Free Strong by Jennifer Rivard Yarrington

trying to help me with everything – school, work.... relationships.” He glances at me warily. “She's not going to judge you or anything, but she just wants to know that you get me. That you know how fragile I am.”
    “ You!?”  I laugh. “Fragile? You're the strongest person I know!”
    “ Yeah, well, my mom seems to think I need all this protection since the accident, you know? That's one of the reasons I spend a lot of time away from the cabin. We're on this family vacation, but I want to her to accept that I'm capable of living my own life, that I'm an adult.”
    “ I completely understand about that,” I commiserate with Chase. “Living at home while I'm going to college has the same challenges. My mom thinks I'm still in high school.”
    Chase nods in understanding.
    Chase and I decide to take a drive instead of heading back to his cabin. It seems like there's more he wants to tell me and  I want to listen. He must have wanted to pick me up early so that we could talk before dinner. 
    We pull up to the beach front and park where we had the night that I met him. Chase hesitates and  then a kind of sad look crosses his face. “My dad changed after the accident. He's different somehow, like he can't get over the fact that something so terrible happened to our family. Instead of just taking the time to grieve over it, like the rest of us did, he seemed to push past that and push me harder, like he could force me to recover by sheer will power.”
    “I told you that my dad is kind of a sports nut, right?”
    “ Yeah, he totally looks like a football coach,” I tell him.
    “ Oh, yeah, you met him at the college, didn't you? Well, we were the classic sports family. Chelsea and I did everything: little league, soccer, football, volleyball, gymnastics.
    “ Football is my dad's passion. He had me throwing the ball since I was three years old, even earlier than baseball. Some of his fanaticism rubbed off on me, but I eventually quit football in seventh grade.”
    He leans back and looks up at the roof of the car. “He was so tough on me in middle school that I ended up quitting the team. I still played baseball and soccer, but he didn't pressure me as much in those sports.”
    “He was furious with me for quitting football, and for a long time, I felt like that was how he viewed me, as a quitter. Looking back, I think he was just so proud of my athletic accomplishments and abilities that he wanted to experience some of that vicariously through me.”
    “ I eventually fell in love with running. I don't know why. I'm built for football, but I finally felt like I had found my own passion . My dad didn't coach track or cross country at all, so maybe it was a little bit of an escape for me.  But I genuinely loved the feeling it gave me to just be free to go for miles without having to think about anything else but the road.”
    Chase takes a deep breath and asks with a smirk, “Are you starting to feel like my therapist?”
    “No, I love hearing about your life – the good and the bad.”
    He continues. “My relationship with my dad was never the same after I quit football, but he gradually accepted it. Then we had the accident. He treated my recovery from the accident like any other sports injury. He would sometimes get in my face at therapy and try to push me to my limit. I used to get so ticked off at him. He would push and push and push, just like he was coaching me in football all over again. I hated it.  And I started to hate him.” Chase ends with a whisper.
    What on earth can I say to that kind of confession? I simply reach over and squeeze Chase's hand.
    “ Now, he just seems kind of resentful toward me. I don't want to make him out to sound like he's evil or something.  He just can't get over it, you know? Like I'm just not trying hard enough.” Chase breathes a deep sigh.
    “ Well, I'll just try to roll with it, okay? Don't worry about me.” I assure him that I can handle it, and give him