Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)(84)

“How’re Mom and Dad?” he asks.

How’re Mom and Dad. I can answer that. I take a seat on the two-seater couch next to the bunks. “Okay. Dad’s busy. He’s expanding the construction business and he plans on running for mayor.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Wow.

“And Mom?”

“Wrapped up in her social clubs and events like normal. Lunches. Dinners. Teas.” I pause, wondering if I should say what I’m about to.

“She misses you.”

Mark leans forward and holds his hands together between his bent knees. “Does Dad ever mention me?”

The hope fighting to surface on Mark’s face makes looking at him painful. If I answer with a plain yes, I create false hope, or I could tell him the truth. None of the answers are ones I want to give. “Did you ever want to do anything besides football?”

Mark scrapes his knuckles against his jaw before snatching a book off his bed and tossing it to me. I catch it in midair. “Quality Lesson Plans for Secondary Physical Education?”

“I’m an education major.”

“Since when?”

“Since….” Mark drums the fingers of his clasped hands once. “Always.”

Faking interest in the pages, I flip through the book. “I thought you were pre-med.”

“That’s what Dad wanted me to major in. College for Dad was nothing more than a step toward the NFL. The pre-med was if I got injured. Mom wanted one of us to be a doctor. That was Dad’s way of making her happy.”

Mark’s organized his desk the same as last year: laptop, iPod dock. After Mark’s first college football game, Mom had someone take a family picture on the field. He’s taped the photograph on the wall next to his practice schedule. Some things are the same. Others are not. “Do you hate football?”

“No. I love football and want to play. In fact, I want to become a high school football coach.

Dad knew that. He didn’t agree with me, but he knew it. I thought if I played along, that if I pretended that—” He cuts himself off.

I came here. I brought this up. I can finish the statement for him. “They’d accept who you are?”

Mark nods. “Yeah.”

The two of us sit in silence. My stomach twists and turns like I’m on a boat on the verge of capsizing. My life was perfect and I enjoyed every second. Mark’s two little words “I’m g*y” tipped my world. Maybe I get why he left. Maybe I don’t. Either way, anger still festers, and if I’m doing this, I’m doing this.

“You left me.”

“What did you want me to do?” Resentment thickens his tone. “I can’t change who I am.”

I need to move. Hit something. Throw something. I stand instead. “Not leave. You said you pretended before. Why couldn’t you pretend again? Or you could have stayed and fought and, I don’t know, convinced Mom and Dad to let you stay.”

Mark calmly watches as I pace the length of the narrow room. He clears his throat.

“Someday, you’re going to see how Mom and Dad controlled and manipulated our lives.

You’re going to notice how they made us believe that their dreams were our dreams.

They dictated our every breath. Think about it—do you have any idea who you are without them?”

Mom sat me next to Gwen last night and she specifically asked me to take care of Gwen’s needs during the evening. Just like she asked me to take care of Gwen when I was fifteen.

After that first dinner, Mom encouraged me to ask her out and I did.

But baseball is my choice. It always has been. Dad understands baseball. Because of that, he’s managed every part of my baseball career: the coaches, the leagues. Hell, he even stands up to umps. He does it all for me.

Right?

Mom and Dad’s concerns, all of their pushing, they do it because they love me. But they flat-out told me not to date Beth, regardless of my feelings for her, and they expect nothing less than compliance.

“You’re going to wear a hole in my carpet,” Mark says.

No, Mark’s wrong. He has to be wrong. “I’m a good ballplayer.” I am. The best.

“You are. Dad did that right. He didn’t force us into a sport we had no talent in. He took his time and found the one sport each of us was good at. The question is—who are you playing for, Ry? You or Dad?”

Between the door and bunk beds, I freeze.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Dad wants perfection. Scratch that. Dad wants perfection on the outside so everyone else can see it. Mom too. They could care less if we’re torn up on the inside as long as the rest of the world envies us.”

Everyone in Groveton assumes Mom and Dad have the perfect marriage. The homecoming queen married the star quarterback. Behind closed doors, Mom and Dad hate each other. I thought they’d get over it. Now…

“I’ve learned a lot playing college ball,” Mark says. “What you do in high school doesn’t mean shit. You can be the best ballplayer in your high school. The best in the county or state, but when you get to college, you’re going to meet fifty other guys who can brag the same thing. You’ll meet guys better than you, stronger than you, faster than you, and then you’re up against better teams. The world changes when you leave Groveton.”