WHEN A KNOCKING at the door wakes us, the sun is bright and bleeding through the blinds. Stella mumbles a “Go away” and burrows deeper under my covers. How the two of us managed to sleep through the night in one twin bed is one of the great mysteries of the universe, but when the knocking gets louder, I snap to attention.
Carson. It has to be Carson. I scramble over Stella trying to get out of my bed, and my knee accidentally sinks into her midsection.
“Easy on the bladder, Dallas, unless you want a mess in your bed.”
“It’s Carson,” I whisper. “Just a second!” I call toward the door.
Stella props up on an elbow and says, “I’m guessing you want me to make myself scarce?”
“Just for a little bit? Please.”
She nods. “I’ll go take a shower.”
While she gathers her things, I take a quick moment to look in the mirror. I pat down my hair, tucking stray strands behind my ears, and resituate my pajamas so everything is covered.
When it’s as good as it’s going to get, I open the door.
My stomach plummets.
“Dad?” I glance at him in confusion, and only after a few moments do I realize he’s dressed for church. “Oh my God. I forgot about church.” I had no idea he cared strongly enough about my attendance to drag himself to my dorm. I’ve never skipped before, but clearly it matters to him. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I had kind of a rough night last night, and I fell asleep without setting an alarm.”
“I know.”
His expression is so neutral that I’m jolted by the barely concealed rage I hear in his voice. He can’t be that mad about church.
“You know what?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just swallows, his thick neck bulging with strained muscles.
Stella pops up by my side with her towel and shower basket. “I’m just gonna go take a shower so you two can talk.”
When she’s gone, I step back to let Dad into the room. He takes a seat on Stella’s fuchsia bedspread because her bed is still made. He’s so big that he makes the dorm bed (hell, the whole dorm room) look miniature. And he’s wearing some expression that I have never seen on his face before. Not normal, not pissed, not football, but something that scares me far worse.
“Dad. What’s going on?”
He wraps the fingers of his left hand around the fist of his right and squeezes until I hear a few pops.
He swallows and his voice is scratchy and uneven when he speaks. “I realize that I have not always been there when you needed me, and I’m sorry. I won’t make excuses because none of them are good enough. But I can do better.”
I keep waiting for his yell to break loose, for this to turn into a fight. We’re in uncharted waters, and I’m in danger of drowning.
“I never wanted you to feel like you couldn’t talk to me. But I let my unwillingness to talk about how I was feeling dictate how our relationship worked, and I’m sorry.”
I feel tears prick my eyes, and I’m shocked that I even have liquid left in my body after last night.
“So I’m telling you now that you can talk to me. Whatever is going on in your life . . . I’ll listen. And I will always, always take your side.”
“Dad,” I start softly. “No offense, but you’re kind of scaring me.”
He chokes on something that might be a laugh, and drops his head down, pushing his thumb and forefinger against his eyes. “At least we’re on the same page there.”
When he finally looks back up at me, I raise my eyebrows and shake my head because I have no idea what’s happening here.
He sighs. “You’re really going to make me be the one to say it?”
“Considering I have no idea what it is . . . yeah. It’s gonna have to be you.”
He unlocks his phone and after a few taps and swipes, he hands it to me.
It takes a moment for my eyes to focus and process what I’m looking at. It’s blurry around the edges, but there in the center is me against a wall, looking up at Carson. The purple dress I wore last night is bunched up around my thighs, and he has his arm around my neck in a way that looks painful because of the expression I’m wearing, but I know for a fact that his touch was as soft as could be. His jaw is a hard line, and if I hadn’t been there myself, I would swear it looks like he’s hurting me. And with my dress all skewed, it looks even worse than that.
“Oh God. Oh my God. How did you get this?”
“Since the thing with Levi, I have a grad assistant keeping an eye on the players, their online accounts and stuff. I want to know what they’re getting into before it’s too late. He called me this morning to tell me he saw this popping up all over Facebook.”
I need to sit down, but my bed is too far away, so I just plop down on the floor at Dad’s feet.
“This is my fault,” Dad says. “I should have kept you away from athletes. They can be volatile and unpredictable, and now because of me you’ve been hurt by two of them.”
“Dad, no.” I pull myself up on my knees so that I’m nearly at eye level with him. “This is not what it looks like. Carson didn’t hurt me.”
His mouth twists like he’s tasted something sour.
“I know you don’t want to talk with me about these things, but I can’t ignore something like this.”
“I swear to you. I know this looks bad, but Carson is a good guy.”
He grabs the phone out of my hand and holds it up. “However you may feel about him, this is not a good guy.”