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“You will come back tomorrow and discuss grades. These check-ins are for you. I am giving up my time to help you. Don’t forget that.”

I nod. “Yes, sir.”

When I look up, it’s to pure disgust. “And clean your hands, Lillian. I expect so much more from you.”

It will never make sense to me. My father is made of contradictions. He expects better from me, and I know the scale of those sky-high expectations. But at the same time, he believes me incompetent, tends to me like a wayward, difficult—and often stupid child.

There is no path where I manage to break free of his chains, is there?

Why do you dislike me so much?

I’ve wanted to ask the question since I was a child. Sometimes I think I did—but I can almost hear what I’m sure his answer was. Don’t be stupid, Lillian. Of course I love you. You’re my daughter.

Is the love between parent and child a guaranteed realness? And if it is, why doesn’t it feel like it? Why can’t I feel that love? Not now. Not last year when I needed it most. Not when I was a child and would’ve done anything he asked if it meant I got a hug or a kiss to the forehead.

Are my expectations of him too high? Have they always been?

Maybe this is what’s real for most others, and my mind is warped by fairy tales of a big family, real love that I can feel, and a home that’s never empty.

Maybe this is all there is for me.

Chapter 30

Toren

“Have you talked to Lily?”

I hate the way my stomach drops into my ass at those five words.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

I sigh into the phone, trying to keep my tone calm and casual, even if it’s killing me. “You’re dancing around the subject, pup. Just say it.”

“She didn’t show up for class this morning.”

My chest hurts. “Maybe she is sick.”

“Yeah,” Holden says half-heartedly. “Maybe. But I just . . . she seemed upset yesterday. I don’t know. I just think maybe you should talk to her.”

He doesn’t even know how deep of a wound those words are pressing on.

“Holden—”

“You were her best friend, right? And she was yours. Maybe that’s not even all of it.”

I clear my throat. “I have to go.”

“Toren—”

“I’ll check on her.”

Hanging up before he can say anything else, I’m headed back toward the parking lot to my bike before I can think about it, sending a text letting Kimberly know I won’t make it to class.

So, seeing Lily slowly drifting away, in a way that was so familiar to me, it blurred my reality, memory mixing with present until I felt that same sick, swimming feeling. And a desperation to bring her back.

She isn’t my problem anymore. Just go in, tell her to stop coming to practices or the arena and leave. That’s it.