Page 73 of Cherry Picking
“Get used to it, Parkie.”
“Why? Because instead of wearing your knife shoes and smacking a rubber Oreo around on slippery ice you’re wallowing in your parents house like a teenager who just got dumped?”
Why are twelve-year-olds so nasty?
I sit up and swing my legs over the air mattress and catch Parker turning around with a pair of old skates held up near his head.
“You wore these thingsout.”
“Mom is sentimental, but those should have found their way to the trash years ago.”
We both laugh, and then Parker comes over and nudges the open suitcase at my feet. It’s mostly empty save for a few personal items—Mom decided that my plan of washing my clothes and throwing them back in the bag was a deal breaker—but that doesn’t stop my brother from rummaging around anyway.
“What’s this?”
Parker holds up a jersey, and in an instant a pang hits my chest, because I know it isn’t mine.
The jersey itself is a deep maroon color with white and yellow bands. The Hornet’s mascot—an angry white and yellow bee—takes up the front with the team name. On the back written in big, white text are the numbers thirty-two with ‘Foster’ spelled out above them.
“That’s my roommate’s,” I say as the sadness leaks back into my bones and makes my muscles weary. “Must have grabbed it by mistake.”
“Mhm.” He shoots me a calculating look, then shakes his head and busts out a blinding grin. “Foster is a cool player. Gotta be something to be the wall people play Ping-Pong-Puck off of all day.”
My own grin springs forward because my brother is ridiculous. Parker isn’t into sports, not really. He did a summer football camp with Dad and decided it was a miserable experience, while Dad on the other hand thinks Parker would make a great QB candidate.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone in the throes of puberty.
Meanwhile, Parker is happy to be parked in a room with some paint and a canvas, and you won’t see him for hours.
“I bet he’d like you. He’s kind of a little shit, so I’m sure you’d get along.”
Parker sticks his tongue out and eyes the shirt again. “Do you think I could borrow this? Freak Dad out to think I’m choosing another sport over football?”
If I want to hold up the lie that I took the jersey by mistake, then the answer is yes. But the tug in my chest and the wince I can’t hold back don’t give me the opportunity.
Parker hands the shirt to me—even though he could have dropped it back in the suitcase—and stuffs his hands in his pockets.
“Are you sad?”
I look up, realizing I’m gripping the material way too tight but can’t convince myself to ease up.
“About what, Parkie?”
He crinkles his nose at the nickname. “Retiring. Dad says you loved hockey since you were younger than me. I can’t imagine loving something like that and losing it.”
I’ve loved and lost a lot of things—a lot of people—and the hole it burns in you only gets larger with each one.
“It sucks,” I say, and my throat hurts from the raw truth of it. “I almost wish I could take it back.”
Griffin’s voice, frail and pleading on the other end of the line was almost enough to break me. I was sitting in the airport waiting on my flight to be called. I could have turned around and gone home.
Because home will always be with Griffin.
But I want better for us. Better for him.
And I can’t give that to him right now.
“Well, I’m glad to have you back.” Parker half shrugs and kicks the corner of the suitcase. “Takes some of the pressure off with Dad.”
