“I’m not sure what I’m finding harder to comprehend. The fact that you’re buying this BS or the notion that you think this can be undone.”

“It can. I know it can.”

“Mom? Are you listening to yourself? I’m in fucking Afghanistan. Do you think the US Army will let me out because some agent showed interest in me before I signed my life away—before your husband threatened me and made me sign my next four years away? They don’t fucking care.”

“But they want you.” Her voice sounds less certain now. “They know how good you are.”

“Wanted, Mom. Past tense.”

“We don’t know that.”

I’ve never hated her more than right now. A wishy-washy woman who is defending her asshole husband. Sure, life has dealt her a shit hand, but that doesn’t mean she has to be weak. That doesn’t mean she has to kowtow to a man. She’s worth more than that, but I’m so sick and fucking tired of being the only one fighting for her to see it.

The anger that courses through my veins is like a drug. I don’t know how to dampen it, and at the same time don’t think I want to. I need to feel it. Need to own it. Need to hold on to it, because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me sane at the moment.

“What are you going to do about it?” I ask her, needing to hear her answer. Needing to hear her say she’s leaving him because of what he’s done to her son—her own flesh and blood. Needing to know she’s choosing me over him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she stammers. My heart sinks. Just once I wanted her to fight harder for me than she’s fought to keep someone around to support her.

“I mean, your husband screwed over your son. Me. He threatened me. He gave me the ultimatum of jail or enlisting. He took away a chance to make our life something other than paycheck to paycheck. He took away my dream. HE DID THAT,” I scream into the phone, not fucking caring who’s around or what they think. “So you tell me, Mom, what are you going to do about it?”

“Ryan,” she mumbles in that soothing voice she used to use after my dad died. When I cried myself to sleep and she didn’t know how to comfort me, she used that voice. That tone.

She doesn’t know what to say or how to comfort me.

“You’re talented. I’m sure you’ll still be good when you come home. When you’re discharged.”

Does she not understand in order to be that good you have to play every day? Practice on a schedule. Get coaching. Face competition.