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Javier

“I’m not dropping out of the team, Mom.”

“You’ll be a better doctor than you will a hockey player, Javier,” she says.

No, Mom. I won’t.

She’s lived in America for over twenty years, but her accent has never faded. Unlike Vanessa and me, she was born in Brazil, moved to Boston, and met my dad, another first-generation Brazilian student, in college.

The first language I learned was Portuguese. When I started school, I spoke it less and less, my accent fading until I had to root around for so many forgotten words. Mom and Dad signed me up for lessons so I wouldn’t lose any more of my heritage.

For them, it’s different. Their identity is set in stone. All I’ve known, other than summers and occasional winters in Sao Paulo, is Boston.

“You were getting high scores in all your classes,” Mom says when I don’t respond.

“Yes, because you spent an inordinate amount of money on private tutors.” She sucks in a breath, but I speak before she can. “I have to go.”

“Practice?” Her voice is tight.

I recall Tobie from last night.

I hadn’t believed she would want revenge.

Something about her sweet disposition and the tears she was holding back at the arena made me think she wasn’t the sort of person who would go looking for revenge on anyone.

It’s why Reid had been getting ready to choke the ex out for hurting her.

A girl like Tobie stirs a guy’s protective instincts, and I don’t know anyone who has more of those instincts than my friend.

Reid wants to protect her.

I want to help her through a pain I know all too well.

And Caleb, I don’t know what he wants, but he definitely wants something.

“Something like that. And you need to tell Daniela to stop texting me. I’m not interested. If you think I will?—”

“I’m not responsible for that.” She pauses. “So she wants you back…”

Alarm bells start blaring.

“No, Mom. I’m not getting into that.”

Even if she’s the nice Brazilian girl you want me to marry.

“But you?—”

“She wants a doctor, and I’m not going to be a doctor.”

“Listening to a dying man’s last words will be a mistake.” She sighs. “I know what he said, and I know what you think, but when you’re at that age, all you have is regret.”

“I don’t want to get to be ninety years old on my deathbed like vov? , wishing I did the thing that made me happy.” He was my grandfather on my mom’s side. The first person I ever lost. Three years later, it still fucking hurts.

She’s silent for a beat. “He wants you to live the life that he wanted to lead. But you have your own life to live.”

“Not if I’m busy living the life you want. I have to go.” I hang up before she can say anything else, tossing my phone on the bed as I head for my bathroom.

I had money before. Mom and Dad never struggled for money. Mom’s family had more of it, but Vanessa and I always had the best of everything—private schools, expensive tutors, marquees big enough to host three hundred, fully catered, and with a band for all our birthdays.

Then my grandpa died, and I didn’t have to worry about my parents cutting me off if I didn’t become the doctor they’d always wanted.

Life should be easy.

Anything I want is achievable with one swipe or tap of my credit card. Nothing is out of reach.

Yet I’m more miserable now than I’ve ever been.

I offered to pay back the tuition for my first year of pre-med so my parents wouldn’t feel like I threw that money away when I dropped out in my freshman year at Harvard and chose the life I wanted instead of the one they wanted for me.

They refused. They’d set up a trust to pay my tuition years ago, but I’m paying for this new life myself. The only thing I can’t buy is a way to please my family.

The sound of my phone vibrating across my bed chases me into the bathroom. I start the shower, step under the spray before it’s fully hot, and lower my head.

My phone is still vibrating when I step out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me, twenty minutes later. Except this time, I don’t reluctantly pick it up when I see who’s calling. I’m smiling as I answer. “Will you ever stop being the favorite child?”

“Stop being the apple of Mom and Dad’s eye?” Nessa snorts. “As if. What’d you say to Mom? She’s trying to worm her way into my life, and she only does that when she fails at worming into yours.”

“She’s pushing Daniela to text me.” She denied it, but I got my stubbornness from somewhere, and it wasn’t my dad.

“No,” my little sister says firmly. “She isn’t.

Daniela has been blowing up my phone, wanting to know what she can say to get back into your good books.

Did she find out about the inheritance? Will she turn black widow and sneak you a bunch of Viagra to steal all your money before falling for the hot but mysteriously young doctor who tried and failed to save your life? Dun dun, duuun !”

