Page 6 of Offside Attraction

My medium-length blond hair is gone, replaced with a buzz cut kept deliberately short. Puberty hit hard, stretching me to six-one, broadening my shoulders, hardening edges I didn’t even know I had. My arms are inked with scattered tattoos, and a small cluster of flying birds curves up the side of my neck. Silver studs line my ears, and a thin hoop pierces the left side of my nose.

I look nothing like the kid Hayes Griffin destroyed.

Staring out the passenger window of my stepfather’s Tesla, my gaze lands on the imposing structure of Crestview Preparatory. Dread coils in my stomach as students stream toward the entrance in pairs—gray trousers or pleated skirts, light blue shirts, gray vests, dark blue blazers, and maroon ties.

Perfect. Polished. Untouchable.

I attended Dalton Middle School on scholarship after Dad got sick. We couldn’t afford the fees anymore. Crestview Prep, though, is nothing like Dalton. This is where wealthy familiessend their children because they believe money guarantees a better future.

Mom wanted me here. Said she was doing it for my own good. Said this school would give me opportunities I wouldn’t get anywhere else.

And thanks to her new husband—a neurosurgeon—she could now afford the outrageous tuition without blinking.

I didn’t want to come here.

But saying no to my mom means a fight. And fighting with her means yelling, slammed doors, thrown words that cut deeper than fists—and then days of silence.

Sometimes weeks.

I slip a cigarette between my lips, flicking my lighter until the flame catches.

“You’re gonna smoke in Dad’s car?”

The voice makes me turn.

Fuck.

I’d forgotten my stepsister, Harper, was still sitting beside me.

“You’re not gonna say shit, are you?” I ask, exhaling smoke through my nostrils before dragging another breath into my lungs.

Harper rolls her eyes and slips her phone into her backpack.

“You’re always gonna be a jerk, huh?” she says. “And just so you know, smoking is gonna kill you fast.”

I scoff, a small smile tugging at my lips.

Harper and her dad—Mark—are good people. I didn’t think I’d like them when Mom introduced Mark to me three years ago. I’d already decided anyone she brought home would be a disappointment.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Mark isn’t the monster I wanted him to be. Neither is Harper. If anything, I think they deserve better than us. Better than my mom.

After Dad died, Mom spiraled. She drank before, but afterward, it got ugly. Some nights she’d leave me with her older sister and disappear—only to come back three days later. Sometimes a week.

She was a shitty mom.

Then she met Mark.

She says he was the best thing that happened to her after Dad’s death, and for once, she wasn’t lying. The men she dated before him were all fucking awful. Mark wasn’t.

She went to therapy. Started AA. Checked herself into rehab. Slowly, she got better.

They got married two and a half years ago, and I’ve never seen her happier. Not even when she was with my father.

And I am happy for her. Truly.

But when she tried to rebuild a mother–son relationship with me after she got sober, I shut her out. Every conversation turns into a fight. Especially when I come home late at night with bruised ribs or wake up with a black eye.