I release a sexually frustrated sigh, climb out of bed, and go to the window, pushing back the curtains to reveal the backyard of the house, the field of snow and the Airstream sparkling amidst it. The front door of the Airstream is wide open, and Jack is standing outside, throwing snowballs against the side of the trailer to the chaotic beat of “Toxic.” Paul Hollywood is doing his zoomies around her feet, almost perfectly syncopated to the song.

I step out onto the bedroom balcony and shout her name, but she either doesn’t hear me or chooses not to turn around. For a minute, I stand in the cold watching the frenetic energy of her body as she winds up her arm and chucks each clump of snow with intensity and force. Then I’m shoving my feet inside my boots, not bothering with the laces as I run downstairs and outside.

“Jack!” I shout again as I trudge through the snow closer to her and the portable speaker playing Britney at avalanche-inducing volumes. The cold cuts through the flimsy layers of my pajamas as I call out her name again. “Jack!”

She doesn’t acknowledge me until I reach her, and even then, her face is bright red from the cold and from the exertion of pounding hunks of snow against her home.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as the song skids into its techno bridge.

Jack bends down to grab another fistful of snow. “Nothing.”

“You’re blaring Britney and throwing snowballs at your house, so I don’t believe you,” I scream over the music. Then I take a few more steps toward the portable speaker resting on the front step of the Airstream, and I turn it off. Paul Hollywood barks a few times in outrage over the absence of Britney.

Silence settles over the morning. Silence, and the sound of Jack’s heavy breathing and Paul Hollywood’s paws crunching in the snow. “My dad arrived late last night,” Jack finally says by way of explanation.

“Oh.” Suddenly, the angry Britney-snowball-throwing makes perfect sense.

“And guess how long it took him to start picking apart every little thing about me?” She winds up her arm and launches another snowball. This one must have ice in it, because it hits the side of the trailer with a vicious thwack.

“Jack—”

“I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks of me, and I tell myself I don’t, but he’s my fucking dad, and it would be nice if, I don’t know….” She squats to collect more snow, and maybe to hide her face from my view as she brushes away a few rogue tears. “I know my mom puts a lot of pressure on me, but it’s only because she wants me to have the best life possible. My dad can’t even pretend to like me. But I’m not Andrew, so why would he bother?”