Page 111 of Near Miss

Stella waves her poster around again. “Anyway, Greer has to go. All my old things were in a closet, so I made her a sign.”

Her eyes go wide, and she unrolls it with a dramatic flourish.

I feel my lip curl back when I see what it says, and all the rhinestones she stuck haphazardly to the surface. “I’m not holding that.”

Stella frowns, peering down at her handiwork before she rolls her eyes. “I don’t really think beggars can be choosers, but alright.” Neither of us makes a move, and she snaps her fingers. “I’m serious. Chop-chop. She has to go. We can work through years of family trauma after.”

She points towards the hallway with her poster before leaving us alone in the kitchen again.

If our father was confused by the sudden appearance and disappearance of his youngest daughter, he doesn’t let on. I think the corners of his eyes might wrinkle with amusement.

He pushes out of his chair at the same time as me, and when he stands, his shoulders curve inwards a bit, like he isn’t sure what to do. I’m not entirely sure either, all of it hangs between us, but I don’t think it hurts. It’s just sort of there.

Scars all along the story of our lives together, that are just that—old, healed tissue that might smart from time to time.

Something you learn to live with.

An awkward sort of laugh catches in my throat, and he smiles at me, softly, like he loves me but he knows he hurt me and he’s sorry.

I’m sorry, too.

A bit like a fawn on new legs, I take a step forward. And then another. And another.

And then for the first time in a very long time, we hug.

He presses a kiss to the side of my head, too-thin arms wrapping around me. “I love you, Peanut.”

“I love you, too, Dad,” I whisper against his chest, fingers digging into the worn flannel covering his back, and for the first time, there’s nothing straining against me—no claws scraping at my stomach, chest, or ribs to try and take back what we think belongs to us.

It’s not ours. It’s his.

A gift.

Beckett

I’m almost late for a game for the first time in my professional career.

It’s not like the movies where I make it just in time to lace up my cleats and sprint onto the field after my teammates.

I show up right as the morning meeting starts, fortunately bypassing the social media parade where everyone takes videos of game-day walk-ins, and Coach Taylor pauses when I lope down the stairs, the picture of Beckett Davis casual irreverence.

“Davis.” His eyes sharpen, a muscle twitches in his cheek, and I think for the first time, he might actually be feeling a bit sorry for me. “How’s your head?”

“Clear and screwed on right.” I bring two fingers up in a salute before dropping in my chair beside Nowak.

Not clear, and certainly not screwed on right.

Impossibly blurry, actually, seeing as I didn’t sleep at all. I had lain there, switching back and forth between staring at my ceiling and staring at my phone, waiting for a text that wasn’t going to come.

Good luck tomorrow.

NotI’ll see you tomorrow. I don’t know that she will, and I wouldn’t blame her.

Eventually I got up and kicked balls into the practice net until the side of my foot started to ache, my hamstring felt like it was seconds from snapping, and my quad cramped so bad I had trouble walking down the stairs.

My whole leg aches this morning, but I can’t really feel much of anything.

Nowak shifts in his seat, tapping a pen against a legal pad, half-covered illegible drawings that look like they’re supposed to be a kickoff formation. “She okay?”

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