“Cancel your doctor’s appointment and take me to my baseball game tomorrow.”
He didn’t ask. He never asked.
He stood in the middle of my parents’ kitchen in his travel-team hoodie, batting gloves sticking out of his back pocket, duffel bag dropped by the table like the whole house existed to support his schedule. The overhead light caught the sharp angle of his jaw and the arrogant set of his mouth, and for one ugly second I saw exactly what my parents had made of him.
A boy who had never been told no long enough for the word to mean anything.
I was standing at the counter sorting my medication into one of those day-of-the-week organizers I had bought after my symptoms got bad enough that forgetting pills became dangerous. The plastic lid snapped shut beneath my thumb. I didn’t look up right away, because if I had, I might have said something I couldn’t take back.
“My appointment is at nine,” I said. “Your game’s at ten-thirty. Dad can take you.”
Logan laughed like I’d made a joke.
