Page 123 of Spearcrest Knight

My dad’s voice comes from behind me, and I jump away from the window, almost giving myself whiplash when I turn around to glare at him.

“Dad! What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been waiting at this window like a little kid watching out for Santa Claus to bring him his presents,” Dad says with a shrug. “Not to mention all the different ways you’ve told us how perfect this girl is. I might be smart, but I could be stupid and still be able to tell that you like this girl.”

I follow Dad into the kitchen as he talks, and absent-mindedly hop onto a seat at the kitchen counter, watching him as he makes a fresh pot of coffee.

“It’s complicated, Dad.”

“Right,” he says. “How?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

He looks up from the coffee machine, raising an eyebrow and giving me a piercing look, reminding me that I take after Dad in only one way: we both share the same blue eyes.

“I, the adult who’s been married for twenty-five years to the love of his life, wouldn’t understand anything about a teenage boy with a crush.”

“It’s not a crush, Dad.”

He gives me a long look, then turns on the coffee machine and comes to take a seat at my side, propping her elbows on the marble top of the kitchen counter and lacing his fingers together. The silent, searching look he gives me makes me realise how much I’ve missed him, missed talking to him. I wonder if I would have messed up this badly if I’d gotten to talk to him more. After all, he’s not wrong: he’s actually managed to not only go out with the woman he loved, but marry her and stay married to her for twenty-five years. And Mom doesn’t even look unhappy like those married middle-aged women on TV, so you know he must be doing something right.

Dad stays silent, waiting patiently for me to have the courage to tell him the truth.

“I really, really like her, Dad. I might even love her. But she’s—” I try to think of a way to explain what the problem is, to summarise, truthfully,succinctly, as Sophie would say, why exactly my love is so doomed. “She’s too good for me, Dad.”

He nods slowly. “Hmm. Why do you think that?”

“Because, Dad…” I take a deep breath. “I really, really messed up.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.”

When I was really young, back in the US, Dad used to help me with my Math homework, and even though I hated Math, I used to love sitting with him at the kitchen island and listening to him explain my homework. He would talk exactly as he is doing now, in a gentle voice, calm but never patronising, and give clear, simple instructions.

“Well. You remember when I was in Year 9?”

“What is that—Freshman year?”

“No—sort of. The year before that.”

Dad nods. “Right. No, I can’t say I remember. What happened?”

“A new girl started at school.”

He raises his eyebrows. “The prefect?”

I sigh deeply. “She wasn’t a prefect then, but yes, her. She was, she is… you know. Not like us.” I give Dad a significant look, and he tilts his head mutely. “Her parents work for the school, I think she got in on some sort of academic scholarship and because her parents work at Spearcrest. At the time, everyone was saying her parents were cleaners, even though that’s not true. Anyway, you know what I mean. So of course, when she started she stuck out like a sore thumb. It was just so obvious she wasn’t like everybody else. And some kids were mean to her because of her parents and… well, also, she used to be spotty and have big feet.”

“Right,” Dad says.

At this point, I’m sure he must be wondering what the hell I’m on about, and honestly I’m half wondering that too. But everything is slowly pouring out of me and I don’t feel quite in control of exactly what I’m saying, and Dad doesn't prompt me to hurry up, he just watches me and waits calmly.

“Well, anyway. We started talking and became friends. She was, I don’t know… funny. Clever and really funny—sarcastic, like an adult. I liked that about her. And she would always get into fights and arguments when people tried to make fun of her. She was, I don’t know, fiery. Like she always stuck-up for herself. I liked all these things about her.”

“Sounds like the start of a promising friendship,” Dad comments. “So how did it all go wrong?”

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