Page 26 of Single Chance

She let out a hollow laugh. “They’re not my friends anymore. So thanks for that.”

More tears fell down her cheeks. I squeezed my eyes shut, exhausted, my heart breaking for my little girl. Fuck, I missed the days when I could make everything okay for her.

“Are these really the kinds of people you want to be friends with? People who blame you for something you didn’t do?”

She didn’t respond.

“Those aren’t true friends, Sammy.” Her childhood nickname popped out. I waited for her to scold me for using it, but she didn’t. She just pulled her legs up and hugged them. “What happened to Kinsley?”

Kinsley had befriended my daughter when we first moved to Dragonfly Lake. She was a little bookish, shy, and had been kind to my daughter. I’d had no complaints about her, but I hadn’t heard Sam mention her for ages.

“She’s probably home studying,” Sam said with a hint of derision in her tone.

“That’s where you should’ve been. It’s Thursday night. You’re in high school. You’re taking tough classes.”

She shrugged.

Now wasn’t the time for a lecture on studying, I decided.

I walked to the foot of her bed and sat down. “Hey,” I said, gentling my voice.

Sam looked up at me.

“I’m proud of you for not drinking,” I said. “That’s not always an easy decision, particularly when everyone around you is doing it. You’re a strong girl.”

She pressed her lips together tightly as a new torrent of tears fell. “He… He kept pressuring me.”

Anger snapped in me at whoeverhewas. “Pressuring you to do what?” The ideas going through my head weren’t tolerable. “Sam,” I said when she didn’t answer, “what was he pressuring you to do?”

“To drink,” she said.

“Is that all?”

She hesitated before saying, “That’s all.”

“Did he pressure you to do anything else?”

So help me, God, if he had…

Sam shook her head slowly, sadly. “No.” She inhaled shakily, then said, “He said if I’d drink, maybe I’d lighten up.”

This was what people meant when they talked about wanting to kill any teenage boy who came near their daughter. I’d like to break this fucker’s neck.

Would it be wrong for a grown man to beat the hell out of a teenage punk?

I tried to calm down. Thank fuck I’d driven up when I had. Who knew what that little shit had planned for my daughter.

When I looked at her again, tears were streaming down her cheeks as she cried silently.

To hell with being careful around her. I moved closer and pulled her in for a hug, holding my breath, waiting to see if she’d push me away.

Even though she didn’t hug me back, she buried her face against my chest and let out the sobs. I never knew my heart could ache with pain and explode with love at the same time.

“Let it out, Sammy,” I whispered into her hair. “I got you.”

In one night, my daughter had been pressured to drink by a boy, lost her group of friends, and been embarrassed by her dad picking her up. That was a rough time for a fourteen-year-old.

I hated all of it for her, but I wouldn’t apologize for my part in it. And for the first time in months, she was letting me comfort her. That was progress. Maybe we could build on that going forward. With a teenager, baby steps were huge.

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