Free Brutal by Michael Harmon Page B

they're in love, they make plans and have dreams, and then they realize mistakes have been made.”
    “Like having me?”
    He reached across the little table and put his hand on my knee. I brushed it off. Then wiped my eyes. He took a deep breath. “No. Not you. You were never a mistake.”
    “Then answer me. Why did you leave? Why did I meet you in person sixteen years after you left? Why, Dad?” I wiped another tear, trying to hide it. Trying to keep this man who was my father a stranger. An outsider to be kept at a distance.
    He looked straight ahead. “I've hurt you.”
    I sniffed. “I grew up wanting a dad so bad, you know? And Mom would never talk about it. Ever. Just the same old thing. You were gone. It didn't matter. We couldn't change the past. She never told me anything.”
    “I'm sorry Poe. I never realized…” Then he stopped. He set his coffee next to mine. “I left because I was young and foolish and frightened. We were both in school, your mother was headed toward being the surgeon that she is today, and I was heading toward writing the great American novel. And we got married. Our romance was full of passion and freedom and all the things that I wanted and that I'd ever been told were normal and perfect, and with that, you came. But I was scared.”
    “Of what?”
    “Of you, Poe.”
    I bent my head, staring at my lap. “Why?”
    “I was scared of being a father and all of the things that go along with it, and your mother despised me for it. It was weak, I was weak, and so I did what I thought best at that time. I left.”
    “Did she want you to?”
    “Yes.”
    “She still thinks that way about you. I can tell when I bring it up. Contempt. She treats me that way, too.”
    “Your mother is a strong woman. A woman with her opinions and her way of living. I didn't fit in with that, though I loved her and still do love her.”
    “So you left.”
    “Yes. I thought it would be better that I wasn't in your life.”
    “That's stupid.”
    “Yes, it is. And I've spent the last sixteen years being too ashamed of what I did to make it right. I've lived in this shell of a house trying to hide from myself, and then you came along, took that sledgehammer out, and pounded me on the head.”
    I closed my eyes. “I wish you never left.” It came out a whisper, with the tears dripping from the tip of my nose and onto my folded hands.
    There was nothing to say to that, so we sat, and he took my hand in his, and I let him.

Chapter Eleven
    Physical education class took place two times a week at Benders High, and Friday rolled around with me heading toward the gym. Benders High had official physical education uniforms consisting of monogrammed sweats, shorts, and cheapo T-shirts. I looked terrific in my little outfit, and just being there made me want to become a pro volleyball player even though I was five foot one. I could barely touch the bottom of the net.
    Mrs. Policheck, otherwise known by the original and apt title Coach, was the girls’ instructor, and the gym was split in half, one side for the girls, the other side for the guys. I looked for Theo across the cavernous sports place but only saw Velveeta, dressed as I was in a dandy outfit.
    A hundred or so other red-colored dweebs wandered around hitting balls over nets before class officially started, and as the sounds of twice-weekly active young people echoed through the building, I sat on the bleachers and watched Velveeta.
    While most of the girls stood on the courts talking, most of the guys grouped on either side of the nets playingunorganized pickup games, spiking and bumping and setting. Velveeta stood on one of the courts as the balls sailed, shuffling toward balls that came close, then backing up when other guys swooped in to take them. Then I noticed something.
    Dotted throughout the courts of red sweats and T-shirts were guys out of uniform from the top up. They wore their football jerseys. Apparently the regular Benders High T-shirts