Her dramatic excitement draws a smile to my lips. “You have to stop watching those telenovelas, little sister. They are rotting your brain.”

She stumbled on them by accident. Stuck in bed after she had her tonsils out, she was bored out of her mind and went looking for a distraction when she came across a random Latin American channel, and her obsession was born.

“They’re like crack. Each scene is like watching a car crash in slow motion, and if I miss an episode, I might miss something important.”

I snort, but she’s right. I lost an entire afternoon to them, and I was reaching for the remote the next day to click on before I knew what I was doing.

It took more effort than it should have to turn the television off and walk away.

“Daniela can’t be a doctor’s wife who goes to lunch if I’m dead. ”

My sister is silent. “You know, she did once love you.”

And once, I loved her.

“She loved the idea of being a doctor’s wife more. I have to go.”

“Javi?” Her voice is small.

I’ve never been Javier. To her, I’m always Javi. My smile is bittersweet. Boston isn’t too far from Pennsylvania—two hours by plane. But sometimes, it feels like we’re on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean with how little we see each other.

I remember when Mom and Dad brought her home. She was like a squirming little red-faced alien. I swore I would hate her forever for consuming so much of my parents’ time.

She had me wrapped around her little finger before she was two.

My baby sister means the world to me, and it’s been far too long since I’ve seen her.

“What is it, ferret breath?” I ask, still smiling.

“That will never be funny,” she says, but I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.

“Yes, it will. And so will the fact you have these two big front teeth like beavers who need them to gnaw on the wood?—”

“Shut up.” She takes a breath. “I miss you.”

I miss her too. But going home has become an endless battle I’ve spent the last three years fighting. I’m tired, and I’m fed up trying to convince the people I love to let me do the thing I love most in the world.

I go home for the big holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Vanessa’s birthday.

It’s not fair to my seventeen-year-old sister to have to mediate the countless arguments I get into with my parents if I go much more than that.

So I stay away, stay at college to get ahead on my assignments, or take a short trip to Mexico to unwind when I need a change of scenery.

“I miss you too. Did you speak to Mom and Dad about the game?” When she’s silent, I lose my smile. “They won’t let you come.”

They used to bring Nessa to my games when I was younger, and were supportive when they were sure it was just a hobby. As soon as they realized it was what I wanted to do as a career, they shut their minds to the fact that it could be.

To them, hockey isn’t a real career, not like being a doctor or a lawyer is. To them, any person on the street could do it, and I’m throwing away all my potential on something that isn’t worth it.

“I’m working on it, Javi.”

I smile, though she can’t see me. “Don’t push, Nessa. It’s me they’re pissed at. You’ll stop being the favorite child if you don’t.”

“I don’t care about being the favorite child.”

“But I do.”

I’ve told my parents that I’d go pick up Nessa myself.

I offered to pay for a private plane for her to visit me—and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done that—but they torpedoed the idea every time.

They don’t think a hockey game is the right environment for my little sister to be sitting alone, especially if I’m going to be on the ice.

She’s their little girl, and they’ve always been overprotective, more so after I stopped going home so much. They cling to her even harder, as if they suspect they’ve lost one child and can’t bear to lose another.

I have to choose.

I’ve avoided the decision so far, but I can’t avoid it anymore. Scouts have spent the last two years circling Reid, Caleb, and me. Agents, too, want a slice of that nice signing bonus and our first sponsorships the second we turn pro.

Coach has been tough. He doesn’t want any of us distracted by agents, so they’re expressly forbidden from the arena unless it’s to watch us play. The last thing he wants is for any of the team to have their heads turned by buckets of cash when we all need to be focused.

Even if we lose the championship, we’ll be drafted.

And I won’t have college as a reason—or an excuse—to avoid saying or doing what I need to.

If I choose hockey, I’ll lose my family, and if I choose my family, I’ll spend the rest of my life miserable as a doctor, which is what I don’t want, or working in the family packaging business, which I want even less.

“I have to go, sis.”

“I’ll be there, Javi,” she reassures me.

I struggle to believe her.