The one who held doors and listened when his mother talked. He was going to tell you something he didn’t want Kyle to hear. Boon said, “That’s what I think. ” Ren said, “The scar? ” Boon said on his forearm. You noticed it the first day. Yes.

You ever find out where it came from? Ren was quiet a moment he told me. Not directly, not on purpose. A few days after that first hallway conversation, I was near enough to hear him explaining it to someone on the team. He said it was a dirt bike accident when he was 14.

She paused. He’d been asking Pierce for 2 years to let him ride. Pierce kept saying no. One day, he just went ahead and rode without asking. She looked at her hands.

He came home with the scar. Pierce didn’t yell. Didn’t say anything about the bike at all. He just looked at the scar and said, “Now you know what happens when you make decisions without me. ” Boon said nothing for a moment. That’s not a dirt bike accident.

Ren said, “No,” Boon said. “It’s not. ” They sat with that a while in the bay, the smell of oil and cold metal around them, the radio playing something low. “I want to talk to him,” Ren said alone without the audience. She looked at Boon directly, not to forgive him. “Not yet.

To understand him, because if he knows something about Pierce and he’s been trying to get it out, that matters. ” Boon looked at his daughter, 17 steps ahead of herself and still checking her own motivations while she ran. If he says anything specific about Pierce, Boon said, “Word for word. Don’t interpret. Don’t summarize. Word for word,” she said.

2 days later, she found the moment. After practice, parking lot half empty. Dalton near the side of the gym building, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at his phone without really looking at it. He looked up when Ren came around the corner. You were going to tell me something, she said.

No preamble. He looked at the ground, then at her. I shouldn’t be talking to you, he said. You’re talking to me right now, she said. You could be anywhere else in this parking lot.

He didn’t move. Why is your stepfather interested in my father? She said direct, no buildup. Something shifted in Dalton’s expression. She’d named it and he hadn’t expected that.