Offside

CHAPTER 34

THREE POINTS

“This is fucking bullshit!”

At that moment, I would have done just about anything to be able to jump up out of my chair and slam my fist through the wall of Justin’s office at the rehab center. Instead, I only sat there with my hands balled into fists against my eyes.

As it seemed to do these days, my anger at him—Lou, my Dad—turned back inside of me and came out in tears.

I fucking hated it.

I looked up at Justin, who was sitting in the chair across from me, leaning back in the seat and making the front legs come off the floor a little. He never had a notebook or a clipboard or anything with him when we talked, and I always wondered a little if he just remembered it all or if he wrote it down afterwards.

Sometimes I hated him, too.

I wiped the back of my hand across my face and grabbed one of the tissues out of the box Justin kept on the table. Once I had wiped my eyes and nose, I crushed the tissue into a little wet ball inside my closed fist.

“I hate him,” I said when I calmed down.

“That’s not the problem,” Justin reminded me.

I looked at him again, and I knew exactly what he meant.

“I love him, too.”

“Yes, you do.”

“And that’s bullshit,” I snapped back. “How can I feel both? He beat me and made me feel like shit. I never did anything right. I shouldn’t love that shit.”

“He still raised you,” Justin said. “He did a crap job of it, but you still had a connection.”

“It wasn’t even real,” I said. “He wasn’t my father.”

“How is Gardner? You still talk to him every day?

“Not every day,” I said. “Most days. He wants me to come out there.”

“What do you think of that?”

“I don’t want to until I can get on a plane,” I said.

“You could do that now.”

“I don’t want to fuck around in an airport in this chair.”

“So is this something I should add to your goal list? Get on a plane to Chicago and visit Gardner?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Will do,” Justin said as he stood up. “And on that note, it’s about time for your PT. Nicole coming today?”

“She got a job at the library in town,” I said. “She’ll be running a little late, but she’ll be here.”

“Tell her I said hi.”

“Sure.”

I rolled out of Justin’s office and down the hallway to the elevator. I glanced at the stairwell—another bullet point on my goal list—and pushed the down button. I was only seeing Justin once a week now, which I guess was supposed to be progress. Some days I felt like I was getting somewhere—like I could almost forgive Dad for treating me the way he did—and other days I still wanted to take Gardner up on his offer to pile a bunch of pictures and shit that belonged to Lou Malone and burn it all in a big-ass bonfire.