Underneath the jagged line on the screen, the same angry face I saw on that video stares back at me. Is this really me? I swear to God that’s why I don’t even like looking at myself. All the stuff I try to keep buried is always trying to come up and make me feel something.

Why does everything have to keep coming up? Like what every coach and scout must think of me. I know! I know! And Carli. But I’ve already apologized to her. And the dream I lost—hurts so bad it’s sickening! The anger that won’t quit until everything I love is either broken or gone.

It has to stop.

I put Mom’s picture down on my desk and lock eyes with myself. Man, I don’t want to do this. I swear looking at myself makes my head and heart hurt. For a second I almost look away. Ready to get up and continue on with life like I always do, like everything is cool. But I can’t even front like that’s working anymore.

So I take a deep breath, blow it out slow, and force myself to keep staring at myself.

Until I can see past the crack in the screen into the face I always saw as my father’s. Into the hate I always thought he had for me. The hate I always had for myself. I swear it’s like a million wrecking balls swinging around, destroying everything inside of me. Feeling it is the absolute worst, but I’m not about to keep ignoring it and let it ruin me.

Tears rush down my face, and I wipe them and keep staring.

Until I see a little kid I haven’t seen in years. Alone, playing with all his dead mom’s things. A kid crushed by his father’s absence and silence. A kid who spent all his time out of the house, either balling or under the tree out back talking to his mom and begging for her forgiveness.

I swear, the weight of it is enough to break me. But I square it up and make myself feel it. Tears dripping from my chin, I scoop up the little kid, squeeze him tight, and tell him what he’s always wanted to hear, It’s not your fault.

Over and over again.

It’s not your fault.

It’s not your fault.

It’s not your fault.

Until I can feel the words sink into the innermost part of me.

Then I turn toward the pile of the injuries I’ve kept buried in me over the years. Every hurt I never wanted to feel. Still here.