Page 13 of End Game

Barrett has never really talked to me about girls. I know he hooks up. He’s drunk-dialed me a few different times, usually on his walk home from other girls’ dorms. In all the time that I’ve known him, he’s never had a girlfriend. I went to his homecoming dance after his football game our freshman year, and that was the end of that. He invited me to his senior prom, but I had a soccer tournament that weekend. I don’t know who he took to his other formal dances. It wasn’t me. His fancy prep school had formal dances every semester. He complained about them constantly. But he never mentioned who, if anyone, he went with.

For as much as he’s an open book about some things, Barrett is remarkably closed off about other things. He doesn’t talk about girls. He doesn’t talk about his parents. He doesn’t talk about his life after football, his plans after graduation.

Part of it might be the distance. The miles between us, whether we were an hour and a half away or living on opposite coasts, ever changed the fact that I can talk to him about anything.

But he won’t do the same with me. I don’t know how I never noticed it before.

My dad answers the phone on the first ring. “Hi, baby girl,” he says, and I inhale sharply at the familiar comfort of his voice.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“How was school?”

“Fine. How was your doctor’s appointment?”

“Fine,” he says immediately.

Which is how I know it was not, in fact, fine.

“What did they say?”

He sighs. “Diana…”

“You can tell me. I can take it.”

“I’ll be fine,” he says again.

There’s a lump in my throat. He won’t, though. I know he won’t get better. I know he won’t be fine. He’s not going to get better. Even with the help of all the treatments and the meds and the procedures… the clock is ticking, and none of us know how long is left on the timer.

I don’t want to lose my dad. I don’t want him to be in pain, I don’t want him to suffer, but I don’t want to exist in a world where he doesn’t.

“What did you do today?”

“School stuff,” I answer.

My dad laughs. “Yeah, I figured. Do you like your classes? Do you know anyone?”

“I have a class with one of Barrett’s roommates, and I had breakfast with his girlfriend.”

He inhales sharply. “Barrett has a girlfriend?”

“What? No.” My stomach rumbles at the idea. “His roommate’s girlfriend.”

“Got it, got it,” he says. “I was going to say…”

“Say what?”

“Nothing. So you’re making friends.”

“Trying to, yeah.”

“And the girls in your house?”

I press my lips together. “No comment.”

“That bad?”

“Remember the championship team I was on in the seventh grade? With those mean girls who made my life miserable?”