voice cracks, and turns his head to the side, swallowing back a sob.
“Why?” I whisper.
He rubs a hand over his face, and takes a deep breath.
“I was getting ready to retire, so football would finally be in your past. With Wes, you wouldn’t be able to escape it. I thought that would put too much pressure on you both too soon, and I didn’t want that. For either of you. I thought if you had a break from that life, at least for a few years, you’d have a better shot at the future you both wanted.”
So the breakup ideawasplanted in Wes’s head. I don’t know whether to scream or cry.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why let me hate him all this time?” I search Dad’s face for clues, but my vision is too blurry. Apparently crying won out.
“You didn’t want anything to do with him, and I was trying to respect your feelings. But I can’t watch this anymore.” He drags the back of his hand across his nose. “I can’t watch you two hurting and not try to fix it.”
“You think this will fix it?” I hiccup. “You think coming clean erases the fact that you both went behind my back and made decisions about my life without ever considering what I wanted?”
“Iwasthinking of you, sweetheart. I thought it was for your own good.”
“I’ve been miserable for years, Dad. I thought he never loved me, that I wasn’t as important as his precious game. For him to put the game first, something you’d done to me for years, made me think there was something wrong with me. That I’d always come second. It’s why I never dated. Why be with someone who would leave you the second something better comes along? And the only thing worse than him casting me asidefor my own goodis knowing you put him up to it.”
